Beloved parenting expert, clinical psychologist, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Becky Kennedy chats with Zibby about her highly anticipated debut picture book, THAT’S MY TRUCK!, which tackles one of the most common parenting challenges: hitting. Dr. Becky shares the inspiration behind the book, the psychology of hitting, and the power of addressing kids’ behavior with empathy rather than punishment. She also shares her shift away from traditional parenting methods and the Good Inside philosophy she developed, which focuses on skills over punishment and has become a popular parenting movement.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Dr. Becky. I'm so excited to be talking to you today. Congratulations on, That's My Truck. A Good Inside Story About Hitting.

Yay. 

Dr. Becky: Thank you so much for having me. So excited to finally talk to you. 

Zibby: Yay. And as we're talking, I know you hit the USA today list, so high up this morning. Really exciting. No surprise, but yay. 

Dr. Becky: Thank you. 

Zibby: Tell listeners about the book and if for some reason they have not heard of you yet and don't know about your expertise in the parenting space and what has made you so, just such a sensation in terms of how you think about parenting and kids and humanity and all of it. Give a little spiel about that too. 

Dr. Becky: You know, uh, first of all, I just, I love children's books so much. I really believe children's books can bring these kind of moments of connection between a parent and a kid. That, that I think, sometimes are really hard to generate on your own at the end of the day when you're stressed and overwhelmed, and if you reach for the right book, then in my mind has kinda a really meaningful, probably messy, realistic moment. It, it, it allows you and your kid to just end the day feeling really connected and to kind of have this deepening. And I just know children's books have done that, you know, with me and my kids, especially when they were younger. And that's the kind of book I wanted to write.

Now, the book in some ways is just kind of this manifestation of a lot of these ideas we have around what's really going on for someone when they act out. What do people need, whether they're two or 82? You know, what matters the most? And I think the biggest thing good inside really stands for is we really can be firm and boundaried and warm and connected to others all at the same time.

I think our boundaries kind of allow us to live our values. They kind of keep us connected to ourselves. Empathy and validation keep us connected to other people we love, and usually we're pretty good at one side of that or the other. Like most people are like, I really am good at understanding other people's feelings and I kind of lose myself along the way.

Or, oh, I've gotten the opposite feedback. I kind of always know what I want and sometimes forget. There's people I care about, you know, and I wanna understand them. And I think good insight is, is resonating with people because whether it comes alive in a children's book or in our app, or in these many programs we do, or in the way people are just applying it in the workplace or in our partnerships, there's kind of this sense of, oh my goodness.

There's this very practical way where I can feel like the most confident, sturdy, true to myself, version of me, and I feel closer and more connected to the people I care about. Most, and that's really what we're all about. Giving parents away to feel confident, to feel like they get back to what we call the sturdiness.

The sense of knowing what I want and kind of the limits I'm allowed to set because they just feel right to me and tolerating my kids' reactions and understanding they're not gonna be happy with me along the way and that kind of dance. And so what I really love about this book and what's come up a lot as I've talked about it, is I think our first children's book.

Is really about like a moment a lot of people don't like to talk about, like kids hit. They do. They hit often. That's one way where a kid says, I am angry and I don't yet have the skills to manage my anger. And so it's coming out as hitting. And to me this allows us to really explain what's going on in a different way than commonly is.

I think in the book we really illustrate Charlie's fear before he hits, oh my goodness, my sister had my truck. Like, what if she breaks it? Or I think a kid really does think like, what if she plays it at the wrong way? And that would be so bad. And then of course that feeling gets big. And then I don't think a kid really says, therefore I'm going to hit my sister.

No, it just happens. And that doesn't make it okay. But it helps us understand and also in the book we get into how a parent could, inter parent could intervene. And I just love this experience of, I can talk about these ideas, but bringing them to life with illustrations and like in very simple language like it, it helps I think a parent.

As much as it helps the kid. 

Zibby: I totally agree. I mean, you, you show us on all your social media videos, how to manage certain things like taking away an iPad or doing these things and you, you sort of like role play it for us. So we're like, oh, okay, now I get it. And this book is a way of doing that. And when you say, when you say to Charlie like, you're a good kid, having a hard time, right.

