The Liz Moody Podcast - Parenting Hot Takes with Dr. Becky: Who Shouldn’t Have Kids, Screen Time, The Boy Crisis, & More

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

I sat down with Dr. Becky Kennedy, a renowned clinical psychologist or famously known as @drbeckygoodinside on Instagram, to explore common parenting challenges. Whether you're a parent, considering becoming one, or looking to reparent yourself, Dr. Becky's insights offer practical, actionable advice on fostering resilience and emotional health in today's complex world. It’s an enlightening conversation filled with research-backed strategies and personal anecdotes that cater to parents at all stages! In this episode we get into: The Importance of Parenting Skills Deciding to Have Children Ways to Reduce Screen Time Parental Authority The Crisis Among Boys and Young Men The Role of Fathers in Emotional Connectivity Setting Boundaries Managing ADHD in Children How to Build Frustration Tolerance The LGI and MGI mindset For more from Dr. Becky Kennedy, find her on Instagram @drbeckyatgoodinside or online at www.goodinside.com. You can also check out her book Good Inside or her podcast Good Inside with Dr. Becky. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: Pique: go to PiqueLife.com/LIZMOODY for up to 20% off plus a special gift. Masa: visit MASAchips.com/MOODY and use code MOODY for 25% off your first order. Evlo: head to EvloFitness.com and use code LIZMOODY to get 6 full weeks completely FREE. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 337. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're going to get into a lot of hot button parenting topics. What's your take on screen time? I have a lot of feelings about screen time. What is coming at our kids is unlike anything that has ever come at kids before. Is there any way to know what you should kind of be working on for yourself before you go into having kids? Such an amazing question. First of all, I think the most underutilized parenting strategy in the world is something I called. Another one of your shifts that I've personally found really helpful as a non-parent is the difference between an LGI

mindset and an MGI mindset. Can you explain that? Yes. When traditionally, boys have felt upset, they gaze out and say, whose fault is this? Traditionally, when girls notice other people upset, they gaze in and say, this is my fault. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Whether you have kids or you are just looking to reparent yourself, I'm raising my hand, this episode is filled with hot takes and plenty of food for thought. Our guest today is the iconic Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist who has been called the millennial parent whisper by Time magazine. She's the founder and CEO of the Good Inside Company and online parenting advice service, and she's the host of the wildly popular Good Inside podcast.

Her book, Good Inside, is a number one New York Times bestseller, and her work has helped countless people rethink what it means to be a parent and a person. We are going to dive into some of the biggest hot button topics in the world of parenting and the world in general, like what is going on with the men these days? how do we raise good boys? Is parenting a public health crisis like the surgeon general says? And if so, what can we do about it? How much screen time is too much screen time? And what impact is it having on our brains? How do we parent or how do we take care of ourselves in a world that feels scarier and scarier? How can we help our kids regulate their emotions better? How can we regulate our own emotions better? As always,

you're going to be getting tons of interesting ideas, but also action steps that you can take to see real, results today. Dr. Becky Kennedy, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm such a fan. It's so funny. You know what? I'm not a parent, but I watch all of your videos as if I were a parent. And I don't know if it's because I'm trying to reparent myself or I'm going to be a parent someday, but I find them addictive. Well, first of all, thank you. I just had this like daydream of a couple years ago. I was in this restaurant. And there was this group of, frankly, like very drunk 20-year-olds, you know, at best, maybe 21-year-olds, okay, definitely in college. And one of them, came up to me. She goes, Dr. Becky. And her friend's like, who is this person? And no one knows

how to classify me. But she just goes, she's a child psychologist. It's close enough. Sure. And her friends go, okay, but like why do you follow her? And this woman got dead sober and just kind of looked at her friends and goes, if you're not reparenting yourself now, you're missing out on critical years of your life. And so I just, that story came to mind because I think the not so secret secret about everything we do at good inside is we support and empower the person behind the parenting way more than we even help their parenting, which I think says a lot because I think we really help their parenting. And then in that perspective, well, then the same type of empowerment and support can be given to any person, whether or not they're a parent. A hundred percent. And I feel

that so strongly. And I think it's why I gravitate to your work so much. So for anybody listening, whether you're a parent or not a parent or thinking about being a parent, there's going to be a lot in this episode for you. And we're going to get into a lot of hot button parenting topics that are sort of debated online. So let's start with recently the Surgeon General declared that parenting was a risk to our health in the same way that cigarettes or alcohol is. What do you think about that? Parenting is the last frontier where we glorify instinct alone. And I'll tell you how this comes back to the Surgeon General if it's not obvious, where think about doctors, all the doctors who are surgeons, but they never went to med school. Okay. And they never had residency.

and every day they're just doing surgery. I imagine their mental health would be pretty bad. They'd be like, you guys, I feel like we're messing up patients. And they'd be like, yeah, I don't feel great about what I'm doing on the surgical table. And then kind of time went by and they shifted a little to hold on a second. We really have not been set up for success here. People have been telling us surgery comes naturally that we should just trust our gut. But you know what?

That sounded nice for a while. but I don't think that's really good for anyone. Like part of surgery comes naturally, but part of it is a skill. And we should demand that they teach us skills before they make us do surgery. And then all of a sudden there were medical schools. Okay, I think that's the point we're at.

Why is becoming a parent associated with lower mental health? I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that we tell parents, especially women, trust your gut. This comes naturally. You have an instinct. and then you know what happens if you're told you have an instinct and something is, of course, very hard and challenging, there's one explanation.

I'm broken. I'm a failure. This is not how it's supposed to be. I'm just doing it wrong. Parenting actually involves a set of skills. Part of it is instinct you love your kid. There are moments that comes naturally, but dealing with your kid lying to your face,

dealing with a tantrum, dealing with a meltdown in a grocery store, what to do when everyone around you tells you're being too soft, but you actually don't think you are. That involves skills. And when we start to teach parents skills, their mental health improves because they actually feel equipped for the very difficult job they have in front of them every day. Historically, do you think people learned those skills from avenues that aren't available to them now? Or do you think that parenting requires skills in a way that it didn't historically?

Or what's going on there? I think there's a lot of things. I think parenting in 2025, everyone says, is it harder now? I think it is a whole lot more complicated in ways that it's never been in other generational shifts. Parenting involves a lot of slowing down and connecting to your kid. It has never been harder for any of us to slow down and connect. And the less connection our kids get, the more acting out they have, which just makes parents often, me too, want to disconnect more and then we're off to the races in the wrong direction.

Where technology is, where all of our orientation around instant gratification is, it is harder, especially in those early years to be that present, more slowed down parent. That's number one. Number two, what is coming at our kids is unlike anything that has ever come at kids before. Again, the instant gratification in their life, the screens, the, I mean, if as a parent, I'm just going to put this out there, you are not emotionally equipped to talk about sex and porn and these very specific questions that your kids will have. I mean, that is a very different thing than it was years ago when our kids weren't bombarded with those images and those algorithms and therefore those kinds of. conversations on the bus. And so I just think the cost to not feeling emotionally and kind of cognitively equipped as a parent has never been higher because of how much more complicated

the world is for us and our kids. One of the analyses that I heard about the Surgeon General's report said that one of the reasons parents are more burnt out than they ever have been before is because we have more information than we've ever had before about what good parenting looks like And so they feel the need to action that, like stuff like listening to music while you're pregnant. And then that has this brain effect, all these things. So we have all this information and then we feel overwhelmed in picking and choosing parenting styles and rules to fall and all these things. What would you say to the parent who says like, I actually, I know what to do.

I should push all of this stuff aside. I need to trust my instincts, which you're saying is part of like what's stressing us out. Well, again, there are definitely moments, I think, for any parent. You're like, I just have a sense of how to handle this. But at the end of the day, our instincts as an adult is basically what was done to us when we were a kid. It's just what's in your bones, right? And so I have the instinct to speak English because everyone spoke to me in English. If I wanted to speak Mandarin to my kids, I don't think anyone would think I'd just wake up knowing Mandarin naturally, right?

