Good Inside with Dr. Becky - F*ck Around and Find Out Parenting

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

“F*ck Around and Find Out” parenting—what even is that?! This week, Dr. Becky dives into the rise of the FAFO parenting trend. Why is this approach gaining traction in the age of gentle parenting? Is it a pushback against gentle or intensive parenting? A response to the burnout many millennial parents are feeling? Or has it always been around, just under a different name? Dr. Becky explores what makes this trend so compelling and what it might reveal about us as parents today.Sometimes FAFO parenting comes up when our kids are in a bad place with bad behavior. If you can relate, then you won't want to miss "Why Is Everything a Battle?" Dr. Becky's Live Workshop on Power Struggles, Defiance, and Strong-Willed Kids happening on Thursday, Apr 17 from 01:30 PM - 02:45 PM EDT. RSVP here: https://bit.ly/3RqW7nU.Get the Good Inside App by Dr. Becky: https://bit.ly/4fSxbzkFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterFor a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast.Today’s episode is brought to you by Ritual. You know that feeling when you’re going a million miles an hour, jumping from one thing to the next? You’re trying to finish an email when you remember the laundry’s still in the washer, your kid is shouting about needing poster board for a project due tomorrow, your pone won’t stop buzzing, and—oh, great—you forgot that tonight is parent-teacher conferences. Sometimes, life is just… a lot.Stress doesn’t have an off-switch. And we can support our body’s natural response to it. That’s why I love Ritual’s Stress Relief, featuring BioSeries technology. It’s designed to work with your body to help manage everyday stress.If you feel like daily stress is taking a toll on your body and mind, you might want to give them a try. Get Ritual Stress Relief and save 25% on your first month at ritual.com/goodinside.Today’s episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Recently, I’ve been on the road spreading the word about my new children's book, That’s My Truck: A Good Inside Story About Hitting!. I’m so grateful and excited to be on this book tour, connecting with our community in person. And it’s also true that being away from home can feel hard. That’s why I love Airbnb–I can find and book a place that feels just a little bit more like home away from home, somewhere I can come back to at the end of the day and recharge. Something else I love about Airbnb is that you can become a host while you’re away by offering your home to someone traveling to your town!  Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.

Okay, FAFO parenting. Boy, am I excited to jump into this with you. I have so many thoughts, so many reactions. Let me say right from the start, I wanna talk about what this acronym means. And that involves choice words that you might not want your kids to hear. So if you just picked up your kid from school,

from a play date, maybe press pause and play a little bit later. Okay, what is FAFO parenting? Well, let me name it right up front. And there's something in the naming of it that kind of shares something about its essence. Fuck around and find out. Fuck around and find out parenting.

Now you might think, I still don't really know what it means. I've never heard of this. Let me explain some kind of examples that bring it to life. My kid wants to run around outside without shoes. All right, you're gonna fuck around and find out what it feels like to step on a nail. My kid forgot their homework at home?

All right, not my job to put it in your backpack. Just, you're gonna figure out what happens with your teacher when you forget your most important math homework of the year. Fuck around and find out now. Here's what you might think. You might think Dr. Becky's gonna say, oh my goodness, that's so horrible.

What a horrible kind of new style of parenting. Now, like most things in life, I tend to have kind of nuanced opinions. There are things, there are elements that I wanna double click on because I think there's something really worthy and good about elements. And then there's other elements

that I think are not so great. Let's just say that upfront. There are other elements where I think we need to have a little shift of the dial. So our kind of intentions and our goals with our kid are kind of going to have the impact we want. I have so much to say, and I cannot wait to jump in

and talk about all of it with you. You know that feeling when you're going a million miles an hour, jumping from one thing to the next? You're trying to finish an email, and then you remember the laundry's still wet. And then your kid is shouting about needing poster board for the project due tomorrow, your phone won't stop buzzing, and oh great, you forgot that tonight is parent-teacher conferences. Sometimes life is just a lot. Stress doesn't have an on-off switch

and we can support our body's natural response to it. This is why I love Ritual's Stress Relief, featuring BioSeries technology. It's designed to work with your body to help manage everyday stress. It contains ashwagandha, L-theanine, and saffron, which combined can help us feel calmer, happier, and less overwhelmed by everyday stress.

