In this episode of Good Inside with Dr. Becky, Kier Gaines and host Becky Kennedy examine how parents' personal experiences, mental health, and past struggles shape their approach to parenting and interactions with their children. They highlight the importance of self-compassion and openness to seeking help and acknowledge the complexities that arise when couples have children.
The hosts emphasize that parents often fail to recognize how their own issues, rather than solely their child's behavior, contribute to frustrations with parenting. They advocate for modeling self-compassion, as well as embracing therapy as a tool for navigating evolving relationship and parenting challenges—even for couples in an overall good place.
Sign up for Shortform to access the whole episode summary along with additional materials like counterarguments and context.
Kier Gaines and Becky Kennedy discuss how parents' own childhood experiences and unresolved issues shape their parenting approach, often leading to frustration when actual parenting differs from their ideals. Kennedy asserts that parents' reactions frequently stem from their own feelings rather than their child's behavior. Both note that mental health struggles can significantly hinder effective parenting and highlight stress as a key factor in less-than-ideal responses to children.
Gaines and Kennedy explore society's outdated misconception of compassion as weakness and its misalignment with fostering resilience. They argue that modeling self-compassion and acknowledging struggles facilitates growth. Kennedy specifically cites harsh reactions to children's behavior as showcasing a lack of compassion.
Rather than suppressing emotions, the hosts advocate for developing self-compassion, which Gaines suggests parents demonstrate by repairing after mistakes. Kennedy also shares an anecdote linking lack of self-compassion to broader parenting patterns affecting children's learning.
Kennedy and Gaines depict children as significantly complicating a couple's dynamic through new responsibilities, conflicts over parenting approaches, and partners growing at different rates - making "touch points" to maintain connection challenging.
They emphasize therapy's value in providing objective guidance for evolving relationship and parenting challenges, even for couples in a good place. Gaines attended therapy before his first child to preempt difficulties, while Kennedy argues against viewing therapy as indicative of dysfunction.
1-Page Summary
Kier Gaines and Becky Kennedy discuss the profound influence that parents' personal experiences and mental health have on their parenting approach and effectiveness.
Kier Gaines talks about how becoming a parent can bring a person's own childhood experiences, both positive and negative, to the forefront, influencing their parenting style. He shares his own situation where he had to grow up fast and inadvertently suppressed his children's excitement because of his unresolved past issues. Gaines regrets not allowing his children the freedom to be openly joyous, acknowledging that his significant emotional influence on the household stemmed from not dealing with his personal issues earlier.
Becky Kennedy underscores that parents' reactions to their children's actions are often about the parents' own feelings and assumptions. Reflecting on her response to her child's sleep struggles, she wishes she had focused more on her child's need for security rather than insisting on independent sleeping.
Both Gaines and Kennedy agree that unresolved issues from a parent's upbringing can create a large gap between the ideal version of parenting they aspire to and the reality of their everyday interactions with their children.
Becky Kennedy speaks to the importance of self-care, urging parents to address their own mental health struggles to be more effective in their parenting role. She asserts that what often blocks effective parenting is the unresolved mental health issues of the parents.
Kier Gaines describes mental health as a struggle among mind, heart, and reality, all trying to coexist within a person. He argues that parents need to deal with their own mental health challenges to provide a positive environment for their children.
The connection between parents' personal experiences/mental health and their parenting
Kier Gaines and Becky Kennedy discuss the crucial role of compassion in parenting and how society often misunderstands it as a weakness rather than a strength. They explore how developing self-compassion and modeling it for children can actually foster greater emotional resilience.
Gaines discusses societal gender assumptions about masculinity and how compassion is often not associated with being a man. Instead, society leans toward qualities of strength and being protective, which can affect how boys are raised. There's a common fear, especially among fathers, that displaying too much compassion toward children can make them "soft" and ill-prepared for the challenges of the real world. These fears are rooted in outdated notions of grit and toughness as the primary drivers of resilience.
Kennedy highlights that criticism, shame, and blame thwart change, while compassion facilitates it. She also notes that harsh reactions to children's behavior reflect an inability to trust and allow, showcasing a lack of compassion. Furthermore, disagreements between parents on punishment may stem from a father's desire to raise the child well and instill a sense of reality about life.
Gaines talks about how parents sometimes feel they must earn compassion or may withhold it from themselves as a form of self-discipline, reinforcing societal misconceptions of self-compassion as unmerited or indulgent. Parents also historically withheld love and affection to instill grit, aligning with the belief that resilience comes from toughness.
Kennedy and Gaines emphasize the importance of exposing difficulties and struggles to reduce shame. Kennedy admits her own challenges in staying calm with her deeply feeling child and stresses the significance of acknowledging parenting struggles openly.
The term "good," as Gaines and Kennedy suggest, often implies suppressing emotions, which is detrimental in the lo ...
The role of compassion and self-compassion in parenting
Becky Kennedy and Kier Gaines discuss the profound changes that having children can bring to a couple's relationship and emphasize the value of therapy in navigating these challenges.
Kennedy and Gaines explore how children alter the couple's dynamic. Kennedy is skeptical about claims that having children is beneficial for a couple’s relationship or that it solves pre-existing problems, based on the experiences of people she trusts. Gaines notes that having children creates a new, shared focus for the couple, which introduces a different dynamic to the relationship. Children turn parents into fundamentally different people, creating new touch points and conflicts over things like childcare responsibilities and personal standards of parenting, all centered on the parents' identities.
According to Gaines, a relationship consists of two people who do not grow in the same direction or at the same speed, necessitating numerous "touch points" to keep the relationship intact. Children exacerbate these dynamics by introducing additional focus points that might not necessarily help to keep the partnership together.
Kennedy opens a dialogue about the role of therapy in addressing struggles with parenting and suggests it’s beneficial not just for the child or for parenting advice, but also for couples. Gaines sees therapy as offering an unbiased perspective that assists with coping, building strategies, and increasing awareness.
Gaines recommends therapy for couples even if things are currently going well, as relationship ...
The impact of having children on a couple's relationship, and the value of therapy
Download the Shortform Chrome extension for your browser