Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction

“As a result, many parents see behavior as the measure of who our kids are, rather than using behavior as a clue to what our kids might need.”

“Finding the good inside can often come from asking ourselves one simple question: “What is my most generous interpretation of what just happened?”

“Building resilience is about developing the capacity to tolerate distress, to stay in and with a tough, challenging moment, to find our footing and our goodness even when we don’t have confirmation of achievement or pending success.”

“underneath perfectionism is always an emotion regulation struggle. Underneath “I am the worst artist in the world!” is a child who could envision the picture they wanted to paint and is disappointed in their final product; underneath “I stink at math” is a child who wants to feel capable and instead feels confused; underneath “I let down my team” is a child who can’t access all the moments they played well and is mired in their missed layup. In each case, that disappointment—or the mismatch between what a child wanted to happen and what actually happened—manifests as perfectionism. And, because perfectionism is a sign of an emotion regulation struggle, logic won’t help—we can’t convince a child that her art is great or that math concepts are hard for everyone or that one missed shot doesn’t define an athlete.”

“if we don’t build a sturdy foundation with our kids—one based in trust, understanding, and curiosity—then we have nothing keeping them attached to us. I think about the term “connection capital” a lot. It refers to the reserve of positive feelings we hopefully build up with our children, which we can pull from in times of struggle or when the relationship between us gets strained. If we don’t build this up during our children’s earlier years, well, we have nothing to draw on when our kids are adolescents and young adults”

“We Don’t Do Fair, We Do Individual Needs” I see so many families set a goal of being “fair” as a method of attempting to decrease conflict, but in fact, making things fair is one of the biggest propellants of conflict. The more we work for fairness, the more we create opportunities for competition. When we make things fair, we increase a child’s hypervigilance; we essentially say, “Continue to watch your sibling like a hawk. Make sure you keep track of everything your sibling has, because that’s how you can figure out what you need in this family.” And there’s a longer-term reason why we don’t want to aim for “fairness” in our families: we want to help our kids orient inward to figure out their needs, not orient outward. When my kids are adults, I don’t want them to think, “What do my friends have? What are their jobs, their homes, their cars? I need what they have.” Talk about a life of anxiety and emptiness. It leads to a life with no interiority—no sense of who you are on the inside, only a sense of how you stack up to other people on the outside.”

“Now you have your job description: keep your child safe, emotionally and physically, using boundaries, validation, and empathy.”

“many parents see behavior as the measure of who our kids are, rather than using behavior as a clue to what our kids might need.”

“Here’s something I start saying to my kids early on: “Did you know that learning is hard? I mean it! Every single time any of us learns something—me, you, everyone—it feels frustrating!” If my child seems to be taking in what I’m saying, I’ll continue: “And also, listen to this, because this is weird . . . Frustration, that feeling of ‘Ugh, I can’t do it’ or ‘Ugh, I want to just be done already!’ . . . that’s a feeling that tries to trick our brain into telling us we’re doing something wrong, but actually, this feeling is a sign that we’re learning and doing something right! It’s such a tricky thing. Let’s be on the lookout for that feeling so we can remind ourselves we are learning and that learning is supposed to feel this way.”

“Multiplicity is what allows two people to get along and feel close—they each know that their experience will be accepted as true and explored as important, even if those experiences are different. Building strong connections relies on the assumption that no one is right in the absolute, because understanding, not convincing, is what makes people feel secure in a relationship.”

“Self-blame is another common coping mechanism for kids whose parents don’t attempt reconnection after tough moments.”

“Now, a quick praise caveat: commenting on what’s happening inside a child, or a child’s process and not product, orients a child to gaze back in instead of out. Comments like, “You’re working so hard on that project,” or “I notice you’re using different colors in this drawing, tell me about this,” or “How’d you think to make that?”—these support the development of confidence, because instead of teaching your child to crave positive words from others, we teach them to notice what they’re doing and learn more about themself.”

“Parents are often told to “name the feeling” when our children are upset (“You are so mad!” or “You’re feeling sad, I know”). This can be useful when we are trying to connect with our kids in “regular” moments, but in moments of big tantrums, I find that validating the magnitude of the feeling is much more effective.”

“Psychiatrist Ronald Fairbairn may have said it best when he wrote, regarding children and child development, “It is better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the Devil.”

“A child’s job in a family system is to explore and learn, through experiencing and expressing their emotions and wants.”

“When children are rude or even downright defiant, parents have two choices: we can view the behavior through the lens of disrespect for us (“My child does not respect me!”) or through the lens of emotion dysregulation for them (“My child is having a hard time right now”). It’s tempting to default to that first lens—it’s the easier, often more ingrained route. But think about yourself—why are you rude to people sometimes? Why would you talk back to or disobey your boss? I come up with the same reason, every time: I feel misunderstood. I am looking to feel seen and don’t. I feel frustrated that someone else isn’t really hearing me, and my relationship with that person isn’t as strong as it could be in that moment. Knowing what would make me act out helps guide my approach to rudeness or defiance in kids.”