Ritual uses clinically studied traceable ingredients so you know exactly where they come from. Plus, as a B-Corp, they're committed to both people and the planet. If you feel like daily stress is taking a toll on your body and mind, you might want to give them a try. Get Ritual Stress Relief and save 25% on your first month at ritual.com slash good inside. Why has FAFO parenting really risen in popularity? Let's understand this. And I do think there is something understandable in reaction to a lot of what's been being felt around gentle parenting and whether it's really gentle parenting or a perversion of it. But I think there's this

theme of I don't want to be involved in every aspect of my child's emotional life. I don't want to feel like I'm responsible for being a perfect parent in every moment. I am exhausted. I am overwhelmed with advice. I am overwhelmed with information. There's a million different people's voices on Instagram flooding my brain with all these different things that kind of conflict with each other. You know what is a good alternative? Fuck around and find out. I get to kind of sit right here on my chair and I'm gonna say, you know what? My kids can fuck around and find out.

And there's no information, there's no guidance. There's also, understandably, no overwhelm, no constant sense of dread and responsibility and logistics and getting it right and no sense of a barometer all the time judging me. I get that completely. And what I just wanna say in this moment is it is completely understandable

that parents want something where less is more. I agree. I recently talked to a parent who told me this really interesting thing. Oh, Dr. Becky, I've heard if things are stressful for my kid at 18 months at the dinner table, like my kid is going to be a picky eater for the rest of their life.

This is what they say, right? And this was one of many things like that. And my only question to this mom was, who's they? And she was like, hmm, I don't even know. And what I said was just, look, I know you want me to respond about the picky eating thing, but I just, I don't wanna be part

of this kind of litany of voices. What it seems like you're saying is, my brain is full of so much competing advice. I don't even know the name of the person who told me this advice or this fear, but it is living rent free. And I feel like I'm always doing something wrong or every single decision has the power

to dictate my child's future and the type of adult they're going to become. And she said, yeah, I feel like that's how I'm living in the parenting world. And honestly, we're sitting at this kind of event together. And I was like, I just wanna give you a hug. Like that's really, really stressful. And that also gets us so distant from our own voice.

I'm so worried about what some unnamed person told me is going to fuck up my kid for the rest of their life. I don't even know how I would wanna handle mealtime. I don't even know what advice would or wouldn't feel right because I'm so kind of in consumption mode and so out of checking in with myself mode. Now I have to say, no shade to fuck around and find out parenting doesn't really seem

like it's the best alternative because there's also kind of getting away from, well, what's going on inside me? What do I need? What do I need? What do I want? Which doesn't mean more, more, more advice, advice, advice. But I guess I think that there's always a better option than two extremes.

And if one extreme is more information, more voices, and the other extreme is kind of scorched earth and if my child has to kind of step on top of a rusty nail to learn a lesson, so be it. I think that we can find something in between. I really know in my heart, good inside is in between. One parent in our membership said this to me the other day. You know what?

As I've kind of gone along and good inside more and more, I noticed which kind of strategies or scripts I would throw out. I just would throw out. They don't sound like something I would say. And I can kind of take the principle from it and I see it and I kind of turn it into something I would say.

And I'd say, amazing, that's literally the point. You are more confident. You are not overwhelmed with information. You also know what information to stop following on Instagram, because you just know it doesn't resonate. And you also know that you can be a parent who feels empowered, where you're not constantly consuming information,

but you're also not constantly just kind of sitting back and in some ways, relegating your authority. Walk around and find out parenting also kind of forgets, like, I'm an authority here. I have power. I'm not going to let my kid run to oncoming traffic to learn a lesson about staying on the sidewalk. And so I'm probably not gonna let my kid step on a rusty nail to learn a lesson about wearing shoes. But the homework example is a good one too,

because I might let my kid forget their homework, not as payback, or not because I feel kind of resentful of my role as a parent. I'm not gonna act that out on my child. But I might do it because I actually kind of want my kid when they're younger to go through the experiences that are going to allow them to develop

into a resilient, capable, confident adult. And I know it's a fine line, it's kind of this dance between helping and backing up, between saying this is a situation where I'm gonna step in and this is a situation where I'm gonna step in and this is a situation where I'm gonna kind of allow and let happen and witness and watch and be there for my kid after to help them come together and move forward.

