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Good Inside with Dr. BeckyGood Inside with Dr. Becky

How to Be a More Confident Parent (Even When You Feel Lost)

You’ve probably said it - or heard it: “Nobody knows what they’re doing.” It’s meant to comfort us as parents. And sometimes it does. But… is it actually true? In this episode of our ongoing Is It True? series, Dr. Becky and Myleik Teele take a closer look at this belief - and what might be more helpful to hold onto instead. They explore: - Why this idea can feel relieving… and also limiting - The pressure to “prove” you’re a good parent in hard moments - What it really looks like when a parent *does* know what they’re doing - And the powerful role of **curiosity**—about your child and yourself Through real-life moments (public meltdowns, getting hit in a school line, vacation chaos), they show how parenting isn’t about having it all figured out - but about learning, adjusting, and building skills over time.

Dr. BeckyhostMyleik Teeleguest
May 5, 202631mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:32

    Rethinking the parenting mantra: beyond “nobody knows what they’re doing”

    1. BE

      There's a sentence parents say to each other like it's a warm blanket, "Nobody really knows what they're doing." And it's usually delivered with that kind of shrug, or it's delivered over coffee, or just kind of whispered in a group text after a rotten day. And without a doubt, it is meant to make parents feel better, and sometimes it definitely does, and sometimes it makes you look around and think, "But maybe some people do. And that mom at pickup, when that parent is dealing with that tantrum, like I like the way that parent handled it. And this other parent who's telling me how they dealt with their kid lying, hmm, I don't know if I would've done that, but I kinda like that, too." And then there's a bigger zoom out. If nobody knows what they're doing with the job that probably impacts our own life and the world in the biggest way, I don't know, does that maybe mean something else if we're all just winging it? And can we think about that question without going to the extreme and the opposite? The opposite extreme is, oh, someone has it all together and is always perfect. Is there anything in between that would be useful as a framework? Well, Myleik is here again to help me unpack this, 'cause I think it's really important, and I wanted to talk to her about it. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm glad you're here.

  2. 1:32 – 3:17

    Public meltdown at the pizza place: embarrassment, pressure, and performance parenting

    1. MT

      My, my oldest just... We're at the cutest little pizza place by our house, and I'm by myself. I have the stroller. I have my, I have my tablet. I've got it. I've got all, everything I need. Screaming-

    2. BE

      Mm

    3. MT

      ... on the floor, threw the tablet on the ground. Every-

    4. BE

      Threw it?

    5. MT

      Threw it. Threw it.

    6. BE

      The adaptability.

    7. MT

      Hanging out of the stroller.

    8. BE

      Uh-huh.

    9. MT

      I'm trying to order a pizza.

    10. BE

      Uh-huh.

    11. MT

      Everybody's staring at me, and I'm just like, "WTF?"

    12. BE

      Yeah.

    13. MT

      WTF? How did I get here?

    14. BE

      [laughs]

    15. MT

      How did I get here? I mean, he's th- threw this expensive thing that he supposedly likes.

    16. BE

      Right.

    17. MT

      And he's on the floor, and he doesn't care.

    18. BE

      Yeah.

    19. MT

      And it was just, he, no matter what I did, seemed to do, it wasn't ending.

    20. BE

      And what, just get real, like what feels natural in that moment? Like, what's going on in your head?

    21. MT

      Snatched the tablet because-

    22. BE

      Yeah

    23. MT

      ... excuse me.

    24. BE

      Yeah.

    25. MT

      Next, it's like wanting to, like, put him back, and now I am on stage, and other, everybody's staring at me-

    26. BE

      Yeah

    27. MT

      ... and it's like, okay, I have to show everyone that I'm not okay with this.

    28. BE

      I have to kind of prove it to all of them.

    29. MT

      I have to kinda let everybody know that, hey-

    30. BE

      In what way? Like, we get, we all get, like, a little-

  3. 3:17 – 4:25

    Catastrophic thinking after hard moments: from tantrum to ‘my kid is doomed’

    1. BE

      So you end up getting home. You survive that moment, and I'm just thinking probably most natural is, something, I don't know, so- something's wrong with my kid. Like, uh-

    2. MT

      Yes

    3. BE

      ... bad kid, disrespectful kid, spoiled kid, ungrateful kid, sociopath kid? Which, which are the words that come out?

