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Good Inside with Dr. BeckyGood Inside with Dr. Becky

How Do I Keep My Patience as a Parent and Not Lose It?

Dr. Becky Shares Parenting Advice on the Streets of NYC Who wants free parenting advice? 👋 I’m Dr. Becky, and today I’m taking to the streets of New York City to talk with real parents about the challenges we all face - big feelings, anxious teens, and the struggle to hold it all together. In this episode we cover: How to start potty training How to stay on the same page as your partner when it comes to parenting How to communicate with your toddler How to keep your calm and not lose it 📍Filmed in New York City, this episode brings parenting off the internet and into real life - because sometimes the best advice happens face-to-face. Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: / drbeckyatgoodinside Sign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletter

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Dec 1, 20259mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Parenting without losing it: process over outcomes, communicate early limits

  1. Potty training works best when parents focus on the learning process (body awareness) rather than pressuring for the outcome of peeing/pooping in the potty.
  2. Creating low-pressure “potty options” and narrating bodily cues helps children build self-trust and autonomy, which reduces resistance.
  3. Accidents are framed as necessary practice data, not failure, because mistakes are how children learn the sequence of noticing, getting to the potty, and releasing.
  4. In co-parenting transitions (e.g., paternity leave handoffs), the goal is not preventing upset or guilt but improving communication by listening to understand rather than to fix or prove.
  5. Patience improves when parents identify and express needs and boundaries at “level 1–3” irritation—accepting that others may be briefly upset—so resentment doesn’t build into explosions and guilt.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Treat potty training as body-awareness training, not toilet performance.

Dr. Becky reframes success as the child recognizing internal signals and moving through the steps to use a potty; the pee/poop is the byproduct of that process.

Reduce resistance by removing pressure and repeated prompting.

Leaving floor potties available and avoiding constant “Do you want to sit?” questions helps kids feel ownership rather than control battles in one of the few domains they can manage.

Model the internal sequence out loud to make the invisible visible.

Narrating “I feel like I have to pee
 I’m waiting
 now I’m going” teaches the arc from sensation to action, which is often the hardest part for young children.

Welcome accidents as information, not evidence something is wrong.

Using a sports-practice analogy, she argues that mistakes are required to refine timing and awareness; a calm response keeps learning online and shame offline.

In parenting partnerships, aim for understanding first, not perfect agreement.

She encourages “listening to understand” and consuming the same resources (book/workshop) so partners can at least “speak the same language,” even with different thresholds for chaos.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Where potty training goes wrong is we focus so much on the outcome. Did you pee? Did you poop? That's actually not the focus. We want to help our kid learn to recognize what's happening inside.

— Dr. Becky

So when your kid has an accident, I want you to say to yourself, "This is part of the process. I actually want this to happen. This doesn't mean things are going wrong. This means my kid is exactly where they need to be. This is how they learn."

— Dr. Becky

I think that's probably the most underestimated thing in any partnership is just listening to understand versus listening to fix or prove.

— Dr. Becky

"My number one job is to keep you safe. I'm not gonna give you the scissors. I know that's so annoying. You're allowed to be upset about it."

— Dr. Becky

Like, it's like people say to me, "Why am I fine until I explode?" Nobody's fine until you explode. It just means something's happened where we've ignored level one, level two, level three, level four, level five, and then we're at level 10- Right ... and it all comes out.

— Dr. Becky

Process vs outcome in potty trainingChild bodily awareness and autonomyUsing narration/modeling to teach internal cuesNormalizing accidents as practiceCo-parent “baton handoff” and shared languageListening to understand vs fix/proveLimits, boundaries, and preventing parental blowups

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