Now, if a parent ever said to me, but I feel like I don't need any information or education, I feel good about how I'm showing up, I'd say, amazing. So if that's a situation, I'd say, yeah, like, don't overload yourself then with information. That just feels noisy in your brain. I think I hear more often from parents. There are so many moments when I don't feel equipped. Then there's still a struggle, which is there's a million voices out there. Who do I trust? What do I listen to? What do I give myself permission to unfollow or to say not for me? Our struggle to do that isn't about all the information. Our struggle to do that actually comes from how hard it is for so many of us to trust ourselves, right? And to kind of filter what education is useful and what education doesn't resonate with me. I actually think,

you know, this thing someone said to me, she's a good inside member. She said, Dr. Becky, I think you help my kids grow, but you help me return. And to me, that's also a huge differentiation for what we do. I don't think I insert knowledge into a parent so they mimic me. I actually, think what we get from parents, not just getting a reel for 60 seconds here or there. That's just candy, you know? But the people who kind of really invest, what they say is I feel more confident. I actually know the things now, Dr. Becky, they say, I'm like, oh, not for me. Like, I feel more like myself. And in that way, it's more akin to personal growth and coaching than it is to just mimicking someone else's advice. Okay. So then for anybody out there listening

who's either parenting or reparenting themselves, what's like a practical way we can start to build that sense of self-trust. So one of the things we can do, let's just start with consuming content. Because I agree, there is so much noise out there. So I'll give two concrete things here. I hear this phrase, and I don't know if you say it, you hear it, but I hear it all the time, especially from new moms. It's something like, Dr. Becky, they say that if mealtime is stressful, my kid is going to grow up with, like, a lot of eating issues. Whenever I hear something like this, I say the same thing.

Who's they? And almost always I get the same response. I have no idea. I'm like, wow, let's just zoom out. We're at a point in our culture where the guidance or even fear mongering from someone lives in our head and makes us anxious and we don't even know the name of the person who said that. It's like, and I think this is what you're speaking to, it's like guidance is free floating

in my body without even a personal, even online connection to who gave me that guidance. anything right now that you would start a sentence with they say, I would say just throw it out. If we don't know who the they is, it's a good way. Step one, just saying, I'm just going to put that on my shelf. Maybe I'll pick it up if it resonates. But as long as it makes me anxious and makes me scared and I don't even know who said it, I'm just going to put that on the shelf. So that's a step one.

Let's clean those things out. Step two, I think figuring out what resonates with us is complex. because to me, the things that have helped me the most in terms of education and support are things that make me a little uncomfortable. Discomfort in our body, we often think is a sign that we're doing something wrong. To me, it's a sign we're doing something new. And sometimes new is wrong. Like, it would be new for me to, I don't know, do something really violent to someone. And if my body gave me discomfort, I'd be like, I'm going to listen.

That is new and wrong. Okay. But sometimes it's just new and new. It is new for me to think, you know, that I could set a boundary and my kid could be upset and there's actually no problem. That's just happening. I don't have to make them happy. That's new. So hearing that guidance will bring up a little discomfort because my body through the discomfort is saying, I don't really have a circuit for this.

That's actually usually the most helpful kind of advice. But I think where we can start to build self-trust is just starting to ask ourselves, is this discomfort as, ooh, that's a new. new idea, could I tolerate it? Is this discomfort in terms of there's a rigidity? Like this advice makes me think that I've messed up something forever. If I don't do this one thing, I'm messing up someone forever. That is a different type of kind of discomfort. It's not so much self-reflective as much as it's kind of fear and performative. And so I think just when we consume something new to build self-trust, just saying, hold on, how does this make me feel? What is it like for me to consider this. If 10 is the most uncomfortable and zero is totally comfortable, what number

am I right now? Can I be curious about that? And just like digesting it a little bit instead of just swallowing it, I think is how we start to build some of that self-trust. I love that. That makes so much sense. I've been debating whether or not I should have kids on the podcast pretty publicly. And one of the things that I've been grappling with, and I think the Surgeon General's report also was sort of grappling with, is the incredible lack of systemic support for parents. We took away the community type living that we used to have and we replaced it with absolutely nothing. How do parents, I don't know, like, how can we look to enact real change and also how can we deal with the anger around that? Sometimes I look at like the

parental leave in Europe and I'm just like, it's so unfair. I get palpably angry. Yeah. I think going back to the surge in general, there's many components. Like I think parent education and thinking that parenting doesn't just come naturally is a component. I don't think that's 100% of it. And what you're saying does speak to the other, you know, kind of systemic issues, right? What is it like for a parent when they have a kid? What support is around them? What are they entitled to for leave? What type of support do they get from a partner if they have a partner? Like these are things that I think we're seeing both in mental health and we're seeing it in declining birth rates. Like a little bit, a lot of women are like, yeah, gig is up.

Yeah. Something about this has to change or a lot of them. How do we deal with our anger about it? I think anger is definitely one of our most important emotions. Like I think so many of us grew up, especially women, to think anger's bad or, right? The truth is anger is just hard to manage. And most of us, again, weren't taught skills to manage anger. But then we've like thrown out the anger as if the anger is the problem.

The anger's never been the problem. It's that we haven't learned skills how to manage anger. Anger tells us what we need. It's actually a really important emotion. And so what do I do when I feel angry about the lack of support or leave? Well, if I reframe that as my anger is kind of a very clear sign of what I feel like I deserve and need and am not getting, then I can translate that to, okay, so I guess what I'm also saying is I believe if I have a baby, I deserve and need a certain amount of leave.

I deserve and need a certain amount of support. What would that look like? And then in a way we're really grounding ourselves, not just in rage, but in something that's really about basic needs. And then we can do a lot of things with that. We could talk to people about it. We can lobby for it. We can get involved in policy, right? We can make sure in our personal life as much as is possible, what would it like look like for me to have certainly, could I make that happen even if policy doesn't change? And now of a sudden to me, we're using anger to get a sense of what we need and then we're translating that into steps, which to me is always part of productive. change. Is that what you teach parents to do with their kids as well when their kids experience anger? I mean, I think this is a huge thing. Traditionally, a lot of us women especially have rage, in part because we were taught to shut down our anger. And guess what you do when you learn to shut down a healthy emotion? It tends to come out in its most exacerbated, unfiltered way. Because in some ways, if I'm not supposed to feel anger and it builds up, I have to get it out of

my body. And so all of a sudden my kid complains about dinner and I watch myself say these like totally awful things to them in the moment. And then I feel horrible, but the anger wasn't the problem. The anger was actually the warning signal that we honestly have learned to distance ourselves from. So getting back in touch with anger and helping kids manage anger in a productive way, we can't help our kids with anything, going back to reparenting until we've built up some of that in ourselves, which sounds onerous, but I actually don't think it's onerous. I think wow, what an amazing opportunity. I can both help my kids build something new and help myself build it at the same time.

That's just like efficient. That's how I think about good inside. Is there any way to know what you should be working on for yourself before you go into having kids? I mean, such an amazing question. So I think there's a lot of ways we can think about that. The things that trigger us, which to me is that quick twitch response, right? And I can give some examples of how that comes to life without kids are our best. signals of the areas where I guess work on is one way, but I just feel more hopeful,

like where we have the opportunity to like heal and become more embodied and become fuller. And I think so many times when we get triggered, we have shame, which means we kind of want to like turn away and say like, oh, I'm just like me quickly apologize and move on. And then in some ways we deprive ourselves of the opportunity, whether we have kids or not, to say, hold on, this is trying to tell me something. Like when my partner, forgot to pick up my prescription like they said they would, I get that I'd feel mad, but I did have a pretty big response to that, right? And so what is that telling me? Okay, well, what did that feel like? I don't know. It felt like my partner doesn't even care about me or, you know,

I'm like, oh, okay, so maybe this is about invisibility. Do I have a history of even feeling like, did my needs matter? Did they matter? If I feel triggered now, maybe I grew up in a family where my needs didn't matter. Like that probably came from a very real adaptive place. And then we all play it out with the people in our adult life. That will get triggered with our kids. So that's a great example of, okay, can I quote work on this now? Do I have an opportunity to heal this now?

Because guess what? When you think you're taking your kid home from school at age five and you're excited to hang out with your daughter and your daughter comes out saying, oh, Billy invited me to her playday, can I go to Billy's house? And you're like all of a sudden yelling at your daughter about how she does and appreciate you and you're like, I didn't really want to do that. But that's the same kind of wound, essentially, that yeah, the more we're aware of that, the more that not only will benefit our kids, the more that just also benefits us. So almost look for those places you're having an outsized

reaction and then see the opportunity there. A hundred percent. And Alonon has this great phrase, which I don't love the word hysterical, but I don't know if you've heard this phrase. I just, if it's hysterical, it's historical. And I think there's something about that with no blame. Like if I have a big reaction, that's not my fault, does make me a bad person. It's almost the world telling me, hey Liz, hey Becky, I'm trying to get your attention to let you know the thing where you probably could use a little exploration and healing. And it's kind of amazing that the world is able to give us a signal and we don't have to like be detectives, you know, and look for it. I have friends who feel they were so damaged by their childhoods that they shouldn't have children. Is there anybody that you think shouldn't have children?

