Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family
Mel Robbins (host), Dr. Stuart Ablon (guest), Narrator
In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, featuring Mel Robbins and Dr. Stuart Ablon, Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family explores six Words To Transform Conflict: People Do Well If They Can Harvard psychologist Dr. Stuart Ablon explains that most "difficult" behavior is not about a lack of motivation, but a lack of skills in five key areas like communication, flexibility, and emotional regulation.
Six Words To Transform Conflict: People Do Well If They Can
Harvard psychologist Dr. Stuart Ablon explains that most "difficult" behavior is not about a lack of motivation, but a lack of skills in five key areas like communication, flexibility, and emotional regulation.
His core philosophy, "People do well if they can," reframes conflict from a willpower or discipline problem into a skills and support problem, whether with kids, partners, coworkers, or struggling adult children.
Ablon outlines three response options—impose your will (Plan A), collaborate (Plan B), or temporarily drop it (Plan C)—and shows why collaborative problem solving, built on genuine empathy, is both more effective and less damaging than rewards and punishments.
Using concrete examples from homes, schools, prisons, and families dealing with depression, addiction, and social media overuse, he demonstrates how empathy-led collaboration reduces conflict, builds skills, and can even break intergenerational patterns.
Key Takeaways
Reframe all challenging behavior as a skills problem, not a motivation problem.
Adopting “People do well if they can” forces you to ask, “What skills or conditions are missing? ...
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Look for delays in five key skill areas behind problem behavior.
Struggles usually reflect lagging skills in language/communication, attention and working memory, emotion/impulse regulation, cognitive flexibility, and social thinking; identifying where someone is weak explains their behavior and points to what needs building.
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Stop overusing rewards and punishments; they often backfire and harm.
External motivators can reduce internal motivation and damage self-esteem by sending the message, “You’re not trying hard enough,” especially when the real issue is skill, not will—leading to more resistance and worse behavior over time.
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Consciously choose among Plan A, B, and C for each specific problem.
For any recurring situation, you can impose your will (Plan A), collaborate (Plan B), or temporarily drop the expectation (Plan C); making that choice deliberately—rather than reacting—keeps you strategic instead of escalatory.
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Use Plan B’s three steps: empathize, share your concern, then jointly solve.
First get their perspective fully on the table (empathy), then calmly share your own concern (not your solution), and only then invite brainstorming for mutually satisfactory solutions—this both calms the situation and trains problem-solving skills.
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Empathy is a regulator and relationship-builder, not a performance.
Real empathy means asking open questions, making tentative guesses, reflecting back what you hear, and reassuring you’re not about to impose your will; done consistently, it physiologically calms people and strengthens the “helping relationship” that predicts change.
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Breaking generational patterns starts with changing your mindset and tone.
Recognizing that your voice becomes your child’s inner voice—and that your own parents likely did well if they could—helps you replace yelling, labels, and punitive control with curiosity, compassion, and skill-building interactions.
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Notable Quotes
“People do well if they can.”
— Dr. Stuart Ablon
“If that person could do well, they would do well, and if they’re not, something else is getting in their way.”
— Dr. Stuart Ablon
“Challenging behavior is still tragically misunderstood and mistreated—and it doesn’t have to be that way.”
— Dr. Stuart Ablon
“If you give a dog a name, eventually they’ll answer to it.”
— Dr. Stuart Ablon (quoting his grandfather)
“It’s not your child’s job to help you understand them. It’s your job to figure out who they are.”
— Mel Robbins (paraphrasing a parenting insight she learned)
Questions Answered in This Episode
In a recurring conflict I have right now, what if I fully assumed “they would do well if they could”? How would that change my next conversation?
Harvard psychologist Dr. ...
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Which of the five skill areas (communication, attention/working memory, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, social thinking) seems most delayed in the person I’m struggling with—and in myself?
His core philosophy, "People do well if they can," reframes conflict from a willpower or discipline problem into a skills and support problem, whether with kids, partners, coworkers, or struggling adult children.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where in my life am I still relying on rewards, threats, or ultimatums, and what would a Plan B (collaborative) conversation look like instead?
Ablon outlines three response options—impose your will (Plan A), collaborate (Plan B), or temporarily drop it (Plan C)—and shows why collaborative problem solving, built on genuine empathy, is both more effective and less damaging than rewards and punishments.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What generational messages or labels did I internalize about myself (“lazy,” “difficult,” “too much”), and how might they be shaping the way I now speak to my kids or partner?
Using concrete examples from homes, schools, prisons, and families dealing with depression, addiction, and social media overuse, he demonstrates how empathy-led collaboration reduces conflict, builds skills, and can even break intergenerational patterns.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If I picked one specific situation—like screen time, schoolwork, or an unlaunched adult child—how could I walk through the three steps of empathy, sharing my concern, and joint problem-solving this week?
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Transcript Preview
It sounds like what we're gonna learn from you today is an entirely different way to look at-
Yes.
... and approach-
Yes.
... a situation where someone's pissing you off.
(laughs) You got it. What we've learned over the years is there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior.
What is it?
People do well if they can.
It's true.
Everybody wants to do well. There's just things getting in the way sometimes. If you're trying to motivate somebody when motivation isn't the issue, not only is it not gonna be effective, but it may- might make matters much worse. So when you shift your focus and you say, "People do well if they can," what you're saying is, "If that person could do well, they would do well, and if they're not, something else is getting in their way." And I personally don't buy that it's just a lack of motivation.
This is the simplest explanation, and the most empowering and encouraging explanation I have ever heard. Why does this get you so emotional?
Kids being misunderstood and mistreated, and it doesn't have to be that way.
Hey, it's your friend, Mel. I am so fired up that you pressed play and that you chose to listen or watch this episode today. This is going to be extraordinary. And it's always an honor to be able to spend time with you and to be together, but today in particular, I am so excited that we get to spend time with the extraordinary Dr. Stuart Ablon. I'm gonna tell you about him in just a second, but I wanna also take a moment and welcome you if you're a brand new listener. And I suspect there's gonna be a lot of brand new listeners around the world that come in through this particular episode, because I know you're gonna share this. That's how incredible what you're about to learn is going to be. And so welcome. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. You have picked a winner to jump into the Mel Robbins Podcast. And you know what it tells me? It tells me that you're the type of person who values your time, and that you're also interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life and your relationships. And today, you're gonna leave a changed person. I know I am. I have been following the work of the extraordinary Dr. Stuart Ablon for years, and I am so thrilled that we finally have him here today so that you and I can learn from him. We can grow, we can become better people, and we can use his research-backed approach to help us deal with the challenging people in our life. Now, Dr. Stuart Ablon is an award-winning psychologist. He has over 30 years of experience and he is an expert on challenging behavior. He's also the founder and director of Think Kids, which is a program in the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital. He's a professor at Harvard Medical School, and he started all of his work and research with children, but has found that everything that he's learned about dealing with somebody who's exhibiting challenging behavior, you know, they're frustrating you or you're deeply worried about them, that everything that you're about to learn applies to any relationship. It applies to adults, it applies to coworkers, it applies to your marriage. You're gonna love this. And I love the title of his new bestselling book, Changeable: The Surprising Science Behind Helping Anyone Change, and that's what the conversation is all about today. How you can use science to help anyone in your life, no matter how challenging or scary the situation might be. Yes, you can help them change. Dr. Ablon, it is such an honor to meet you. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
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