Deep Dive: Gentle Parenting, Race, and Cycle Breaking With Kobe and Kyle Campbell

You're listening to good inside with Dr. Becky. I have so many ideas, strategies and scripts to share with you right after a word from our sponsor. Hi, I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on the outside, we remain Good inside. Today I speak with a couple that I've gotten to know over the past few months. Kobe Campbell reached out to me very early in my Instagram journey. She was an active commenter on posts, a sharer in her stories, and she was very present in my DMs. I was immediately drawn to her and then she introduced me to her husband Kyle, who I felt drawn to as well. Kobe and Kyle started raising some really important questions. How can they raise a child who feels truly good inside, who has the space to get to know himself, who receives connection when struggling, not punishment when they were both raised with a your feelings don't matter, just stay in line approach? Do we live in a world where the approach I put out there is as safe for their black children as it is for my own white children? How can they respond to criticisms from their families of origin about their new gentle parenting approach? Comments like this approach is going to get your child killed. Well, let me tell you, in this episode we ask more questions than we find answers. That's usually how things go with important nuanced topics. I can't wait for you to get to know Kobe and Kyle. And let me say right away, thank you Kobe and Kyle for allowing so many people to start to get to know you. So with that in mind, let's jump in. Kobe and Kyle, so, so excited to be talking with you. For you both to be here, why don't we start out? Just tell me a little bit about each of you, about the two of you together, about your family and then from there we can jump into what's on your mind for our discussion today.

Yeah, I'll go first. I'm Kobe, I am a licensed trauma therapist, mother of two, have a super energetic, deeply feeling three year old and then a really docile six month old who is just the chillest baby ever. Honestly, Kyle and I really started to embrace positive Respectful present parenting. Just because of the work I do, I feel like I'm just in a really peculiar situation where I get to see the end of the day, you know, lots of repetitive actions that happen in childhood. And then my own childhood trauma, which has had me in therapy for about eight years. And then Kyle started going to therapy and we were like, huh, there's a lot of stuff that's at year 28, 29 that happened at year three and five, you know, and so we just.

Could have cut that off at the pass.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we are really passionate about figuring out how to treat our child like he is a human being made in the image of God now and not wait till he gets older to start treating him with some dignity and tenderness.

Yeah. And I'm Kyle. I belong to her. Also the father of an incredibly rambunctious three year old and a little just. He's probably sleeping right now, our six month old. So I don't know if that's poetic justice or what, but we're really, really grateful for that. I'm not a licensed Trump therapist at all. I am the CFO of a church and have my own consulting company for mergers and acquisitions. So I'm just a finance number guy. Yeah. A numbers dude.

Yeah.

And tell me a little bit more of this journey to respectful parenting. You mentioned that right away. And that seems to be such a kind of goalpost, such a focus. But tell me more about that and about how your upbringings even influenced kind of coming to those beliefs about how important it is to treat a child early on with you said respect and dignity and gentleness.

Yeah. I feel like in my work, I like came to find personally through my clinical work that trauma is preverbal and that I recalled and remembered feelings that people had towards me that I didn't really have any reference for the words that they ever said. It was never like anyone said, you're a terrible human or you're a nuisance or you're so annoying or stop bothering me. But I remember feeling as I got older, I got the words for those and I was like, oh, that person was embarrassed of me. Oh, they were annoyed by me. And as I started to do my own work, I started realizing so much of what I would have before my clinical work said, kids don't remember. I remembered in my body. I remember the sensation I can remember in middle school sweating through my clothes. I would name that now as anxiety, but I just thought I was weird. Just like, oh, I'm just sweating a lot. My hands are always really wet. I always sweat through my clothes. It's just a thing that happens. And I remember the looks adults would make between each other when I would do something wrong or do something bad. I would remember some of those things and found that, like, those seeds were bearing fruit in my relationship with Kyle, in my relationship with my sons, in my relationship with myself. And the deeper you get into therapy, at least for me, the more I was like, oh, like, I wasn't treated like I was a full person when I was a child.

And just to piggyback on that for a second, you're saying pre verbal is. Right. It's kind of the years before we're three.

Yeah.

Right. I don't know about. And so you're speaking to the influence that parenting and our kind of family environment have on us in our earliest years. The years that it's so easy to say, and I think we all hear this phrase, our kids won't remember that anyway, or they don't remember those years. They're so resilient. Right, Exactly. So the years, and this is something I think a lot about too, that the years we don't remember with our words have some of the biggest influences on us for the rest of our lives. And you pointed to that by saying, our bodies remember. Our bodies remember these patterns, the set of expectations we have of others, our beliefs about ourself, what's allowed, what's not allowed, what's good, what's bad, what brings people closer, what pushes people away. That kind of looking at that arc is one of the things that led you to feel so passionately about passion, parenting your own child in a specific way.