    4. MT

      [laughs] All of them.

    5. BE

      All of them.

    6. MT

      You know, I just thought, like, first things first, this is, this will never end for me. This is going to happen every time I try to-

    7. BE

      Mm

    8. MT

      ... go somewhere. I'm nervous that every time I take him out and he's not happy, and I, and I thought I have, had all the things that-

    9. BE

      Yeah

    10. MT

      ... would help this situation hap- go well, this will happen for the rest of our lives. He's not going to be c- he's not going to get very far, because he's going to be doing this in school.

    11. BE

      Yep.

    12. MT

      And I- I just, I'm, I'm seeing out into the future. He's gonna be unemployed. He's gonna be living with me forever.

    13. BE

      Ugh.

    14. MT

      This is what I'm thinking.

    15. BE

      Sorry about that.

    16. MT

      Yeah. [laughs]

    17. BE

      Sorry that that's happening. Um, it's not, but you know.

    18. MT

      Right, it, it-

    19. BE

      We're, we're already like, "All my friends are gonna think I'm a horrible parent because my 23-year-old lives with me," and you're like, I, I just-

    20. MT

      And it all started at the pizza place on the floor when I-

    21. BE

      Can't believe I started there

    22. MT

      ... that's where it started. And had I, had I done it right then, we wouldn't be here.

    23. BE

      And no one's, but no one knows what they're doing.

    24. MT

      Right.

  4. 4:25 – 5:26

    The turning point: trading blame for curiosity

    1. BE

      Right. As soon as I get out of my kid is gonna be like this forever mode-

    2. MT

      Right

    3. BE

      ... or, well, nobody knows what they're doing mode-

    4. MT

      Right, that's it

    5. BE

      ... I actually can be, and this is something I know you're, this muscle is strong for you. You can be curious.

    6. MT

      Yes.

    7. BE

      Right?

    8. MT

      Which took time. Which took time. It was not something I feel like I could do easily-

    9. BE

      Mm-hmm

    10. MT

      ... because I was so busy trying to figure out what I did. You know, I'm, I'm alr- always thinking like, if something happens, like what did I do? It's like, did I not-

    11. BE

      Mm

    12. MT

      ... wake him up early enough? Did I give him the wrong food?

    13. BE

      Mm.

    14. MT

      You know, did I go too far? You know, was it, you know, did I-

    15. BE

      Yeah

    16. MT

      ... did he have the tablet too long? I'm thinking of-

    17. BE

      Mm

    18. MT

      ... all these other things that maybe I did versus getting curious and saying like, "Huh, what's going on?"

    19. BE

      Yeah.

    20. MT

      Yeah.

    21. BE

      It, it is kind of-

    22. MT

      I'm either, yeah-

    23. BE

      That's it

    24. MT

      ... blaming myself or figuring out, you know, or maybe it's him.

    25. BE

      Right.

    26. MT

      It's not me.

    27. BE

      It's always someone's fault.

    28. MT

      It's always someone's fault.

    29. BE

      Your fault.

    30. MT

      Yeah, yeah.

  5. 5:26 – 6:15

    No ‘experts,’ no perfection: rejecting both extremes

    1. BE

      I just wanna come out and say this. Nobody knows what they're doing all the time with parenting. Like, you know this about me, I think, like, when someone's like, "Parenting expert, Dr. Becky Kennedy," I'm like, "Stop calling me that."

    2. MT

      [laughs]

    3. BE

      And they're like, "Oh, did I get your name wrong?" And I was like, I just hate the word expert. I really do, because I, I really do feel like I'm someone who loves to learn.

    4. MT

      Mm-hmm.

    5. BE

      Like, I love learning. I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that." I find it exciting, and maybe it's a limited understanding, but I think experts are kind of at the end of their learning journey. Like, they've-

    6. MT

      Oh

    7. BE

      ... reached the top of the mountain, and-

    8. MT

      Right

    9. BE

      ... that feels very sad to me.

    10. MT

      Yeah.

    11. BE

      So I just wanna say that If one myth or one idea is, "Nobody knows what they're doing"-

    12. MT

      Yeah

    13. BE

      ... I think actually what's equally untrue is somebody always knows what they're doing.

    14. MT

      Yes. Nobody knows what they're doing all the time.