That is so empathetic. It's a different way of looking at it. It's so kind. He immediately changes. You can like see his whole body language and then the situation is diffused and that is such a, a generous way to show all of us how to parent. I feel like you need a thousand of these, right? For every situation.

Dr. Becky: Well, you know, that's probably in line with the number of children's books I would like to put out into the world because they're just. There's so many specific scenarios. We know as a parent, like every moment feels a little different. Hitting feels maybe a little different than kicking, and it feels different than verbal aggression.

And it obviously feels different than when you're kind of having your kid clinging to you at a birthday party and you're like, I'm the only one whose kid won't join soccer. Right. And I feel like bringing to life those moments is so powerful because I think what we've heard from kids a lot about this book and what I would like to be true about all the children's books I end up writing.

Kids actually are really resonating with how messy the moment is, how it's not even tied up with a bow at the end because. Sometimes I have this pet peeve with children's books where I'm like, that's, that's true in my house too. And then it's kind of like, and then Charlie never hit again. And I was like, well that's not true in my house.

And that's, I don't think that's how progress ever actually looks. And I think, I do think, I've never been afraid to like, name what feels true. I don't think naming what's true. Is the thing that causes problems. I actually think it's avoiding what's true that tends to cause problems and I'm just loving the words I'm hearing directly from parents.

Like where they're, they're this one page where we kind of illustrate the shame spiral that I think a kid feels after bad behavior. Down, down, down, bad, bad. And I had someone say when a kid just wants me to read the down, down, down page over and over. 'cause I think kids are like, I'm just trying to figure out these powerful sensations in my body and these things that happen, and I actually don't need you to fix it. It's the confusion about it and the feeling alone in it. That's the worst. And the more I just understand myself, same thing for us adults. The more we understand ourselves, the more we're able to change.

And I think our children's books will be different from others and that we're always gonna just try to name what's true. We don't feel like we have to tie it all up with a bow. Um, and we believe these are just powerful ways to understand kids or kids to feel understood, and for parents to have a better sense of how they can show up in a sturdy way.

Zibby: Well, it's really like what you're doing is treating. Kids with the respect that they deserve, the way you would put yourself in someone else's shoes. You do that for kids, which so many people don't. And I know you talk about this in good inside with like how the, the theories before were all about behaviors, but we're not, we're, we're actually like raising human beings here.

And it's a little bit different. And the behaviors are not always the whole story. They're like a little bit of the story. And that's so true for grownups. Like this is a good model for grownups as well as for kids. 

Dr. Becky: A hundred percent and we have this kind of very binary way of thinking about it, where if I say to a group, um, of parents, okay, your kid hit, I guess that's a problem.

But what I would say is it's actually not the problem. Like it's a symptom of the problem. It's kind of like if you watch a kid play tennis and they keep hitting the ball into the net, okay, that's a problem. Obviously it should go over the net, but saying to a kid. Hit the ball over the net, like I don't think anyone would think that's a great coaching job.

Like is it the grip? Is it the strength? Is it their body position? Is it actually that they're just saying to themselves in their head over and over, I'm an awful tennis player. I'm an awful tennis player. Just because the ball was hit into the net, it doesn't mean you actually understand the problem. You just know that there's something that you need to understand, and if you can activate curiosity, okay, I want my kid to hit the ball over the net, and then you can say what might be going on, what's really underneath here?

I just don't think anyone would say to me, you're a really permissive tennis coach. It's like an absurd thing to say. You're just reinforcing. Hitting the ball into the net by being curious about what's causing that. Like it's actually nonsense. If I say it out loud, they'd be like, that's what any good coach would do.

You'd be like, well, what's actually the source of this? And then talking to a kid about how the issue is really their grip doesn't mean you're reinforcing hitting the ball into the net. Like it doesn't even make sense. But if you think about hitting, we say this all the time. If I say to my kid, oh, it's so hard to see your sister have your favorite truck, I understand that people we've been taught, oh.