“Imagine your child has an emotional bank account. The currency in this bank account is connection, and their behavior at any moment reflects the status of their account, how full or depleted it is. I mentioned earlier the idea of this “connection capital”—when we really connect with a child, see their experience, allow for their feelings, and make an effort to understand what’s going on for them, we build our capital. Having a healthy amount of connection capital leads kids to feel confident, capable, safe, and worthy. And these positive feelings on the inside lead to “good” behavior on the outside—behavior like cooperation, flexibility, and regulation. So in order to create positive change, we have to first build connection, which will lead kids to feel better, which will then lead them to behave better. But note, behavior comes last. We cannot start there. We must start with connection.”

“I often think that parenting is really an exercise in our own development and growth; when we have kids, we are confronted with so many truths about ourselves, our childhoods, and our relationships with our families of origin. And while we can use this information to learn and unlearn, break cycles, and heal, we have to do this work while also caring for our kids, managing tantrums, getting by on limited sleep, and feeling depleted. That’s a lot.”

“Understanding that we’re all good inside is what allows you to distinguish a person (your child) from a behavior (rudeness, hitting, saying, “I hate you”). Differentiating who someone is from what they do is key to creating interventions that preserve your relationship while also leading to impactful change.”

“For perfectionists, behavior is an indicator of identity because they’re unable to separate the two; this is true when perfectionists feel good about themselves and when they feel bad about themselves. For example, reading a page of a book perfectly (behavior) means “I am smart” (identity), while mispronouncing a word (behavior) means “I am stupid” (identity); trying to tie your shoe and succeeding the first time (behavior) means “I am great” (identity) while messing up the loops (behavior) means “I am awful” (identity). To help kids with perfectionistic tendencies, then, we want to show them how to separate what they are doing from who they are. This is what gives kids the freedom to feel good in the gray—to feel capable inside after their first attempt at tying shoes doesn’t work or when they’re struggling to read. Perfectionism steals a child’s (and adult’s) ability to feel good in the process of learning because it dictates that goodness only comes from successful outcomes. We need to show perfectionist kids how they can find their good-enough-ness and their worth outside success.”

“The more connected we feel to someone, the more we want to comply with their requests. Listening is essentially a barometer for the strength of a relationship in any given moment. So when our kids aren’t listening to us, it’s critical to frame the struggle not as a child problem but as a relationship problem.”

“When you make a decision you believe in but you know will upset your child, you might say as much to your kid: “Two things are true, sweetie. First, I have decided that you cannot watch that movie. Second, you’re upset and mad at me. Like, really mad. I hear that. I even understand it. You’re allowed to be mad.” You don’t have to choose between firm decisions and loving validation. There’s no trade-off between doing what feels right to you and acknowledging the very real experience of your child. Both can be true.”

“The best match for a child’s whining is an adult’s playfulness. When we respond to a whine with silliness or humor, we offer what a child needs the most: connection and hopefulness, both of which are present in lighthearted moments. (Though, it’s important to remember that playfulness is not mockery. The first is intended to connect and add levity, the second is distancing and adds shame.) The next time your child says, “I need you to get me my pajamaaaaaas!” take a deep breath, remind your body you are safe, and then try something like, “Oh no oh no oh no . . . the whines again! How the heck did they”—walk over to the window, look around outside—“get in here again?” Continue with your monologue, and watch your child loosen up. “Okay, I don’t know how they got in, but let’s get some of those out. Throw them onto some other kids!” Walk over to your child and pretend to “take” the whines out of their body, then throw those whines out the window or door or something else. Then return to your child and say something like, “Okay, sorry, what? Oh, you want your pajamas?” You can get them for your child at this point. You aren’t “reinforcing” the whine, you are just adding playfulness and connection.”

“Helping our kids through tantrums relies on our ability to see through the event that set off the “meltdown” and recognize the real, painful feelings underneath. Learning to recognize a tantrum for what it is on the inside rather than reacting to what is happening on the outside is a vital parenting skill.”

“It probably comes as no surprise that I’ve never been one for trade-offs. I believe you can be firm and warm, boundaried and validating, focused on connection while acting as a sturdy authority. And I believe that, in the end, this approach also “feels right” to parents—not just logically, but deep in their souls. Because we all want to see our children as good kids, see ourselves as good parents, and work toward a more peaceful home. And every one of those things is possible. We don’t have to choose. We can have it all.”

“The quality of our relationships with others is only as good as the quality of the relationship we have with ourselves.”

“we don’t want to talk our kids out of their fears because we want them to trust their feelings of threat and discomfort. Down the line, we want our children to trust their feelings when they’re in truly threatening situations. We want them to follow their instincts when they think, “Hmm . . . something is off here. My body is telling me this isn’t right. I need to leave this situation.”

“the most impactful thing we can do with our kids is to show up in a calm, regulated, non-rushed, non-blaming, non-outcome-focused way—both when they are performing difficult tasks and when they are witnessing us perform difficult tasks.”

“All good decisions start with feeling secure in ourselves and in our environment,”

“Our confidence that someone will understand us, not judge us, and support us, comfort us when things go wrong—this is what allows kids to develop into adults who are assertive, confident, and brave.”