This is really what I wanna kind of differentiate here. The intention. See, kids feel our intention more than our intervention. And maybe you're saying, what are you saying? So let me really break this down because the same intervention, let's say not putting my kids' homework in their backpack, will be felt very differently

based on what your intention is. If someone's intention is my kid wants to forget their homework, well, they'll see how that turns out. Then my kid is gonna really feel like I purposefully was putting them into a painful situation and in some ways derive almost a type of joy or humor from their struggle. I promise you that does not build resilience in a child. What that leads to is a child who doesn't trust their parent, doesn't want to talk to them about hard things, and doesn't feel like they have an emotional home base to come back to. That's not great. Now let's go to the other extreme, which I also don't think is great. I promise you we don't want to be parents of a 17 year old who is

responsible for putting their homework folder into their backpack. Not a job I want. I do want the job when my kid's at 17, of knowing my parent is still there. If I get into a tricky situation, I can tell my parent the truth. I still want that job, but homework folder, remember, I don't want that job.

So one of the things I do ask myself when my kids are younger is just, how am I working myself out of that job? And I promise you there's a way to work yourself out of that job that isn't from a place of almost joy or humor out of that job. And I promise you there's a way to work yourself out of that job that isn't from a place of almost joy or humor in your child's stumbles. What might that look like? Well, I don't think it looks like fuck around and find out. It might look like this.

Hey, I want to let you know I'm not going to be putting your homework into your bag anymore. But before I go any further, let me tell you why. I believe in you. And actually, in addition to doing your homework well, remembering your homework and figuring out a system to get your homework from your desk to your folder to your backpack is actually just really important in life. And so part of my job is to help you figure out a system so you can remember. I've been noticing you've been forgetting it a lot and then I've been doing it for you. So if that stopped, what is the first thing we could think about that would just make

it more likely for you to remember your homework? No, I know what you might be thinking. My kid's going gonna roll their eyes. That's okay. I think we take eye rolling way too seriously. I actually think when a kid rolls their eyes, what they're saying is, I'm finding the information you're giving me useful,

but I also, as an independent person, just don't love the idea of getting advice from my parent. And so an eye roll is kind of a compromise I'm making to take in what you're saying while also maintaining my independence. And if we don't respond to the eye rolling, I promise you, your kid's gonna move right through it. And then you can say, well, what do you think?

You're a smart kid. Is there anything you could like put on your wall or is there a note that you could write that would make you kind of be more likely to remember putting your homework in your folder? I promise you, your kid's gonna say, maybe I could like post it on my desk. And then you can say, amazing.

Actually, you wanna do that right now? That seems like a step in the right direction. And now all of a sudden, I'm not kind of setting my kid up for look around and find out. I'm also not setting my kid up to think I'm gonna remember their homework and their jacket and their shin guards and their water bottle for the rest of their life

because I promise you I have more important things to do with my time. I'm actually scaffolding a skill that comes from a place of both being intentional as a parent, not being obsessive and actually working myself out of a job so my kid can feel like actually I believe in them and can set them up for success, not have the success myself or kind of knowingly allow them to be in danger.

I think those are really the alternatives. I don't want to have the success myself. I don't need to pat myself on the back and be like, Becky, I remembered my kids' homework for them every day, all school. No. But I think the alternative of kind of the sit back and just cause it has an acronym,

I'm telling myself, you know, oh, this is a thing to just purposefully almost let my kid flail. Again, I just, I think there's something in the middle. And that's what we're really trying to do. ["The New Children's Book"] Recently, I've been on the road spreading the word about my new children's book. That's my truck, a good inside story about hitting.

I'm so grateful and excited to be on this book tour, connecting with our community in person. And it's also true that being away from home can feel hard. This is why I love Airbnb. I can find and book a place that feels a little bit more like home away from home, somewhere I can come back to at the end of the day and just recharge. Something else I love about Airbnb is that you can become a host while you're away by offering your home to someone traveling to your town.

Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. Now, let me just say here's what I love about FAFO parenting, or at least I like to put my most generous interpretation on it. I think teaching kids accountability is massively important. Having a kid learn to pack their own homework, to put on shoes, to bring a jacket, at least in your backpack when it's negative 19 degrees. These are important life skills.

And I'm a big fan of teaching them to kids. I would actually go so far as to say, I actually think it's our job as parents to make sure kids get there. But I don't think we can teach accountability through shame, through kind of almost knowingly setting our kid up for a struggle, I think we teach our kids accountability by helping them develop systems to do things more independently. And for our kid to know, my parent can tolerate my struggles when I'm trying to do something independently.

As opposed to, my parent will step in and bring me success and perfection when I'm having a struggle. That's what we really want to get away from. And again, there's two extremes. How do we teach a kid accountability? Well, it starts with a struggle. One extreme is I give my kids success. That's not going to bring accountability. My kids are just going to think every time I struggle, my parent gives me success. In some ways, my parent is more accountable for success than I am.

Not good. But the other extreme isn't great either. I have a struggle, and my parent just kind of backs their way out of it. My parent isn't really there for me. I'm struggling because I'm a kid and I don't yet have the skills I need and I feel overwhelmed and I don't have support.

Support is different than solutions. We don't wanna give our kid solutions, but we also don't wanna withhold support. I think that's kind of the dance we're all trying to figure out. Now again, there's no way to do this perfectly. And if you're already having the, okay, so no solutions, yes, support.

Okay, let's just pause. I think actually what matters more than anything else is our intention and our mindset. I like my kid. Struggling is important. My kid should feel that I see them as a good kid and I see them as a capable kid. And I have a role as a parent in helping them get

to this more capable version of themselves than they can access in the moment. And that's probably some dance. And I can check in with myself about which side I'm more on. I need to help a little bit and scaffold, but also not step in and just kind of make it all better all the time. And so I think if FAFO parenting is appealing to you, the thing that really, really makes sense to me about that

is maybe what that's saying to you is I am maybe more hyper involved in the details of my kids' kind of logistics and remembering things and moment-to-moment life, then feels good to me. This is a good signal. Maybe I give myself permission, one moment at a time, one hour at a time, to do a little bit less. Your kids can still feel like you're rooting for them and like you're on their team and like you believe in them and like you do want to be there for them when they struggle without being hyper involved or helicoptery and without kind of zooming out or backing up all the way

into just fuck around and find out. Sometimes FAFO parenting comes up for me when my kids are in a bad place with bad behavior. I am so excited to jump into what we really mean by defiance and stubbornness and difficult behavior in my brand new Defiance Workshop that's available in membership. I can't wait for you to find out more about it. More on goodinside.com or in the show notes. Okay, let me get this in before the end

because it's a share or a confession of sorts. Of course I have moments with my own kids that I just want to say, you know what, I've kind of done parenting. You guys just go figure it out. You'll kind of see how lucky you are to have a mom who's involved. And I feel so angry at them. And then I want to withhold all the good stuff that on other days I want to give them because I've just reached my limit. Is this my own kind of FAFO parenting moment? Maybe.

And I think one of the things I've been reflecting on isn't so much whether FAFO parenting is a good thing for my kids or not, as much as what the appeal of it really just tells me about the state I'm in, what I need, how overwhelmed I feel, often in those moments, how much I need to contact a friend or have dinner with my husband or workout or just do something that has nothing to do with my kids. And if I kind of rebalance those parts of my life, the resentment goes down, the anger goes down, and the ability to, I don't know, be present in a way that feels good goes up.

And so maybe that's kind of the most important thing in general for us, is when we're noticing something is very, very appealing, or we suddenly wanna reject something and run to kind of the other side. Rather than looking at that and staying in that moment, almost saying, wait a second, what might be going on for me? Am I burnt out?

Do I need to kind of rebalance the different parts of my life? And if that's what this episode has brought you, oh, that's what kind of my own journey has brought me as well. And if this episode simply brought you joy in hearing me say fuck a lot, then that was worthwhile as well. I'll talk to you soon. Today's episode is in partnership with Airbnb and Ritual.