You're basically saying it's okay to hit, like I'm definitely not doing that, but we collapse that with our kids' behavior and probably our adult behavior where there's almost something we've learned. We're being curious about bad behavior or being compassionate about the underlying reasons equals permitting or reinforcing bad behavior.

It's like this weird math equation that's been passed down through the generations, even though we never think about that with sports. No one ever thinks giving kids swim lessons when they can't swim. Is telling a kid that it's okay not to swim and we would never say that. And I just think more generally, yes, we're trying to help people see, hold on, I can be curious about my own bad behavior.

I can be curious about the underlying reasons of my kid bad behavior. That doesn't mean I'm permitting behavior. That sets the foundation you need to improve behavior. And that just totally changes our approach to parenting and, and to understanding ourselves. 

Zibby: Thank you for improving my tennis at the same time.

Dr. Becky: Always. You know, we gotta be efficient with our time here, ladies. 

Zibby: No, but it's, it's so true. It's like when someone tells. When someone tells me like, don't, well, I'm worried about something. Well, don't worry. Well, it's like, well I'm, that's not what, like, I'm not gonna just turn it off. It's the same thing like, don't be sad.

Like, well, don't be upset that she has, well, you deal with it, like dealing with it. Like that kind of thing. Just that it just doesn't work. It doesn't work for kids who have limited conversational ability. Like we forget how young they are. Like if they could say, you know, that's right. It's truly like, bumming me out today and it would really be so much better if you could just.

Maybe we could work out some sort of agreement with this toy and da da da. Like that's not gonna happen. So what can they do? 

Dr. Becky: Exactly. I actually was talking to a group recently about the book and I was like, let's be honest. Like, did anyone see the recent season of White Lotus? Like you think those three women really understand how to deal with jealousy well, like, okay, maybe they're not hitting each other, but when one of them leaves and they're just talking smack, like, I don't know. It's kind of the adult version of being out because you don't know how to manage anger or jealousy or insecurity. And to me, the most amazing thing.

About kids' bad behavior. Okay? Is if you have a really long-term view, and I always like to say at good inside, we're very long-term greedy in our parenting because we actually give you so many strategies that help right away. And I feel like we're all kind of parenting for the years our kids are out of our house.

We want them to still be in a relationship with us. We know the stakes are higher if they don't know how to manage hard situations. So if you think about that when your kid hits or when your kid says, I hate you, right? What they're really saying is. I am struggling to manage anger, disappointment, jealousy, some hard emotion.

When our kid is 20 and 40, they're still gonna feel anger. They're still gonna feel jealousy, they're still gonna have disappointment. No one gets those feelings outta the body. And in some ways, our kid's bad behavior when they're young, gives us this like amazing opportunities that, oh my goodness, if I can look at this behavior, not as a sign of who my kid is, but as a sign of the skills my kid needs to develop.

And in a weird way, I'm almost grateful that they're hitting at four because I'd actually rather start to deal with this at age four. And when you start to build skills at age 24, it is totally possible, but I don't think any of us think that's as fortunate as if a kid could start to build the skills at age four and have some of them at age 24.

Zibby: Well, it's like picking up tennis at 24 versus four. You're all the kids who learn early, they're, you're usually better. 

You're more comfortable with it. 

Dr. Becky: So that's right. And if you've learned fundamentals. In tennis when you're young or if you've learned fundamentals in swimming. Mm-hmm. You're gonna be a stronger swimmer in the ocean later on.

Yep. If you were just optimizing for swimming in a training pool, like the quickest, easiest thing, maybe it looks like you're a good swimmer as a 4-year-old, but I don't think we feel confident about that person swimming in the waves later on. And so I really do believe at Good inside we're doing something.

And this is even bigger than the book, like. And this is the kick I'm on if I'm, if I'm honest, like there is no other job in the world that is as hard that we are told from society should just come naturally. Mm-hmm. And I think there's this comfort we have with this idea of maternal instinct, but I think it's just like the nastiest, most, almost women hating narrative that there is.

Because if parenting should just come purely by instinct. Then the corollary to that is in every moment that I don't know what to do or I feel stuck, the only answer is that I'm broken because I should find this easier. I should be able to figure this out on my own. I just don't know any surgeon who's like, I have a surgical instinct.