I mean, to me, the people who shouldn't have children are the people, if I'm saying at the table, they're like, I don't want children. I'd be like, oh, I'm so glad you know that about yourself, right? Like, I don't think there is something so morally wrong with that decision, doesn't have to be so pathologized. Now, is there stuff to unpack there? There might be, just like sometimes there's stuff to unpack for the person who says, I absolutely want to have children and you really explore it.

And the reason they really want to have children is because they feel so unimportant. And actually their child is going to make them feel like the worthy person they've never felt. That is not a great reason to have a child. Just like someone who doesn't want to have children. And really it's about, I don't know, they actually really do want the connection and they do want generativity. But they're just so scared. And right, okay, well, if we had a way to reduce the fear, it's not about my desire for you to have kids. I have no desire for any particular person to have a child.

It doesn't affect my life. But if something is blocking their actual desire, it's a fear. I feel compelled with that person and say, oh, well, would you want to spend time exploring that? Or what if the fear wasn't so great? Just like with the other person I'd feel compelled in my office to say, hold on, let's really talk about kind of your expectations, right? Because in some ways, maybe that person who wants to have kids for that reason shouldn't

have kids and maybe the person who has a fear but overcomes that, you know, that fear could. So I think it's actually about getting to know ourselves and like being reflective and making decisions as much as possible from that place. Do you think there's anybody though where maybe they really do underlieingly want to, but they feel like because they're damaged, they would damage their kids? Can you ever not kind of get to the other side of that? Like, do you think there's anybody who's so fundamentally damaged that they might not be able to overcome that and be a great parent? I mean, I think there's so much wrapped up in your question, which is do we, you know, am I going to then damage me? my kid. Like, I think this also goes to this idea of, like, is there a perfect parent? Like, we all have injuries with our kids. There's certainly ways that we unintentionally have things

with our kids when they're young that have, like, a really big negative impact on them. And the best it gets is we have a small negative impact. Like, that's someone asked me once, like, do you live in fear that your kids are going to, like, be on the couch one day and be like, my mom mess me up in this way? I was like, not only do I not live in fear of that, I would, I would never want to deprive them of that very important adult experience. Like that's like what it means to become an adult is looking at your childhood and realizing, here's the things that didn't work for me. Here's the things I needed that I didn't get.

Here's what I want to take from my family. Here's what I don't and what I want to do differently. And all those moments are only possible because your parent is not perfectly attuned to your every need. Like it's a perpetual iterative process and you can't deny any of the steps of iteration. Definitely not. Now, again, like the way I kind of very jokingly say this is like, yeah, like we either mess up kids big time or we mess up small time. Let's all go for the small. They're going to be in a therapist's office, hopefully, hopefully either way to reflect on who they are and figure out how they're different, right?

But I guess part of your question is, are there certain people who are just destined for like that big time mess up? I feel like that's too, it's like almost too rigid of a question. Like what was their childhood like? What processes are they going through? How open are they to education and support? But I think the people who say I was totally, quote, messed up as a kid. And there's no way I could be a good parent. To me, it actually circles back to the very first thing we talked about.

This model where good parenting comes naturally, right? Where being a good parent is just you leave the hospital and you kind of know what to do. but if you don't have a mental model because you didn't grow up with a good mental model, there are so many other areas in this world where people don't have a good mental model and through education and support, we give that to them. Again, like doctors are a good example, even being a good CEO. Like most people I know as a CEO now, they take pride in their executive coach. It's no longer shameful.

They're like, of course there's things I need to learn and pride. and they're never going to be perfect, but they're just engaged in that work. And I think that's the world I want to build for parents where they wear their like good inside education as a sign of pride, just like doctors put their degrees on the wall. They don't say like, oh, I don't want to tell you I went to law school, med school. Because then I think there are people who would say, I do want to have kids. I don't have a mental model. But I now have a system to close that gap. I love that. It's interesting because the age that the average person gives birth is going up, but there has been this glamorization of young moms online. I don't know if you've seen this, but like on TikTok particularly, a lot of the big influences are very young moms. And I'm curious with the amount of kind of reparenting we're doing and growth we're doing personally before we're having kids, if you have any opinions on what age we should start doing so. Good question. You know, age comes up a lot for me in terms of people.

And it comes up a lot with kids too. And recently it's come up with parents. Like at what age is it good to have kids? Is it better to be an older parent? Or at what age will my kid grow out of having meltdowns, right? And to me, I always flip it in this way. Like, at what age will my kid learn how to swim? And I think a parent would say, like, you're actually kind of asking the wrong question.

Like, there's no age. What are you doing as they age? Are you teaching them how to swim? Because if you don't teach them how to swim, whether they're 4 or 14 or 34, or the age doesn't beget skills. I think the same thing for parenting. Like, just because you've aged, we know. I mean, there are 40-year-olds who live in a 2-year-old body,

and there are 16-year-old who seem to live in a 60-year-old body, right? Some of that could be temperament, but some of that is age alone doesn't make me reflective. Age alone does not give me skills. Nobody for me in my 21st birthday was like, here's how you cope with anxiety. There you go. I gifted it for you. No. It's like, am I doing that work or am I not? Certainly, getting older gives you more years to understand yourself and learn how to communicate, you know, but again, if I'm not actually

doing that during the years, the years alone aren't going to change anything. Could there be someone who's a really young mom who, you know, seems to really understand themselves? And again, it's not that they have no triggers. They know what triggers them. They've learned some skills and they know how to repair after. I'd feel really good about that parent. I'd feel really good about a parent saying to me, I know it's not my job to stop my baby from crying. I know it's not my job to keep my kid happy. I also know that setting boundaries for self-care is going to be hard, but here's my system for how I'm going to hold myself responsible for that, and here's how I know it's a sign I haven't. Like, to me, that kind of stuff, whether you're X years old or Y or old, that's how I'd think

about it. Sometimes the older we are, the more we get set in our ways. Not all the time, by the way. We get very used to kind of meeting our own needs and not being as interrupted. So again, but that's not a reason why it's bad to have kids older, right? Other people have had that and they're like, I'm so ready to do something else. So I just think there's too many factors to limit it to chronological age. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our health that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep.

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I'd say me too. I haven't met many people who feel great about where the world is at. And I talk to a wide variety of people who have, you know, of different stances from each other. But yes, whether it's climate change, whether it's technology, whether it's the way we consume media has made people so much more polarized and relatively unable to hold two seemingly oppositional truths at the same time. We live in a world where, like, if we don't agree with someone, we feel like we shouldn't

have to understand them, like, you know, or if you understand someone, that means you agree with them, like, right? We see this in individuals, we see this in political systems, right? I guess I have this long-term optimistic view, and again, this is what gets me out of bed and why I think the work at Good Inside is more important than ever. I believe one way, definitely not the only way, but one way we really kind of solve or work on all these issues is how we're raising the next generation of kids who will become the next generation of leaders. What you do in your home has a profound impact on your child for the rest of their life. It's the anchoring relationship in their life. It forms in some ways their default settings or like their blueprint for every relationship they have after that.

And so again, this whole idea of two things are true. I'm a parent. I hold a boundary. You're a kid. You're upset. My setting a boundary, I think, is important. Doesn't mean you can't be upset. And you being upset doesn't mean I set a bad boundary.

They're just both true. I'm allowed to set boundaries. You're allowed to be upset. teaching parents how to understand that their kid really is upset about not getting ice cream for breakfast. And you can understand that while holding a boundary, even if you would never get upset about that. I actually think we're building like a generation who will be able to kind of form a healthier world. So with this world in front of us, I guess one perspective is how can I bring kids into this world? I guess our perspective is it has never been more important to raise a kind of generation of

kids who can really make this world more peaceful, you know, more moderate, more connected. Are there any skills that you think are especially important to impart our kids with, given the modern world? I think one core idea is that who you are, your identity, is different than what you do, which is your behavior. I talk about that as behavior is separate from identity. And then again, we have this quick twitch response. Oh, so it's okay for my kid to act out. So it's just okay for my boss to yell at me. Nobody said that's okay. What we're talking about is the skill, is the set of glasses you wear to say, this is someone's

behavior. It does not tell the whole story of who they are as a person. It might tell me I don't really want to associate them or invite them to dinner, right? And with our kids for sure, they're saying, I hate you to me. It tells me the story of, oh, they're upset about something. Like, I need to figure something out with them. But to me, that skill of looking at behavior as a window into someone, but not the entire truth of someone, is a critical life skill, you know, now and going forward.

