F*ck Around and Find Out Parenting

1. 0:00 – 2:02

   What “FAFO parenting” means (and common examples)

   1. BEDr. Becky0:00

      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 up front. There are other elements where I think we need to have a little shift of the dial, [gentle music] 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. Why has FAFO parenting

2. 2:02 – 3:03

   Why FAFO is trending: burnout, overwhelm, and gentle-parenting backlash

   1. BEDr. Becky2:02

      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 wanna 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

3. 3:03 – 5:06

   Advice overload disconnects parents from their own instincts

   1. BEDr. Becky3:03

      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, and my only question to this mom was, "Who's, 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 just said, "Yeah, I feel like that's how I'm living in the parenting world." And honestly, we're, we're sitting at this kind of event together, and I was like, "I just wanna give you a hug. Like, that, 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

4. 5:06 – 6:37

   Rejecting the false choice: hyper-involved vs. scorched-earth parenting

   1. BEDr. Becky5:06

      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 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, I j- I think that we can find something in between. I, 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 in Good Inside more and more, I notice 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

5. 6:37 – 8:08

   Safety and authority: where ‘natural consequences’ don’t apply

   1. BEDr. Becky6:37

      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. Fuck around and find out parenting also kind of forgets, like, I'm an authority here. I have power. I'm not gonna 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,

6. 8:08 – 10:11

   Intention matters more than the intervention

   1. BEDr. Becky8:08

      "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 kid's 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 wanna 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 wanna be parents of a 17-year-old who's responsible for putting their homework folder into their backpack. It's 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, I still want that job, but homework folder rememberer, 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

7. 10:11 – 11:12

   A better homework approach: scaffold skills instead of setting traps

   1. BEDr. Becky10:11

      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 wanna let you know, I'm not gonna 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?" Now, I know what you might be thinking. "My kid's gonna roll

8. 11:12 – 13:13

   Handling eye rolls: independence with connection

   1. BEDr. Becky11:12

      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 [laughs] 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?" And I promise you, your kid's gonna say, "Maybe I could like put a 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 Fuck 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, 'cause 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 wanna have the success myself. I don't need to pat myself on the back and be like, "Becky, I remembered my kid's 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

9. 13:13 – 14:14

   What’s good in FAFO: accountability is essential (but not via shame)

   1. BEDr. Becky13:13

      to do. 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, okay? 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 -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

10. 14:14 – 16:16

    The core balance: support vs. solutions (and avoiding both extremes)

    1. BEDr. Becky14:14

       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 wanna 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 kid success. That's not gonna bring accountability. My kid's just gonna 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

11. 16:16 – 17:16

    If FAFO sounds appealing, it may be a signal you’re over-involved

    1. BEDr. Becky16:16

       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 than 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 wanna be there for them when they struggle, without being hyper-involved or helicopter-y, and without kind of zooming out or backing up all

12. 17:16 – 19:21

    The honest confession: when resentment peaks, check your own needs

    1. BEDr. Becky17:16

       the way into just fuck around and find out. 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 wanna say, "You know what? I'm 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 wanna 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 work out, 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, well, 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

Episode duration: 19:23