Yeah. And I remember being a deeply feeling child saying things like, that makes me sad or that makes me angry. And the responses were like, what do you have to be sad about? You don't pay a bill, you know? But I remember, like, truly experiencing sadness like you were. Nothing you did or felt was valid until you were an adult. And so it just was a very, I think, lonely experience that as a child, that I'm now finding language for. And a lot of that is kind of like, recapitulated itself into my mid, late 20s. And I'm realizing, like, oh, how. How I was treated as a child truly is a foundation for how I see myself, the world, God, all of it.

And Kyle, hop into some of these themes. What's connecting for you about this? Or what's different for my.

For my own part, I. I was raised in a really. I'm the Son of two Marines. So my mom was Marine, my dad was Marine, and they're both black. And so there's. There's two cultures that really value a certain amount of authority and obedience coming together at the same point in a way in which, like, the world really affirmed, like, I can remember, like, school assemblies, our principals would, like, call out what great parents my parents were because they. They produce such obedient children. And it wasn't until Kobe and I got together that I was even able to reconcile that. Okay, well, I always thought I had the greatest upbringing in the world with the greatest parents in the world. And I still believe that my parents are better than everyone else's. So if you're listening, it's not your.

Fault.

My mom's better than your mom. It's, you know, it just is what it is. And yet in all of that, my parents have four kids. And I can say this because each of our stories are public in some way and maybe just a minor trigger warning here, but each of us has dealt with suicide and suicidal ideation, every single one of us. And with. With a level of, like, commercial success. We've all been very successful. We are like the poster children of what it looks like to raise good kids that do well, that go to the right school, that get the right job and all of that stuff. And each of us deteriorating internally. And so the question came up while Kobe and I were actually arguing about this whole present positive parenting, which I.

Thought was very resistant.

Very resistant. She dragged me kicking and screaming, chloroformed me, I think, at least twice. And then somehow I wake up and I find myself sitting here because she.

She just.

She said. And it hit me right in the gut. She's a Kyle, Why in the world would you think you doing the things that your parents did would produce anything different than what you got? And I had never really considered. I always thought it was a me thing. Now, obviously there's levels to it and there's nuance, but I'd never considered, like, no, my parents were amazing parents, especially within our cultural framework. They were like, the gold standard. And yet, four for four, like, there was something missing, something significant, because apparently you can have all the other things that people want out of their children and be missing something incredibly important, which is this sense of self worth and value, intrinsic, beyond what you do or don't do, which I didn't have until far too late in life.

Tell me about the word obedience. Just like, what. What that word you say, obedience, right?

What.

What comes up for You. Where is that in the value system? What does that mean? What does that look like? Just what. What memories? What images? Tell me. Tell me more about that.

I'm African. My parents are Ghanaian immigrants, and Kyle's African American. And so I kind of ascribe to both African culture and African American culture. And I think for both cultures and for black people in the diaspora, obedience is the highest form of value a person can have. Like, you are most valuable, most good, most desired if you're obedient. Right. And. And we see that not just internal to the culture, but like, within how other cultures see black people. Right. If a black person's arrested or argue, why did you resist? Why did you argue? Right. Why didn't you just do what the officer said? Right. And so how that has, like, that value has infiltrated our homes is as a way of keeping our kids safe, as a way of survival. We have really adapted a model of obedience as the highest value to hold on to for the sake of survival. Because if you don't obey, there's a lifelong consequence, not just for you, but for the people you're connected to. And so I think from a really young age, it's not about connectedness, to be honest. It's not about connectedness. It's not about autonomy. It's not about knowing your inner voice. It's about keeping your kid alive. Like, even I remember growing up, and I didn't realize it was, like, odd until I got to college, but it was a huge thing if, like, a black child made it to the age of 18 and didn't die at the hands of whatever violence. The idea is we want to keep our kids alive, so we base everything we do on obedience. Everything needs to be through the lens of obedience, Our faith through the lens of obedience, connection to each other through the lens of obedience, child rearing through the lens of obedience, which I understand, because it's adaptive, right? It's adaptive. I think that Kyle and I have gotten to see the maladaptive traits that come from it. Right. Which is surviving long enough to not know who you are.