I think two other core life skills are repair. That's one. Where if there's anything we stand for, you know, more than anything else, it's that repair is the most important relationship strategy, which means nobody gets it right all the time. You're going to have conversations with other adults that feel bad, where you feel judged, where you knew you came in too hot. Well, if repair is the thing you're optimizing for, all of those moments of rupture are actually the opportunity you've been looking for for repair. And again, going back to point one, they're not a sign of who someone is. They're a sign of a struggle.

I mean, there's so many other things I could say. But I think another core idea that's more important than ever is feelings are looking for support, not solutions. We are in such a fixing era. Like we fix our kids on happiness. We want to fix the fact that someone disagrees with us. Well, if someone's experience is just looking for support, they're looking for someone to understand, not someone to solve, that has a lot to do with building a much more tolerant but also actually more mentally resilient group of people who aren't always looking for a quick fix or an easy solution. Yeah, I think that resilience is going to be the name of the game. Going forward, what's your take on screen time?

I have a lot of feelings about screen time. I guess the first thing that comes to mind, which I think is a perspective around screen time that just isn't talked about enough, okay, is that I think a lot about what we're doing with our kids in their early years and how, again, that builds their circuitry, that builds their set of expectations,

that builds their factory settings, which again, you can always change factory settings, but it's also really a privilege to go into the world with factory settings that support success. And so how I think about that related to screen time is one of the things that long term is very helpful for our kids to become really resilient, successful adults, is really being able to put effort toward things, to bounce back from failure, to tolerate struggle. I say this a lot about my kids that the thing I want them to be really good at after they leave my house is I want them to be really good at struggle. I actually worry more about kids who are really good at succeeding early on in their life. A lot of early success makes for a lot of anxiety and fragility in adulthood because your circuitry, your default settings are like, I am supposed to have an easy win.

I am supposed to be the best at everything. I have always gotten an A. What do you mean, my boss told me I need to work on this project? They react like they're too because it's kind of like they are a two-year-old in their body. They've never dealt with that. people who are good at struggling expect things to take a while they expect themselves to be frustrated they expect to be given challenges and to muddy around and to not know and they get good at not knowing and they get good at sticking with things when they're confused and you know what happens in

adulthoods those people have a lot more success because success finds itself for the important things when you're good at kind of being in what I call the learning space how does this relate to screen time. What does screen time wire a kid for early on? I can put forth very little effort. I can kind of just sit here and success and dopamine just comes to me. So my circuitry starts to say, and again, this is, I hate earmongering and rigidity. So let me just say to any parent listening, oh my goodness, my kid is going to be a failure. No, that's not what we're saying. This is about patterns, not moments, right? But if in general my kid early on is on, on, iPad a lot, you know, no matter what they're doing. Essentially, their body's learning. I can sit back,

put forth very little effort, not struggle at all, and entertainment and dopamine and success arrives. Well, we shouldn't be terribly shocked when our kid, and I used to see so many families like this where their kid was five. They were in kindergarten trying to learn to read. And it's like, my kid is learning disability. My kid is ADHD. Set the record straight. Learning disabilities are real. ADHD is real. It's not that I don't believe in them. They're very, very real.

And when I got to know these families, there was this pattern with 90% of them. This is the first time in your five-year-old's life that they've had to sit and focus and work on something for a long time before they even have a sign of success. Forget learning to read, right? And so what we're seeing, could it be ADHD or a learning disability? it could. And I'm going to also take the perspective that what I know to be true is their,

their wiring, their nervous system is not prepared for resilience in this moment. And so I think, yes, screen time, there's all the things we learn on the screen. I mean, and people have all these things and, okay, is it video games bad? Is it this? And what about social media? But I think more even zoomed out than all of this is in the early years, am I not all the time? but some of the time thinking about how am I intervening with my kid, so I'm actually setting them up for all the things they're going to have to do when they're older. And I think too much screen time, it starts to really work against that. What, for somebody listening, what qualifies it too much?

Like, what feels like too much? I know it's going to be individual and different. It really is so individual. And again, every family is different. I think this is back to the support we give families. Aren't you like, okay, I'm a dual working family just trying to get by. I can't afford child care in this situation. child care calls are off the roof. And so you're telling me, I can't put my kid of whatever age

in front of a screen. I'm like, no, I'm not telling you that. How could I tell you that? That is the reality of your life. I hear that. And so I don't like putting numbers. And again, it's just because I really mean it's like I respect parents too much and knowing that their intentions are positive to slap down something only to bring more shame and fear. So I'll start with that. I think over here and again, that speaks to skills, we don't teach parents how to teach their kids, how to tolerate frustration and play independently. There's a lot of times in our busy world where we need our kids to do something without interrupting us. If screens are the only thing that fit in that bucket, then probably our kids have too much screen time because whenever they're on their own and have to entertain themselves

or have to think of something or try to be creative or try to figure something. thing out, then it's always the same thing, right? Which again, is low effort, high reward. Now again, that is a learned skill. And again, parents, I get it. They're burnt out. They're not supported. They're not given the skills to even say, okay, if I'm going to teach my kid how to play independently, like what do I have to do? What should I expect? Is that mean my kid then the next day is going to play for blocks with half an hour? No, it does not. No, we're probably starting with a minute. And then, right, we're probably then starting with five minutes. And just to make a contrast for you, because I said this to an audience recently and it really resonated with them, not only do we not

give parents education and skills and support, we don't even give them realistic expectations of what development looks like. Parents have a better understanding of what it looks like and how long it takes to teach a kid how to swim than they do of what it would be like for a kid to be able to play independently or be resilient. Because think about it. Parents go to his home class. A lot of parents pay a lot of money. It's like a decent percentage of their expendable income. And they know that day. My kids not learning to swim.

My kids and I'm going to put their head in the water. But they understand the arc. And then they also understand that this is a life skill they want to invest in early because the payout is enormous, right? I think swimming is a very important life skill. Let me just be on the record, okay? I'm pro-swimming. Okay. I think an even more important life skill than swimming, which is bold to say because it's important.

is learning how to manage your emotions, learning how to manage frustration, learning how to struggle, learning how to do something hard, learning how to handle sadness and jealousy. Those are life skills that if our kids don't learn them early, just like swimming, it's scary later on. But again, isn't that crazy? Parents have a better understanding of what learning to swim looks like than they do about what learning how to regulate emotions look like. And again, that's the world at Goodside.

We really want to build where parents, years from now say, Oh, I know what that looks like. I know why that's important. I know how to build those skills in me so I can build the skills in my kid. And then I think a lot of these questions and even conversations shift a little. I wouldn't even have thought of learning to play independently as a skill. Right. I would have just thought that was something you kind of do or don't do.

We know those milestones for swimming because we know it's a skill that you're learning. And so I think it's a huge part of your work is like these are all skills and just being able to identify in the first ways these are skills. And then you're like, oh, if there's skills, I can learn them. And that includes for the parenting skills, but also, for the kids. Like, oh, learning to play independently is a skill. That's right. Where, you know, someone said to me, like, recently, okay, I get it. I'm going to teach my kids these skills. But one day I was like, but if I'm teaching them, who's teaching me? And then she said, I realize, and this is such an honor. She goes, you are. You're teaching me so I can teach them.

And again, we have so many models for this. Like, if I want to teach my kid basketball, but I don't know anything about basketball, someone has to teach me a little bit about basketball. So I can teach my kids. That doesn't make me a bad parent. That makes me an equipped parent, right? And so I think that's really powerful. We are this generation. I see so much hope in this generation of parents who are like, I get these are skills.