    15. BE

      Nobody, right?

  6. 6:15 – 9:14

    What ‘knowing what you’re doing’ looks like: calm authority without proving yourself

    1. MT

      But there are times when people, you know they know what they're doing. It's like, I- you've seen people, they're in the grocery store, there's someone with multiple children, someone's screaming, and it's just almost like they ki- they're kind of flawlessly moving things around, and they're, it's like-

    2. BE

      Paint me a picture of that. Like, what's the moment? I'm curious about this, and I'm not trying to set you up for a certain answer, but I'm generally curious what you're gonna say.

    3. MT

      Okay.

    4. BE

      What's the moment in parenting, and you can make up a person, it doesn't have to be real, that you're like, "Wow, that chick, that dude knows what they're doing." Like, I'm impressed.

    5. MT

      Yes. There, there's a story.

    6. BE

      Okay.

    7. MT

      I, there's this time that my son went to this one camp, and I was waiting behind a parent that a couple of the camp counselors came out to say, like, to tell on her son.

    8. BE

      Mm.

    9. MT

      They were like, I, you know, and I'm just sitting there, like, "Uh-oh," you know?

    10. BE

      Right.

    11. MT

      So they came out, and they, I was feel, you know. They came out, they were like, "Um, Mom, we need to talk to you. He did this and he did that," and, and on and on and on, and she, when I tell you my girl was cool and calm, she said, "Okay." Okay, so then her son came out. I'm still waiting, and I'm like, "Oh, she's gonna-

    12. BE

      Oh, the hammer

    13. MT

      ... yeah, yeah, she's... And they're standing there waiting for her to come down on him, and she was just like, "How was everything today?" She, okay? She was like, "Great. Good to see you." She, they stood there, everybody watched. I get m- so, and I kinda can hear her walking away on the stairs. I get my son and I see them in the like, um, the, they're getting, like, a smoothie, and I'm like, "I gotta, I gotta get the rest of this." I stand, we get in line, and she is not shaming her son. She didn't let those counselors knock her off her game. I was like, "She, she's going to handle this." I could tell that she was going to handle it, but she didn't need to erupt in the moment, prove anything to them.

    14. BE

      Mm.

    15. MT

      And I was like, "She's got it." I just, I felt like she's got this handled, and I was like, "She knows what she's doing."

    16. BE

      Yeah.

    17. MT

      "I'm in charge. I'm the boss. I got it."

    18. BE

      Mm-hmm.

    19. MT

      "I don't need to do anything right now for you."

    20. BE

      Yep, I'm not proving-

    21. MT

      Mm

    22. BE

      ... my good parenting-

    23. MT

      No

    24. BE

      ... to you by being overzealous about something that I actually don't even think would be helpful in the moment.

    25. MT

      Yes.

    26. BE

      So good.

    27. MT

      And they kind of just-

    28. BE

      Mm-hmm

    29. MT

      ... like, walked out, and then I could tell she, she, the way she was asking about his day was, she was trying to get to it.

    30. BE

      Yeah.

  7. 9:14 – 10:47

    From behavior to meaning: Dr. Becky’s puzzle story and the ‘why’ behind lying

    1. BE

      You know, I think about a moment, I think one of my proudest moments as a parent, okay?

    2. MT

      Okay.

    3. BE

      Was, it was a while ago, but I just, the story is so visceral, I don't know why, where my youngest, I knew, totally ruined this puzzle that the four of us were working on.

    4. MT

      Yeah.

    5. BE

      Me, my husband, my older two kids were working on a puzzle. My son was young at the time, and we came back after a break, and, like, half of the puzzle pieces that we'd put together were, like, gone. We don't have a dog, okay?

    6. MT

      Okay.

    7. BE

      Like, and I don't really believe in, exactly, in ghosts, right?

    8. MT

      Mm-hmm.

    9. BE

      So I was like, "I know, I know what happened here." And I was like, "Hey, what'd you do with the puzzle pieces?"

    10. MT

      Mm-hmm.

    11. BE

      And he was just like, "I don't know what you're talking about."

    12. MT

      Oh.

    13. BE

      And something in the moment, I don't know, I just was able to drop down into, I prob- he's a kid who fashions himself to be very capable, so for him to not be able to participate in something the four of us are doing is really painful.