I don't need to go to med school, don't need to go to residency. I just listened to some reels on Instagram, a podcast here and there, and I'm ready to operate. I mean, and the irony is, it'd be you and I, we would never go to that doctor, right? We'd be like, no, thank you. Like we wanna go to the doctor who's gone to med school and residency, maybe even had a mentor for years.

And takes pride in that education. So I think my larger message to parents separate from hitting is the only thing that comes naturally in parenting is how you were parented. And so if you wanna do anything even a little bit different, which a lot of us do. Then we should think about investing in a true substantive kind of parenting education the same way we've probably taken education seriously at any every other part of our life when we were doing a job that probably mattered less to us than parenting.

There is no shame in raising your hand and saying, I need help. And I actually look forward to the day where like. I'm a CEO and a founder now of a company. My fellow CEOs and founders, they brag about the executive coaches they have. They have such pride, you know, and I just look forward to the day when parents are like bragging about the kind of guidance and support and education they get, and that's the world.

More than any book or something that's really the world like I wanna help create. 

Zibby: Which is amazing, your theory that people are fundamentally good inside. That is something I also believe, yes, it is something I have believed my whole life that we are all good. We all have a story to tell. If we all just like shared who we are, we would connect on a deeper level.

But I feel like there have been a lot of things happening in the world where. Being that belief of mine is questioned, which sort of throws off my, my own belief system. R is everybody good? Do you still, can you still believe that. 

Dr. Becky: I, I think this, again, is something where we can kind of collapse multiple things.

And just because you believe people are good inside, which I do doesn't have anything to do with whether we wanna associate with them, whether we believe in what they're doing with their actions, whether it's excusable, right? Someone being good inside. Again, I've never looked at my kids saying, I hate ude me, and being like, well, they're good inside, so I just don't care.

No, it just changes how I intervene. So I really do believe, like when babies enter the world, all of them, I do, I believe they're born good inside. I just don't think there's a baby who's like, I cannot wait to be older and screw over the world and like mess everyone. I, I, I don't believe that. Just, and at the same time, I'm a pragmatist.

We come into the world good inside, I believe still in adults. They're good inside. And yet we develop circuits. We develop ways of relating to the world and other people and ourselves, and we operate with fear and all of those really shape. How over time we show up to the world and then the impact we have on the world being good inside has nothing to do with having good impact on the world.

And those are two very different things. So I guess what I believe in this moment, people are born good inside and there's a lot of very kind of broken, fearful extraordinarily psychologically and emotionally immature people. They're essentially babies and toddlers running around in adult bodies. And if I think about the big picture, I really believe the way, one of the ways you can change the world is through how you raise the next generation of kids who will become the adults who take over the world.

What really powers me to get outta bed every morning is to think like there's a lot of people out there and there's a lot of even startups, right? Like people are like, why? Why is this a startup? Why don't you just write books? Why do you have an app? Why do you have a whole engineering team? I believe the best way to have the impact we want to have in the world is to have something that not only is an idea. Combines that with modern technology to reach the most amount of people that we have apps that make our lives more convenient. Why is it a question? Why do we have to get an SEO optimized article that isn't meant for our kid? And we have AI in our app.

There's an amazing chat bot. Why? Because I believe that's what we need to actually make the impact. And I, maybe I am this like eternal optimist, but I'm also a p pragmatic person. I really do believe this movement. Can have this impact of truly saying we are putting a better generation of kids into the world and we are also simultaneously healing, you know, the adults who raised them along the way.

Zibby: That's beautiful. So in addition to writing your books and starting this movement, you have made a movement into. Like, you've scaled this in such an impressive way and you've, you've turned an idea and a mission into something that millions of people consume and are inspired by and make their lives better.

How did you do that?

Dr. Becky: Well, first of all, thank you. And it, and my honest reaction is there's something about the question that I'm like, I, I feel like I have to formulate it differently. 'cause this might sound cheesy. It's true. Like I, I don't really feel like I did that. Like I really don't, that's like my honest truth.