This is another idea that I think is powerful to get out there. Kids are born with all the feelings up here and none of the skills to manage these feelings. That's a very vulnerable existence. That's why kids have so much bad behavior. Bad behavior is just feelings without skills for adults and kids. and we then shame ourselves what's wrong with me because we collapse behavior and identity. But if we say instead, hold on a second,

I wanted to make a layup and I was missing layups, I wouldn't start with something's wrong with me. I might start with no one's ever taught me how to make a layup. I bet there are people. If I really care about making layups, it's just like a skill. It doesn't have to be such a sign that I'm a bad person. And I think it's the same with emotion skills,

learning how to play independently also is harder than it used to be. Because it used to be that the best and most exciting thing a child could do in their house was built with blocks. We will always choose the best most exciting thing. Now there's a lot of things. There's the TV. There's your iPad. There's your parents' phone. I mean, right?

And so the idea that I could limit screen time means I have to do a lot more work than 100 years ago to teach. to teach my kid how to play with blocks and to tolerate the wines and to tolerate the I want my iPad. And so I need skills to manage that and I need to hold boundaries. And again, like I feel hope because these are so teachable. No one's behind. No one's flawed. But that is the path. So if the larger skill is learning these skills, like learning to play independently all of that,

can you share maybe some practical ways that we can reduce screen time for our children? Yeah. And again, I'm speaking to the parent here. Everything I say visually, I think of as an offering. It's an offering. And what any of us should always do with an offering is decide, do I want to walk past that offering? Or do I want to pick it up?

And so I want to speak to the parents who there's some voice in them that's saying, not I just should, I want to. This is no longer working for our family. I feel it. Okay. So for those parents, number one, you do not need your kids' approval to change the amount of screen time they have. And I know initially it's like obviously, but unconsciously we don't realize this. Like I realized one of the best parts of being an adult and definitely a parent is like, I don't need anyone to approve of what I'm doing.

There's certain relationships right. But I don't need my kid to look at me and be like, mom, this is a good decision. Thank you so much. And as soon as you articulate that, you realize how ridiculous it is. But I hear this all the time. But my kids, you know, is already used to this amount. Or, but my kid's going to be really upset. Like, picture being on a plane and saying, okay, I'm really, where this plane is going to Los Angeles, I've got to get there for a meeting.

And you hear your pilot say, look, bad news. We had this light go on. I don't really know, but it's one of those ones. I'm making an emergency landing in Kansas, wherever we are over the middle of the country. And everyone's like, oh, what? I have to get to California. And then you hear your pilot say, oh, you're all upset. Forget it.

Forget it. we'll go to LA or if your pilot said, hey guys, I have this emergency landing notification. Do you think it's, do you think that's okay? Do you think that's okay? What should we do? That is what we do to our kids all the time when we ask permission for decisions that are not in their domain. And then people say, but then they act out more. Yes, because they feel unsafe. They're not manipulating you. I would act out in a plane. If a pilot asked me if we should make an emergency landing, I would act out big time. So that's step one. I don't need my kids approval. Step two is a corollary. can tolerate my kid being upset with me. If a pilot's biggest concern was, am I going to get a

five-star review from these passengers, we would have a lot of dangerous piloting situations. And the truth is, even if I quote, give my pilot a bad review, oh, you're the worst. I want my pilot to make a decision for my long-term safety. I really do. Don't take my bait pilot. I'm just pissed off in the moment. And so step one is I don't need their approval. And step two is I can tolerate their being upset. I can give some more things and I will. Those two things are 99% of it. Because the reason we don't change is because to some degree we think we need their approval and we're so scared of their meltdown. Right. And so I want a parent. We always talk about sturdy pilots. It's like a sturdy leader. I want you to think like you're in the cockpit. Your kid is the passenger. They will protest. But I want to think like what would a

sturdy pilot do? They're not thrown off by that. They can't be. Right. Okay. Step three. Come up. with a shift you want to make. Again, you're not consulting your kid about this because it's just too outside in terms of their ability. Kids make decisions for short-term gratification. One of the biggest things we do as a parent is we are long-term greedy. We say your short-term comfort sometimes is the thing I make a decision about, but there are definitely other times where I prioritize your long-term benefit. That's what any good leader does, what a good CEO does. That's what a good coach does, right? So come up with it. And maybe again, the number of don't matter, but let's say it's it's X many shows they usually watch and I'm going to do

X minus two instead, whatever it is. After you've decided that, you kind of have to practice in front of a mirror, you really do. I would tell a parent, don't make a change with your kid until you believe yourself in the mirror. You're like, I don't even believe myself. I've just like, I sound totally hesitant. And then I think there's so many other things we can do in terms of how we manage their meltdown in terms of what we do instead of that. But I think that's a really good start for someone because to me the start always comes not from what do I do, but what is the different mindset I need first to be effective? And I think the mindset shift is I don't need approval and I can tolerate their feelings. Do you think that parents need to reduce their own screen time

in order to enforce this for their children? I think it's going to be more effective. And I think one of the reasons it's more effective is nobody loves being dictated to. Nobody adult or kid loves hearing you have this problem. I mean, I don't have this problem, but you have this problem. I'm sorry, I don't want to hear anything you're about to say. It just feels like you don't like me and I'm lesser than you.

It's always more effective at any age to hear some version of, hey, we both kind of struggle. And here's something we could both probably do. Now all of a sudden I have a teammate. So it's going to be more effective when you change screen time to join with your kid and say, and you know what? Do you ever feel like I'm on my phone in moments?

that I don't have to be. Just so you know, I'm going to work on that too. Maybe you could even let me know one of those moments. Now all of a sudden your kid is like, oh, okay, we're literally in this together. We're working on something together. We all want an accountability buddy. We all want to meet someone in the park if we're going to try to take a run. I mean, I would. I'd be more effective. And so now it's just a, I don't know if you have to, but it's definitely more effective. Yeah, I just think about like whenever I have my phone out, even like tiny babies, they just like go towards it and I'm like oh my gosh my friends who are parents like if they have their phones out their baby is just it it is so designed to be addictive they can even see the youngest ages are like

oh my gosh I think that's right and I think kids again when they notice their environment they're taking in messages of importance and value so kids are always looking at us wondering what is the most important thing in the world what is the most important thing in your life what is the most important thing in this room and if we're kind of always answering them with my phone, well, first of all, they're going to be more disconnected from us and feel almost, you know, rejected in some way, which is going to make them act out more. But also, it shouldn't be such a surprise that they generalize to as soon as I have a moment of free time. I want to go to the most important thing of value, which is, you know, my own screen.

We are seeing a real crisis among boys and young men. Right now, the rates of loneliness and depression are rising. many boys are turning to the internet and questionable role models for answers about masculinity. What is going on with boys today? And what is your best advice for raising emotionally healthy, resilient young men? I love this question. And I'm kind of obsessed with thinking about dads and boys right now. And so it's like very, very on point.

First of all, I also want to say that I have started to see like kind of counter evidence. It's not to say all that data is wrong. It's all right. But I also want to infuse a little hope. I've seen some men in this kind of recent generation of dads who feel so invested in like a different form of fatherhood, again, of emotional connectivity, of this ability to say being emotionally connected to myself and my son is not in opposition with strength. Like actually it makes me stronger and, you know, all these things. So I just want to also put that over here. one of the things that I'm really kind of into right now is kind of seeing very early versions and boys of kind of a toxic relationship with your feelings because what we see is expressing rage and anger and blaming the world is one of kind of the most stereotypical at least expression of feelings for men

and so much again of your own resilience of your healthy emotional relationships it all comes from your ability not to blame other people for your distress, but to understand your own distress and see it as information and cope with it. So the thing I want to zero in on in terms of what I think is especially important comes to life in this example. So there's this basketball place I always go to with my kids where there's like 12 basketball courts and there's always a million games, girls and boys. And more often than not, when a boy loses a game, and I just in my limited experience,

rarely hear this from girls. I hear all of these boys blame the refs and blame their teammates. Oh, they should have passed me for the last shot we would have won. Oh, it's such an unfair call, right? And I think a lot is said here, and I do think it's this early sign of kind of something very toxic in terms of traditional masculinity, because how I see that moment is the seven-year-old boys kind of saying without saying, I'm disappointed that we lost. I feel sad, but I don't want to feel my own disappointment or sadness. And so instead, I kind of look out at the world and I wonder, who did this feeling to me? Who made me feel this way?

It is your fault. I'm talking about how it's your fault. We lost the game. What I'm really saying is it is the ref's fault that I feel disappointed. I'm not someone who should have to feel this way. I mean, it is so toxic and aggressive when you think about it that way. And then, unfortunately, sometimes I hear people join in. I know that ref was horrible.