    14. MT

      Okay.

    15. BE

      And my guess is ruining the puzzle probably is trying to, like, ruin and erase that feeling.

    16. MT

      Right. But my question to you is always-

    17. BE

      Yeah

    18. MT

      ... how do we get there?

    19. BE

      Yeah.

    20. MT

      Right? How do we get there? Because, I mean, I can think of my proudest moment, but I'm just-

    21. BE

      Yeah

    22. MT

      ... I know how often we, as parents, have these times where it's like, you know, who knows how much this puzzle was, or it was a gift from someone special.

    23. BE

      Totally.

    24. MT

      And it's so hard to get there.

    25. BE

      Yeah.

    26. MT

      How do you do it? Tell us.

  8. 10:47 – 12:23

    Core skill: decoding behavior (and why ‘it is what it is’ blocks growth)

    1. BE

      So if we can first say, wait, there's something between nobody knows what they're doing, and people know what they're doing all the time. I'm just gonna try to live in between. Then probably the biggest thing to try to learn is decoding behavior.

    2. MT

      Okay.

    3. BE

      It's the, it's the f- what we do when we see a kid's behavior is we assume we know everything about them.

    4. MT

      Right.

    5. BE

      Which makes sense, because behavior is observable. We see it.

    6. MT

      Right.

    7. BE

      Trying to understand the feeling underneath, the struggle underneath, the wish underneath, the fear underneath, those things, forget not being visible, there's no blood test for them.

    8. MT

      Right.

    9. BE

      You're not like, "Oh, you were actually scared," so you have to wonder, you have to kind of use this most generous interpretation, and then you have to do something else, because when you do that, for example, my son really struggles when he doesn't feel capable.

    10. MT

      Okay.

    11. BE

      He was struggling to feel left out. I kinda know that about him. It's not about saying after, "Oh, so everything's fine."

    12. MT

      Right.

    13. BE

      He, no.

    14. MT

      That's how he is and then-

    15. BE

      That's just how he is.

    16. MT

      Yeah.

    17. BE

      That's another one.

    18. MT

      Yeah.

    19. BE

      It is what it is.

    20. MT

      [laughs] Right.

    21. BE

      It is. That's, we'll, we'll unpack that one.

    22. MT

      Or, or that's just how they are.

    23. BE

      That's just how they are.

    24. MT

      Yep.

    25. BE

      Right, maybe it's, it's kind of, right, I guess that and nobody really knows what they're doing all have this, it's really interesting My visual of it is the same as expert, even though it almost sounds the opposite.

    26. MT

      Yes.

    27. BE

      It's just a final dot.

    28. MT

      Yep.

    29. BE

      Experts know.

    30. MT

      Mm-hmm.

  9. 12:23 – 15:47

    The tennis coach analogy: curiosity isn’t permissiveness—it’s competence

    1. BE

      But I think, Myleik, what’s interesting to me is in so many other areas, even for children and their development, we implicitly get that we have to understand what’s underneath to help a kid. So for example, let’s say you have a kid who’s a tennis player.

    2. MT

      Okay.

    3. BE

      And they keep hitting the ball into the net. That’s not good for tennis, right? We know that.

    4. MT

      Right.

    5. BE

      The ball’s supposed to go over the net.

    6. MT

      Over, right.

    7. BE

      Okay. You could say over and over, "Stop hitting the ball into the net."

    8. MT

      Mm-hmm.

    9. BE

      "Stop hitting the ball into the net," because that’s observable-

    10. MT

      Right

    11. BE

      ... and nobody wants that.

    12. MT

      Right.

    13. BE

      But a good coach probably says, "I see the ball going into the net. I don’t know why exactly. Let me, um... Is it the grip?"

    14. MT

      Mm.

    15. BE

      "Is it their body position?" And then you actually might, "No, that’s all fine. Oh, it’s interesting. This kid feels so much pressure on themselves. They keep saying, 'I suck. I’m gonna lose.'" So I love this idea that when you see a problem on the surface, the behavior-

    16. MT

      Mm-hmm

    17. BE

      ... that’s valuable information.

    18. MT

      Okay.

    19. BE

      But it’s just a clue. It’s not the whole thing. The whole thing for the tennis player isn’t that the ball goes into the net. That is a clue to help me think as a coach, what’s actually the problem?