And anyone who knows me would be like, Becky has no problem taking credit, but think she does. So it was a different question. I'd be like, I did that. I really don't think I did that. And I think. I really would describe good inside, not as a company, not as just an app, not as a book, as a movement. 

And to me, when I think about a movement, I think about something generative. Like my image for a movement, at least for good inside, is I know for me, maybe this started, like I was so lit up inside by these ideas and, and it took an unlearning for me. I was raised not, I was raised, I was trained do teach parents how to give timeouts and punishments and sticker chart.

That's how I was trained. And at first I did that because I was like, this makes sense. I love it. I was like, wait a second, like this. Maybe this doesn't make sense. Maybe we've just been told this for hundreds of years and this is just a system of behavioral control. And Hold on a second. If I yelled at my husband and he was like, Becky, that's unacceptable. I'm taking away your phone for a week. I, I just, why would that, that would. I promise you not help me or my relationship with my husband. Right? And kids don't really need things that are different anyway, I just like unraveled. And then what I really got back to was a couple things. I believe kids are born in good, good inside.

And I believe we are all born with all the feelings and none of the skills. And anytime feelings, overpower skills in life, they come out as bad behavior. That's why we do yell at our partners sometimes we have a built up feeling of frustration or feeling misunderstood. The skills we have to manage, those feelings are lower than the intensity of the feeling.

So it explodes out of us, and I just, I just had this like aha moment. Oh my goodness. We've been like blaming the feelings and the behaviors. The real issue is the lack of skills. That's the issue with swimming too. No one's born knowing how to swim. Nobody thinks we teach kids how to swim by sending them to their room.

Like it would be insane. Come back when you know how to swim. Why? Why would that help? Now I just feel more shame, which means I'm gonna have trouble getting in the pool. Every time we send kids to their room, we just raise the amount of bad feelings. So we increase the gap between feelings and skills. So I was just like, we need to help parents just see things differently and see ourselves differently because that's so hard.

We weren't raised this way. And this is really just a model of like. Let's see, gets as good inside and needing to build skills. And if we approach parenting in that way, so many things would change these ideas. And you can hear me, I get so excited about them. I can't keep them inside. People are like, why did you start Instagram?

I had a full private practice. I started Instagram as a relief. I was like, I need a container to vomit out all of these thoughts. I just need to put it somewhere. And my husband was like sick of me talking his ear out, you know? And then what happened? I really believe this. I do not believe I have unique ideas that I am certain to people.

I don't, I don't think it's like I have an idea and someone's like, that's a genius idea from Dr. Becky. I believe these are things we kind of all have inside of us and we've all built up things from our childhood that we're adaptive at first and now work against us that kind of prevent kind of, kind of accessing that confidence and that clarity, right?

And that compassion, all of those good things. And, and when that happens, we all need someone to be like a little bit of a lighthouse or a guide to come back. And so to me, when I think about the movement, I feel like I feel so lit up about this, it explodes out of me. And in doing that, something gets lit up in someone else that I really believe was always there and it explodes out of them.

If you think about this, like in a, in a beautiful way, like almost as light or that fire that it spreads not because of me. I, I, I really believe that because something gets so lit up in someone else that becomes in a beautiful, amazing way, uncontainable, and then it spreads from there. And there's no way I could have spread this.

Like I'm not some superhuman person. I go to sleep. I have my life. Like I just feel like this thing has. Taken on a life of its own, and everything we do as a company is truly just responsive to what the people who are core to this movement tell us they want. Even our app, they're like, why can I deposit a check for my house?

But there's no sophisticated app for the most, I promise you parenting is a more important job than whether or not I deposit the check from my house or have to go to the bank, like if I still had to go to the bank. But I had something in my pocket that felt like a really sophisticated support. I would choose that.

And I was like, that's really true. That's messed up. There's all these brilliant people in the tech industry. How many of them have said Parents deserve better? Parents should not be left out of this AI revolution. I'm not trying to be mean zero us. Like, and that's why we did it. I was like, no one else is doing this.