The ref suck. It's one of those things where like I almost feel the need to intervene with strangers because I think it's one of these seemingly innocuous moments that teaches boys a lot in a toxic way about, first of all, what they're capable of. We're almost saying to them also, you're not capable of being disappointed. You're incredibly fragile, right? And we're saying you should go about the world looking for someone to blame with rage whenever something doesn't go your way. I mean, it's actually so poisonous. And so to me, there's this unique opportunity, even if it's just through youth sports,

to help boys orient back in. To be clear, this is my son saying this. I'm saying this. I wouldn't say, that's not true. You just feel disappointed. Like, I'm sorry, that's not going to help anyone. Yeah. But I would do a slight shift. And I think there's this tendency. It's really interesting when traditionally boys have felt upset, they gaze out and say,

whose fault is this? Traditionally, when girls notice other people upset, they gaze in and say, this is my fault. Right? And both need moderating. Yes, both are not ideal. And so if I hear my son, which of course has happened, it's not like these things happen on my house, blame a ref. I'll take a breath. First of all, I think the most underutilized parenting strategy in the world is something I call doing nothing. Doing nothing. People are like,

you're just going to do nothing. I'm not just doing nothing. Don't say just as if that's a passive decision. I'm choosing to take a deep breath and say nothing, which actually, when you're doing nothing on the outside, you're actually regulating your emotions like an adult on the inside, right? I'm going to just do nothing. And then usually a kid says it again. Did you hear me? The refs suck. And I might say, you wish you didn't lose. I'm just going to start to slowly shift my son, instead of gazing out, if I can tolerate that he is having an uncomfortable emotion, and it's not someone else's fault, he will over time learn to tolerate that same thing. You wish your teammate passed you the ball. Oh, you're saying if you got the ball at the end, you think you would have made the shot and it's just so disappointing it didn't go that way.

That is so much less toxic because, again, it's about indebted. internalizing. These feelings are mine. It's not like the world did them to me. And I think that there's such massive extensions over that because one of the reasons we see all these lower scores and, you know, not performing as well in a job is because when things get hard, they collapse or they rage and they don't know how to stay in it. And so I think we can really start that work early on. I think we've danced around this in this conversation, but I'd love to ask you explicitly. I have heard you say that a parent's job is not to make their kid happy. Yeah. In the simplest terms, what is a parent's job? I want to answer this in like a more vision way and then in a very

tactical way. I think in a bigger kind of vision way, a parent's job is to help their kid learn how to cope with the widest range of feelings and experiences they go through so that they are prepared to be resilient as they grow up. Very, very tactically, I think a parent always has two jobs. Setting boundaries, which are limits and decisions you make, that tend to be things that are good for your kid long term and that they're not happy with short term. Boundaries.

And the other part of your job is staying connected to your kid and understanding their experience and their upset feelings, which tend to come up in reaction to your boundaries. And I think the reason those are our two jobs is I think kids are always kind of asking us two questions, even though they never ask us these questions. First question, am I safe? And we answer that question by setting boundaries. We say there is an edge to things. I will stop you from doing things that are bad for you, whether that is hitting another child. I'm going to pull you out of the sandbox before even you do that because I know you tend to hit Bobby when you guys have to share a

truck. Or it's I'm keeping you safe by making decisions that are good long term for you that you wouldn't know how to make for yourself. Boundaries, answer, am I safe? And then the other one, which is going to sound real existential, okay, real deep, is I think the other question kids are always asking us is, am I real? Because our relationship with our feelings is arguably the most important relationship we'll ever have. And unlike other things, my feelings are so confusing because they're not visible. Like when you trip and skin your knee and you see blood, There's something useful about knowing that happened by seeing the blood. You're like, that was real.

Look at that. I'm bleeding, right? When you have jealousy course through your body, when you're sad that your mom's going out to dinner, when you're upset that you're the only kid not invited to Pia's birthday party, as we know, right, those are really intense experiences in your body, but there is no marker for it. Like, it's very confusing. And when we maybe hold a boundary, oh, no, I'm not going to call Pia's mom.

Let's say that's a decision or I'm not going to plan you, your own party and invite all of Pia's friends on the day of Pia's birthday. That's a boundary. But then when I say to my kid, I get that that was the worst recess ever. Tell me more about it. Oh, yeah, I'd feel like that too. It makes sense you're upset. Or even it makes sense you're upset with me that I won't plan a birthday party. What I'm actually saying to my kid in that moment is the thing.

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an audio mode like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, Masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. What do you think people get wrong about setting boundaries? Oh, so many things. I think number one, we just probably have an inaccurate definition of boundaries. So we can never do something well if we don't have a good clarification of what it is. And I think very often people think they're setting

boundaries when they're really making requests. And then you hear things like this. My mother-in-law doesn't respect my boundaries. My kid doesn't respect my boundaries. As soon as somebody saying, blank doesn't respect my boundaries, not always, but almost always, it's a sign that you're not setting boundaries. You're making requests. So I'm going to give a definition because I find it useful. It's very concrete and practical. A boundary is what you tell someone you will do. And it requires the other person to do nothing. Here to me is an example where we often get frustrated with our kids. We say they don't respect our boundaries. Then all of a sudden we're resorting to like counting to and threatening and all these things all in some ways because the moment didn't start with the boundary.

So we say, right, maybe, you know, again, when you just say Charlie, Charlie, give me the remote, TV time is over. Charlie, I need the remote. And then we start counting. I'm going to count to five, you know, and then usually Charlie doesn't listen. Charlie, if you don't give me the remote, no dessert tonight, Charlie still doesn't do it. We scream, we cry. And then I do this too. You end up at night being like sorbet isn't dessert. It's fine. You give them dessert anyway. You totally undermine and your authority and you go to bed feeling awful. All of that, if I was hearing that from a parent, what I would say is, first of all,

that sounds like a rough night. I've had nights like that too. This stuff is so hard. But let's actually start not at the end. Let's start at the beginning of this pathway where it went awry. And it went awry because you're actually not setting a boundary and you're kind of asking Charlie to do your job for you. And at this point, parents, like, what?

You know? Because we're all like, can it just be my kid's fault? I join that frustration. Right. But then we're giving our kid our power. Why would we give our kid our power? Let's get that back. And so, first of all, a boundary would be saying, if you don't turn off the TV, by the time I get over to you, sweetie, I will wrestle the remote from your hand. I don't want to do that, but TV time is over. I am telling my kid what I will do and the success of my intervention requires my kid to do nothing. That way I have all my power back. But an even better boundary, I would say, because who wants to be. I to get into a wrestling match is, why are we letting Charlie watch TV while holding the remote? If you know Charlie like I know Charlie, every time at the end of TV, he wants to watch another show,

he's going to have a hard time kind of managing that urge. He's going to cling to the remote thinking maybe I get one more TV show. So a boundary would actually be saying new rules starting today. There's actually no TV time unless I have the remote. I will turn it on and you will watch the amount we talked about and when it's over, I will shut it off. Now again, people I think have this fantasy when I say things like this to my kids. My kids are like, that makes a lot of sense, mom. Thank you. I really needed that. Now I won't feel so out of control. No. The only way a kid responds to your boundary when they're not used to it is a melta. Because actually if all of us adults think about something we really, really want, if I was like trying to go out the house to meet a friend,

okay and my husband essentially blocked the door you know what I would do have a meltdown I'd be like no let me right and maybe he blocked the door because I'm like sick and he knows I'm back to like give them all the flu he's like this is not a good decision still in that mind state I would protest and so if you start to know when I set a boundary and this goes back to jobs first of all I've done 50% of my job according to Dr. Becky I set that boundary that in an almost sick way I almost want my get to get upset because then I get to do the other part of my job And how efficient is that? I set a boundary. They're going to get upset. And then I could do the validation piece. Oh, you really want to hold the remote. Oh, I hear what you're saying. It feels like if you don't hold the remote when watching TV, it doesn't feel as good.

Meanwhile, people hear me say that. And initially, they're like, oh, and then you give the remote. No, no, no way. Validating my kid's emotional reality has nothing to do with the decision I'm making. This is also important in marriage, in work. You might have someone come in. They've worked at the job for one day and they're like, I think I deserve a promotion.

What do we want to say? You're crazy. It's not going to be effective. Oh, tell me more about that. Oh, you think you deserve a promotion because already you're doing more work than you thought, I hear you. You want to hear their story. Then you're probably going to hold a boundary and tell them what the promotion schedule looks like.