    20. MT

      Mm. Okay.

    21. BE

      And then maybe as a coach, I’m like, "It’s the grip." I would never say, "Oh, it’s the grip. Okay. N- okay, now, now I have to help them change the grip."

    22. MT

      Right.

    23. BE

      So my son, I think there is, like, a process, and the reason this is a practice is 'cause we have to practice this thought process-

    24. MT

      Multiple times

    25. BE

      ... a, a, a day, or, or at least when we lose it, we're like, "I'm gonna go back to it."

    26. MT

      Right.

    27. BE

      It's a practice. It's a muscle.

    28. MT

      Yes.

    29. BE

      And that is a skill of trying to understand what's happening for humans-

    30. MT

      Right

  10. 15:47 – 18:17

    Applying curiosity to yourself: yelling, triggers, and self-compassion

    1. BE

      And so I think that it, there's other things, too, but the interesting thing is when we start to try to figure out what's really going on under behavior, we also start to apply that framework to ourselves.

    2. MT

      That's it.

    3. BE

      So, so tell, go off on that because I know your parenting journey has involved that, too.

    4. MT

      Oh, my-

    5. BE

      Mostly that. [laughs]

    6. MT

      Yes, yes. No, I, I feel like parenting has made me a better person in so many ways-

    7. BE

      Yeah

    8. MT

      ... across the board, but if I can be curious about my kid, I can be curious about myself.

    9. BE

      Mm-hmm.

    10. MT

      And I feel like I have so much more sort of, like, self-compassion because I'm not just like, "Oh, I'm bad at that," you know, putting the period on, "Oh, I'm not a, I'm not good at this," or, "I'm, I'm bad at that." It's like, "Huh, why don't I do that," or, "Why a, do I maybe run late on this or-"

    11. BE

      Yeah

    12. MT

      ... "avoid that?" Versus just like, "Oh, I'm, I'm bad at replying to texts," or I'm, you know. It's like, "Huh."

    13. BE

      Or talk to me about yelling.

    14. MT

      Ugh.

    15. BE

      Like, if you yell at your kid-

    16. MT

      Mm-hmm

    17. BE

      ... what's the level where your own curiosity, practicing the skill of curiosity? 'Cause the easiest thing is, "I'm, I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I yelled at my kid." But if you practice curiosity, I'm curious, what does that sound like inside your brain?

    18. MT

      If I be- [laughs] I can tell, I now know when I'm going to yell.

    19. BE

      Tell me.

    20. MT

      When we go on vacation-

    21. BE

      Mm

    22. MT

      ... and it is, it is the first seven minutes in that hotel room, and the pool's outside, the bathing suit's in the, in the luggage. They are excited, but I can't find the room key.

    23. BE

      W-

    24. MT

      Where's my phone? My, my, my, my-

    25. BE

      And I need to unpack. I'm like, "Don't you wanna unpack?" And they're like, "No."

    26. MT

      And-

    27. BE

      Ugh

    28. MT

      ... I will, you know, I will, I, I will scream.

    29. BE

      Yeah.

    30. MT

      And even this one time, I feel like I, I took my kids by myself because my partner, their dad, takes, he's taken them twice on, on an airplane, and I was feeling like, "You know what? I can do this."

  11. 18:17 – 19:03

    A key insight: both extremes kill curiosity—so confidence lives in the middle

    1. BE

      If you can practice the skill in between nobody knows what they’re doing... Oh my goodness, I just figured something out, live. I love talking to you.

    2. MT

      Yeah.

    3. BE

      Do you know what is remarkably similar about nobody knows what they’re doing, and some people have it all figured out?

    4. MT

      What?

    5. BE

      Both are completely anti-curiosity.

    6. MT

      They are.

    7. BE

      If I know what I’m doing all the time, I’m never curious.

    8. MT

      Never.

    9. BE

      And if nobody knows what they’re doing-

    10. MT

      Uh, there’s no need to be

    11. BE

      ... I’m not curious.

    12. MT

      No.

    13. BE

      So actually, they’re remark- they are two sides of the same coin-

    14. MT

      Right

    15. BE

      ... because the coin actually has to do with the total lack of curiosity.

    16. MT

      Correct.