Why? It's children's book. So many people have said Good Inside is like a new language. Mm-hmm. And it's still kind of new. I would love a book that I can almost do more good inside with my kid. Like, I wanna do it. Okay. We could do that. You know? And our podcast people are like, I like the old format. Okay, we'll go back to like, I just feel like I trust the people in this movement and I think nothing makes me happier.

Especially, I'm like women increasingly using their voice and feeling like my ideas. And I can voice them and they can be heard by other people. And I feel like that that really is the good inside movement. And I, I feel just honored to be a part of it. Like that's actually how I feel. I really don't feel like it's like it's mine.

Zibby: Amazing. Which is why you are so good inside, honestly. Okay, so what else do the people want? What else is in the pipeline? Where are you going from here? 

Dr. Becky: Ugh. Well, I think there's been an amazing response about this book that people have been like, it just feels different than other books. And I was a little vulnerable putting out, I have to be honest, and there are, and I'm gonna be totally onto some reviews that are like, this kind of ends abruptly, like, you know, and we really talked about the ending a lot, and I have to think about it.

Maybe I should have put one more note in, but sometimes in my house, like if my kid hits and I intervene. I do just move on In that moment, I do just build a tower and then I'm like, okay, I don't have to do all my parenting in the next 30 seconds. Like I kind of can figure it out. And my best moments with my kids after a hard moment are just like.

The conversations that happen after. Right. And so we're gonna do more children's books for sure. Our app is where I just pour every, you know, the app. And even our membership came up because people were like, I want a one-on-one session with you. And so number one, to make that work if that way, like it's just financially not feasible for most people and right.

And I just literally don't have the time. And what I noticed is. Especially with parenting, there were like these 25 sessions essentially. I was always having on repeat about anxiety, about how do I talk to my kids about sex, about clinginess, about defiance, about why is everything a battle about hitting?

And I was like, what if I could like record essentially a session and just do it with more people? And what if I could do better than that? Because I could also have something where it felt like you were just texting me and getting an answer. Like I've worked on our chat bot for a year myself, like I have very high standards.

I want it to feel like you're texting me and it does, and I want there to be short videos and I want you to be able to connect live with good inside coaches. That's all. And I was like, so what I would want for everyone of my friends and for myself is what we want that like app membership experience to be and just continuing to improve that.

And then I think the other thing that like it's not. On the roadmap right now. But what we really wanna do is I just need to find a way to get all of the people in this movement together. Like I feel like parents deserve like a really cool summit. Like again, jobs have summits. You learn together, you connect and it feels elevated.

And this is the hardest job in the world. And I believe education is power. I believe on some level. We give parents their power back and the best meaning of power. We give them power and play. And I kind of want something maybe that like really brings that together with amazing speakers and cool things, and definitely not just me.

And so that's something I'm just like, honestly, you're the first person I told about that, but love it. I'm just like, I can't stop thinking about it. Yep. And I know our community wants to be together and I just, I, I don't know if there's a way to bring that to light, but maybe if I put it out to the world now, I'll, I'll, you know.

Get more people who out the world are good at that. Yeah, exactly. Cut it out to the world. 

Zibby: We do events like that all the time. I love bringing people together. It's so important. And I think this has to be a TV show, by the way. I'm sure. I am hoping it's in the works. But this has to be like an animated TV show.

Dr. Becky: That too. Okay. That too. That too. Because I do think we need good media for kids and it's interesting, so many children's things out there are like animal characters, which no shade to that. I trust me. Bluey, Daniel Tiger, like only, uh, the most brilliant. And I think for us we're like. I think again, we just are, we lead with what's real and like, I think, I love that our characters are, are kids, they're people, you know, and there could be something amazing about bringing that to life in a show.

So thank you 

Zibby: Dr. Becky. Congratulations on, that's my truck on all the things you do to make the world better. It is amazing. It is like. The Ultimate Mitzvah. Honestly, it's like the most amazing thing you could do. So congratulations and if only everybody could do what you're doing to make change in the world like this.

Really. Congrats. 

Dr. Becky: Thank you so much, Zibby. 

Zibby: Okay, thank you.