But those two are totally different. And again, if we start to think about boundaries in this empowering way, then you start to see this almost wash-wrench repeat that is emotionally exhausting in the beginning because it's new. But it actually gives you the opportunity to have impact over and over. I set boundaries, true boundaries. My kids tend to get upset. I can understand how they're feeling while I continue to have the boundary.

They might continue to be upset. And then actually, instead of just solving situation by situation, I would actually challenge someone thinking about this to say, in almost every situation, that feels really hard. Could it be that this dynamic is off? That there's, I would call job confusion. I'm either not setting boundaries or, you know, I'm not connecting to my kid when they're upset. Because almost I have found in every situation when there's an ongoing power struggle or ongoing kind of stuck situation, it comes back to these kind of family roles.

This is maybe nuance, but I know an adult boundary setting, and you have to be able to be like, well, then I just won't come to Thanksgiving and I won't call you, et cetera. Like you need to be able to take action to match your words, which is what you're saying. Sometimes in the kid ones, it seems like you need to physically have strength, almost. Like you're wrestling the remote. You're taking the kid off the couch. You're sticking them in their stroller to take them on a walk. What if the kid's like too big or strong for you to start doing these things physically? Look, I think boundary setting when your kids are young and this is again.

We're like, my frustration for the world is like, why would we know this? Like we spend a lot of years learning about Pythagorean theorem and I don't know, some, you know, cosign and sign. Like things that we don't use day to day. And so I just want parents to hear this to say, let me give myself the grace of just first knowing. How could I know what no one's taught me? That's just, that's not how knowledge works. So you're in the right place. The first part of your question speaks to how important it is to invest in our own parental education before our kids are so big where the struggles that arise from not having support become larger and larger.

If you're thinking my kid is now so old where we have all of these issues that I guess would, would, require me to have their phone be put away or whatever the equivalent is. And I can't just wrestle it from them. Then I think what we're really saying is, okay, let me zoom out from that. This has probably been a struggle for all the years. It's just that now it's surfacing in a way where threats, punishments, timeouts. When your kid is of a certain size, generally, those things stop working precisely because kids are like, yeah, I'm bigger than you. Yeah. I'm not going to go to my room and I know your threats are empty and what are you going to do? You have nothing over me. And we're not connected. We don't have a relationship. More than any other strategy, the only real

strategy there ever is is your relationship with someone. That's how we have influenced. That's why people do things they don't want to do is because they feel close to you. And so when we've spent our years doing the things that we all do out of desperation because nobody taught us, send our kids to the room, is what feels natural, is what was done to us, threaten, punish. We do end up getting to a point. You're like, wait, like, I actually don't have a relationship with my kid and they're full of anger. And then, yeah, setting a boundary is really hard. And then the starting point isn't just boundary setting. It's actually repairing your relationship.

So I think that's where things start. And by the way, it's not too late. We love helping those families that good inside. Also, and yes, the progress, understandably, isn't overnight. Why would it be? But it's 100% possible. And so I think there's two equal truths. It is never too late.

And what's equally true is it's just never too early. Because the flip side of your question, that's also important is if I invest in learning the stuff early, does that mean the teenage years won't be as tumultuous? Yes. Do you have any specific advice for ADHD parents or ADHD kids? Yes. There are so many different factors. So what we help parents with and kids, I never think of as the whole solution, mostly because I also don't trust anything that's the whole solution to anything complicated. And so I wouldn't want to position us that way.

So just what I'm about to say, this is not to say that all the other things parents do aren't important. But what I can say from my perspective is anybody with ADHD to me one of the core underlying skills that is so powerful to start building is something I call frustration tolerance, which is your ability to tolerate frustration, right? And if you think about frustration, frustration is involved in every multi-step process. Frustration is involved in any time you take on a challenge. Frustration is involved in any kind of menial, boring, but have to do it type of task. Frustration is involved in how I respond to my big emotions because all my big emotions to some degree are distressing and uncomfortable, which means they're frustrating as compared to happiness and success and ease and numbness.

Right? So to me, thinking about how do I start to build tolerance, which doesn't mean exiting from. Tolerating frustration is not about finding the exit from frustration. It's actually about if I'm sitting and doing math and after 10 seconds, I'm like, oh, I can't do this. How would I help my kid get to 20 seconds? It doesn't mean they're even going to write away finish the problem. But what would that look like? Right? And same thing. If I notice what I'm sitting with my kid, right? Doing math, that I have a hard time tolerating the frustration at the moment.

What are some small things, again, not to not be frustrated. I'm going to be frustrated, but just to again, stay in that space a little bit longer. I think there are skills around growth, mindset. There are skills around understanding how learning works. There are so many visual tools. There are so many kind of things that we can visually lay out for people. So they, again, understand how this works versus what happens to a lot of kids with ADHD is they have a lot of shame, right? Which is one of the reasons why they can feel explosive in hard moments.

So understanding learning, understanding how to tolerate the process, building actual skills to cope with frustration. I feel like too often with ADHD, frustration tolerance isn't talked about. And to me it's just, first of all, I think all of us can benefit. fit from learning more frustration-tolerant skills, but that is to me I've seen as one important component. I think another important component, and this is where ADHD has so much overlap with a concept I call that I originated deeply feeling kids. Deeply feeling kids like kids with ADHD, they experience a lot of shame whenever they feel vulnerable. So when they feel overwhelmed, it's not just like a melting down overwhelm. Like, oh, it turns into anger, into again kind of

blame because the shame can make us all more explosive. To me, understanding shame and a parent becoming like a shame detective is so important when you have a deeply feeling kid or a kid with ADHD or you have a kid who's an overlap and kind of it all fits because so often as a parent we take shame personally or we take it literally like, get out of my room, but they don't really want you to get out of their room. They're just kind of saying I'm overwhelmed and I'm scared you're overwhelmed too. And then we say understandable things like, fine, I'll leave you alone. But then a kid is just left with even more shame. Like, oh, I didn't actually really want that. I just didn't know how to manage it. And I think when you become this kind of like shame detector, all of a sudden,

you literally see your kid in those moments a little differently. You have a different filter. And then it's easier to respond in a more grounded way because you actually understand what's happening in front of you. Well, and to the point of so much of what we've been talking about, you probably see your partner in different ways. You see your friends in different ways. If you're looking for shame everywhere. A hundred percent. Is there one pragmatic skill we could practice to build our frustration tolerance? Sure.

One skill I think about is talking to yourself at the same time about something that's hard for you now, kind of validating what I'm going through in this moment, and then following up, and I'll give some examples, with a version of yourself who isn't as overwhelmed by that pain. So in some ways I'm saying validating my current reality and saying, say, you know, and seeing a more hopeful future. For example, maybe I'm working on math. This is really, really hard, and I will be able to make progress. And the and really matters, not the but. Because what I'm saying is I see my reality. It's true. Let me name that. And I can even name a path forward that maybe

I can't access in that moment. But as soon as I name it, my frustration in the moment is going to feel more manageable because it doesn't feel like the entire truth of my existence. I'm a parent watching my kid do math homework and I'm like, oh my goodness, I want to be anywhere else. But here, this is really hard or even this feels totally unenjoyable and I can do hard things. Anytime you're able to validate your reality and see kind of hope for a more capable or competent version of yourself, you're actually helping yourself tolerate the frustration of that moment. So we can say it to our ourselves internally and we can say it to our kids externally. 100%.

I like visuals, so I always think one foot in validation. And if there's a hole, holes like you're in a hole, you're hard. Like one foot is in the hole. But like one foot is out of the hole. And I'm not, by the way, we usually do one or the other. Oh, this is awful. I'm all in the hole. Or why am I making a big deal out of nothing?

Neither is a good strategy for frustration tolerance and neither helps our kids. You see our kid do math homework. Again, if we're totally in the hole with that. And we're like, oh, this is too hard or, oh, stop freaking out. But I'm freaking out. And if we're totally out of the hole, right, we might say, all the other kids have figured this out. You're making, again, you're making a big deal out of nothing.

If I'm one foot in, one foot out to myself, I'm saying this is really tricky and I've done tricky things before. And I'm saying it to my kids. You're right. This math homework is super hard. And you are a kid who can do hard things. Another one of your shifts that I've personally found really helpful as a non-parent is the difference between an LGI mindset and an MGI mindset. Can you explain that?