    17. BE

      What’s in between is actually just, can I be curious? Can I be curious about myself? Why am I yelling there? Because then if I can say, uh, it was actually really triggering when my kids were young. They were like, "I wanna go to the pool." I’m like, "I wanna unpack."

    18. MT

      [laughs]

    19. BE

      "Can’t you wait? I took you on this nice vacation." Like, ugh.

    20. MT

      Right.

  12. 19:03 – 22:59

    Micro-interventions that actually work: slowing down transitions (vacation + bedtime mismatch)

    1. BE

      But if I can say, "Becky, I’m going on vacation tomorrow. Let’s get real."

    2. MT

      Mm-hmm.

    3. BE

      I’m probably gonna have the urge to scream at my kid. Instead of some people have it figured out, which would tell me I’m a horrible mom, or nobody knows what they’re doing, in which case I’m just gonna yell at them because I can’t do anything differently anyway, I actually wanna tell you what I do on vacation, because you and I are similar. Hey, when we get to the room, like, and my kids were younger, I used to say, "Can we make a couple predictions?" And we used to, like, make them, it wasn’t anything crazy. How many lamps are there gonna be in our rooms?

    4. MT

      Oh.

    5. BE

      What color’s the bed gonna be? I can’t even tell you what would happen. It was like a trick. They would have something exciting to do in the room-

    6. MT

      Okay

    7. BE

      ... instead of just saying, "Pool, pool, pool,"

    8. MT

      [laughs]

    9. BE

      While I kind of had, by the way, I- I’m not saying this with some 15-minute adventure.

    10. MT

      Right.

    11. BE

      But it could even be, I mean, you know, that, the, the demand to go to the pool when you get to the room is, like-

    12. MT

      Is

    13. BE

      ... a split second.

    14. MT

      Yeah.

    15. BE

      So giving you two minutes, and then we play around. Oh, okay, so you think there’s gonna be a green wall. You think this, and it was almost like a little game. Oh, I was right. You were wrong. What’s the next thing? And that idea only came up because I was able to be curious about, well-

    16. MT

      Right

    17. BE

      ... what, what’s really going on there? What do I need?

    18. MT

      Yeah.

    19. BE

      Right?

    20. MT

      A little bit, we just came back from a trip, and what I did is I had them put their suits in their backpacks-

    21. BE

      Hmm

    22. MT

      ... so that now [laughs] you can struggle to get your clothes, because they’re still young, like, struggle, while they’re struggling to get their clothes off, and put them away, and try to get their suit on, I can at least get a breather-

    23. BE

      Yes, yes

    24. MT

      ... and find my own suit-

    25. BE

      Yes

    26. MT

      ... and just, like, get my bearings before they’re just like, "Mom, Mom, open the suitcase. Put my suit, put my swimsuit on. We gotta go." And so-

    27. BE

      Yeah

    28. MT

      ... now I was like, okay, I can slow this down some, and I didn’t, I didn't yell this time.

    29. BE

      And, and-

    30. MT

      But I-

  13. 22:59 – 27:00

    Sturdy boundaries in public: ‘No thank you’ and doing less in the moment

    1. MT

      I’ve had a lot of practice. I was thinking of my sort of proudest moment-

    2. BE

      Mm

    3. MT

      ... and because I told you about one of my worst, but my proudest-

    4. BE

      Yeah

    5. MT

      ... is it was, like, um, the day that you meet the teacher, and my son, "At what time is it?" I told him the time, and I just didn’t realize how many things he’s clocking at all times.

    6. BE

      Yeah.

    7. MT

      And so we get there. I apparently told him there wouldn’t be a line. I didn’t think there would be a line. We get there. There’s a line. We stand in the line, and there’s, I mean, this is our school. These are, these are, I’m gonna be with these parents for a long time.

    8. BE

      Nervous. [laughs]

    9. MT

      And he yelled at me and was like, "You said there wouldn’t be a line," and he smacks me in the back of my leg.

    10. BE

      Yeah.

    11. MT

      And everyone's looking, and I'm like-

    12. BE

      What did you do?

    13. MT

      ... I was sturdy because I have practice.

    14. BE

      Mm-hmm.

    15. MT

      And I just, you know what? I said, "No thank you. Do not do that," and we just kind of, like, walked on our way, but it wasn't for any, it wasn't for everyone. It's not like, "Oh, so it's okay if he hits you?" It is not okay if he hits me. It is not okay if he hits me.

    16. BE

      But no big lecture? Was it-

    17. MT

      But no. This is not the time for that. This is not the time, and I know, I know him well enough to know that Now, because I wrote about this in the community of, like, all the things that he expects.

    18. BE

      Yes.

    19. MT

      So I lied to him because he asked me, because this was important to him, and I didn't... I just gave him an answer because-

    20. BE

      Yes, yeah

    21. MT

      ... yeah, no, line, I don't know. Yeah.

    22. BE

      Right.

    23. MT

      Sure, you know. [laughs] I just gave him an answer because-

    24. BE

      Yeah

    25. MT

      ... I, because it doesn't matter, you know?

    26. BE

      Right.

    27. MT

      It didn't matter to me, but it mattered to him, and I wasn't hon- He didn't feel like I was honest, and he was upset. It is not okay to hit me, but I don't need to handle all of this here, because I, I do have some element of curiosity, and I'm like, I, in my mind, I was like, "He asked me."

    28. BE

      Yeah.

    29. MT

      "And I glossed over the answer because I-"

    30. BE

      Yeah

  14. 27:00 – 30:17

    Giving kids language for disappointment: ‘I wasn’t expecting that’

    1. BE

      Yeah, and wait, just, can we? I just wanna-

    2. MT

      [laughs]

    3. BE

      ... bring it home with this, because you told me something before we were recording, that your son said something recently around expectation that now, probably because of how many times you've said it to him-

    4. MT

      Yes

    5. BE

      ... he has started to say, instead of getting upset.

    6. MT

      He has. He, every, it's probably, like, 10 times a day-

    7. BE

      Yeah

    8. MT

      ... he's been saying, "Oh, I wasn't expecting that." You know, it's like you'll hand him his glass of water, and he'll be like, "Oh, I wasn't expecting that." What? What? You asked for water. What-

    9. BE

      Yeah

    10. MT

      ... what were you expecting? But I just realize he has all of these expectations, and now that he's not exploding as much, he's able to say-

    11. BE

      Mm

    12. MT

      ... "Oh, I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting that." It's so, like, he'll open the pizza box. He wasn't expecting that.

    13. BE

      But that would've been-

    14. MT

      Oh, you know, he-

    15. BE

      ... meltdown.

    16. MT

      Meltdown.

    17. BE

      Like the pepperoni, like you get-

    18. MT

      He opens the box

    19. BE

      ... you can get half pepperoni.

    20. MT

      Yes.

    21. BE

      And on one piece of the plain, if they like plain-

    22. MT

      Oh

    23. BE

      ... there's a tiny piece of pepperoni.

    24. MT

      Yeah.

    25. BE

      Meanwhile, you're like, "It doesn't matter."

    26. MT

      Right.

    27. BE

      "Don't have that one. You can have..." But your kid will have a full-blown meltdown, and it's interesting. It's such practice.

    28. MT

      Yes.

    29. BE

      You never get it perfect, but that is one of my favorite lines. "Oh, you weren't expecting a line. You weren't expecting pepperoni."

    30. MT

      Yes.

  15. 30:17 – 31:39

    Closing recap: the updated mantra and an unfinished story

    1. BE

      So we started with this question: Nobody really knows what they're doing, and I think we got to something really powerful, and I think we have an update to it, and I'm gonna hand it to Myleik to give us that update.

    2. MT

      Yes. The update to nobody knows what they're doing is nobody knows what they're doing all of the time. Can we tack that on the back of nobody knows what they're doing? Let's hold ourselves accountable.

    3. BE

      Love that.

    4. MT

      Yeah.

    5. BE

      The other thing I'm realizing, and I wanna make sure to hold myself accountable to, is I never got to finish the story here about how I showed up for my son when he lied to my face about ruining our family puzzle. And so I'm gonna write it up because it's a good story, and I wanna share it with you, and it's gonna be on the Good Inside blog. So you can just go to show notes, um, to follow the link, um, to see that part through. Now, let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground, and place a hand on your heart, and let's remind ourselves even as we struggle on the outside, [gentle music] we remain good inside. I'm excited to see you next week. [outro music]

Episode duration: 31:40

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