Yes. So I love this idea of separating behavior from identity, right? And I think it's as helpful in adult relationships or with ourselves as it is with kids. But it's really hard to implement. And it's just like a complicated thing. You're like, oh, I heard Dr. Becky say behavior and identity. And even I hear myself say that. I'm like, what cloud am I living in?

I don't even know these words. Okay. So to make it really concrete, we often see someone's. behavior or see our own behavior. And then we just get super critical. And I actually think that is what happens when we have an LGI mindset, meaning least generous interpretation. For example, I see my kid hit someone and refuse to apologize. I'm like, my kid's a sociopath. That's it. They're sociopath. They're going to be in jail. I mean, obviously I've collapsed one behavior and two, identity. But what I'm really saying is I'm using the least generous interpretation of what my kid did.

Even just asking yourself the question completely changes things. Okay, Becky, hold on. What is my most generous interpretation of why Charlie hit Pia? Even if I don't have an answer because people are like, I don't know. It's just the asking, we underestimate how much asking ourselves a question is the intervention. We think the intervention is having an answer. No, just asking yourself a question opens up your aperture. What?

And then, but you might even have an answer eventually. Oh, well, Pia had his favorite truck and he couldn't manage, you know, whatever came up from. Same thing for ourselves, right? Maybe you have been late to work for a couple days. We tend to use an LGI. I'm so lazy. I'm the worst. Everyone hates me. MGI would say, okay, it's my most generous interpretation. Oh, you know, last week I did have a bad presentation and maybe part of me is just like scared of going to work and I'm trying to avoid it every day. Okay, that's what's going on. And then I think people think when you have this MGI, somehow it's excusing bad behavior, it's letting yourself off the hook.

I always think the irony is if you want to let yourself off the hook for change, have a least generous interpretation because then you've encoded your behavior in such shame that you can't even look at it. And how could you change something that you can't look at and understand? So when you have an MGI, okay, well, I think I've been nervous about going to work because I'm just like so scared I'm and see my boss every day and they're going to tell me again how bad that presentation is, once I understand that, I can brainstorm. Okay, maybe I should talk to my boss, actually not out of fear, but out of, hey, let's just go over that presentation again. I've been nervous. Or maybe I talk to a friend about it. Or maybe whatever it is, now I can actually

cope because an MGI has actually helped me get out of this shame, frozen state. And after we're out of shame, we can actually make movement. Are there any other kind of hot button parenting topics or things that have been on your mind recently? We actually hit on a lot of them. We actually hit on a lot of them. I mean, I think boundaries is a big one, especially because I think, again, in the way our culture has made it harder and harder to hold two seemingly oppositional things at once, the idea that I could care about my kids' feelings and still be a very firm authority, people increasingly, I think, have a hard time understanding those two things that wants, also because it hasn't been modeled to us in parenting. And so I feel very passionately about letting people know, yes, validating your kids'

emotions, caring about your kids' emotions is a big part of good inside, but what is an equally big part is setting boundaries and not letting your kids' feelings just because you care about them dictate your decisions. And so boundaries to me, I think help make this parenting approach. First of all, it's just, it's true. Boundaries are very important, but it makes it more accessible because you're like, oh, right, so I care about my kids' emotions, but that doesn't mean I'm raising snowflakes. And I think it's really important for us to understand that. That's number one. Not making our kids happy to me is always a hot button topic because if there's a sure bet way of raising kids who are anxious and fragile, it's making them happy in childhood. Because what you're

really saying is the only emotion I believe you're capable of coping with is happiness. And guess what? That raises kind of a kid who becomes the adult who thinks unless they're happy and comfortable, they can't really do anything. And then look, the more zoomed out thing, and I'm always happy to have a platform like yours to get this out in is I just think the idea that parenting is a skill, is a really powerful generational shift. And again, we can hold two things at once. Yeah, the love for your kid comes naturally. Certain moments come naturally.

But in any important area of our life, we've never thought that instinct alone has been enough. And the only thing that really comes naturally in your interactions with your kids and your responses with your kids is repeating the interactions and responses that were done to you when you were a kid. And maybe some of those you want to repeat, but if any of those you don't, then you can get a roadmap.

You can get an education to say there is a different way. And I can learn it. And I'm not behind. And I didn't mess up my kid. And a mantra I say to myself a lot is just the right time to change is always right now. I just find that so helpful in so many areas of my life. Oh, I don't go to the gym the last two weeks. Becky, okay, I can be lost in that and I won't go to the gym for the next two weeks.

Or I can say the right time to go to the gym is always right now. And I just find that hopeful and activating and movement making. That's something I'm always excited to talk about. We always like to end with one homework assignment, something that people can do the second that they turn off this podcast that will bear an immediate result. So given the nature of what we've been talking about, maybe you could give us a homework assignment that will help us both as parents but also as people. This is great.

Okay. So let's take this idea of behavior versus identity or most generous interpretation and just make it a homework assignment. And so there's two prompts. Okay. To me, if we all right now think about something that we're kind of ruminating on, something we did that we're not proud of. It's the thing that like we just have heaviness about and it could be something recently. It could be something a while ago. And then I want to shift to this kind of sentence as like a homework to fill in the blank. I'm a good person who. It's a really powerful sentence. starter. So let's say I'm a parent. I yelled at my kid. And I'm being like, oh, I messed up my kid forever. I'm a good person who yelled at my kid. Because what we usually tell ourselves is I'm a monster. I'm horrible. If anyone ever saw me, they wouldn't believe, right? And again, this is just as helpful unrelated to parenting, right? It could be, I'm a good person who's been late to work. I'm a good person who keeps forgetting to pick up my partner's prescription, right? And I think that sentence starter is a really powerful and concrete first step toward change because it allows us to be a little more compassionate, a little more curious. And I think a lot of us think compassion and curiosity

are dangerous in some way, but they're just new because a lot of people have not approached us in that way. But we can now as an adult start to approach ourselves that way. And I think another extension of that, it's just a different way of saying it because the only different language is just what is my MGI of? So think about something with yourself or something just with someone else. What is my most generous interpretation of why my colleague has been late to work? What is my most generous interpretation of why my partner has forgotten my prescription three times? And what if then I interacted with that person, not just based on my frustration, but based on my MGI. And to do one kind of moment where you interact that way and then report back. Love it. Do you want to take a second to spotlight

in your own words, everything that's going on in the whole world of good inside? Sure. I mean, there's just so much we do at Good Inside, and I'm just very invested in really, I think we are creating a new category of saying parenting is a skill. Parenting deserves ongoing support and education, given we are ongoing parenting all the time. And so Goodinside.com is the hub for everything. Our membership is all available in an app. And this is the other thing. I think for so long, parenting hasn't been thought of as a skill. And so why would you innovate in something that's instinct? We are innovating, not just in our approach. but in technology, you should have a sophisticated parenting coach in your pocket. Any question that comes up, how to get ahead of future things, how to handle things. So that's what our app is. That's available at goodinside.com, but also our podcast, our newsletter, our Instagram, my book, which you can buy or get at the library. Like there's just so many other ways if this peaks interest to be like, oh, let me take

that first step. And I'd love to welcome people to my newsletter. I love being able to kind of share thoughts. That's also at goodinside.com and it's totally free. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. This was absolutely wonderful. Thank you.

This is awesome. Okay, that is all for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you know somebody who is navigating the challenges of parenting either themselves or a child and could use a little extra support in their journey, send them this episode. Or if you just want somebody to discuss it all with, it is the best way to support the podcast. Just click the link, click copy, send a text message. And it also gives you some really interesting conversation topics. Also, are you following the podcast yet?

Can you just take one second really, really quick and just check? Following is hugely, hugely helpful for us. And it also makes sure that you never miss an episode and we have so many good ones coming up. Trust me, you do not want to miss them. We are able to bring you this show completely free thanks to the amazing brands that we partner with. If you are looking for science back products to elevate your life, you can find all of our current discount codes at lizmoody.com slash codes.

And don't forget to send up for our newsletter, the takeaway at lizmoody. substack.com. It's where you'll get full transcripts for each episode, and we do deep dives into all of the latest wellness trends and find out the real science. Lastly, come hang out with me on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody. It's where you'll get to hang out with me like we're buds. You'll get to hear all the weird thoughts that I have throughout the day. Okay, I love you. I so appreciate you choosing to spend your time with me today. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz smoothie podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a

physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.