Yeah, that one is prevalent. And to put even more color around that. Right. Like, so she's African American, I'm African American. And yet. And the cultures are similar, but they have some key differences. But still, there is this unifying theme, because I can remember being. I think it was seven or eight years old when this started, but my dad would wake me and my brother up in the winter at like, three or four in the morning and would wake us up and tell us to wash his car unprompted, like, no warning or anything. And we were frustrated, but the whole point of it was he wanted us. And he told us this. This wasn't like we had to intuit it. He said, hey, I. I need you to get used to not showing when something makes you upset because one day someone in authority over you is going to tell you to do something that you don't feel like you should have to do. And it could kill you if you. If you show too much aggression. Right? And so he was like, he was trying to love us the best way that he knew how and to make us safe. And so he was literally training us to be obedient, irregardless of how convenient or inconvenient or how right or wrong it was, and to show no emotion because it was. It would be dangerous to do that. And it was nine or ten when that started. And it stopped after a while when he felt like we really had the lesson that he could wake us up at 3am you could be mad and tired, and you would know that there are certain things you just can't say or let yourself express.

And so this theme of maximizing for survival, maximizing for safety, that as long as my child can get far away from their feelings, from their anger, from their wishes, from their wants for themselves, which my guess for you, Kyle, is I would rather be sleeping than go wash your car. But as long as I've developed a system to shut that off or suppress that, or actually shame it and blame it and scare myself of that part of me, almost kill that part of me off, then I've achieved this ultimate goal. I am the obedient child who. Who will survive, not necessarily thrive, but survive. And that's the goal.

Yeah. And I think even beyond that, I think from a very young age we were taught, and if you don't, you might die. You know, like, I think that, like, death. Sorry, I'm getting teary. The idea of death and like dire consequences are introduced at a really young age. And so I remember just feeling like terror in my body, like, you don't do anything, like you might die. Something might happen to mommy and daddy. Something might happen to this person. And, you know, it made me think. Levi, deeply feeling child, extremely, extremely autonomous, knows exactly what he wants. It actually, it makes me very proud, but it also terrifies the living daylight side of me. So I was washing his face in the morning because he had a little crusties in his eyes, and I say to him, hey, Levi, I need you to clear dry eyes so I can get the crusty out. He said, no, mommy, don't touch me. I don't want you to get crusties out. And I'm like, okay, I still need to get them out. So, like, just let mommy get a second. And he looked at me square in the face and said, no, mommy, don't touch me. I don't want you to touch me. And as soon as he said that, it was like, immediately I just saw my little preteen kid saying that to a police officer. And that being his last words, no, don't touch me. How do I teach my little black boy boundaries and autonomy and agency when if he exercises that out in the world, it puts his life at risk? It is hard. And the application, I think, absolutely has to be different for little black and brown little boys and girls.

I think you dispelled out something so powerful that when your son says to you, no, don't touch me, there's such a conflictual response. Right. There's a, a gentle parenting perspective in a vacuum. Right. Or a Dr. Becky perspective in a vacuum. Be like, that's amazing. Your child knows what feels right and can say no and yes. It's an inconvenience, but wow, what a, what a moment to elevate. And that's a sign of my amazing parenting. Right. There's like one voice and there's another part of you that might be different, let's say from me and my deeply feeling child who's a white tiny girl, where I'm not that worried about her asserting her body boundaries as she gets older. And I can't wait for the time she says to someone, I don't know if I'm thinking of a police officer. Maybe I'm thinking of, you know, someone else saying, no, don't touch me. I don't like that. Right. That feels like a moment in her teenage hood where you're thinking, you're fast forwarding and you're thinking, holy shit. Yeah, I just. And just like you said, death and threat comes in so early.

Yeah.

You're having an enter early in your three year old's life by when he says, no, don't touch my eyes, you're picturing him getting murdered by a police officer.

Yeah.

And figuring out, what does my child need? What actually does my child need in this moment to prepare him for life? Is it the exact same as what Becky's daughter would need? And if not, what do we do in that gap is really confusing, really overwhelming, really terrifying. And really cycle breaking to even think about pivoting an approach.

Yeah. And even as we. So we've been in this journey for. How long has it been, babe? About a year.

Yeah. I started following, aka stalking Dr. Becky during quarantine.

I love your stalking.

Yeah. Because we were trapped with Levi and like this tiny two bedroom apartment and I was pregnant, nauseous, as I'll get out, Kyle's working, Levi is bouncing off the freaking walls and I'm like parenting.

She, she did stalk you. It was problematic in the beginning, but we've turned a corner and. But as we started applying some of these principles and really just like light ways, we got a lot of pushback from like my family. And then we talk about that. Like you talk about it rather the conversations you have to have with family members as you're doing this. And it's a hard conversation for everybody, but I think for us it was telling that the first thing my twin brother said to me was like, bro, like, you're going to get your, you're going to your kid killed.

Yeah.

Like you told him to stop and he didn't stop.

Yeah.

I think that conversation is probably not necessarily the conversation that is happening for other folks as they interact with their family members over positive parenting. Because it's not like my brother is some angry man. He's very sweet, loves his nephew. And it's just like I don't feel comfortable with it, you know, like as if it's like this almost evil, taboo thing we're doing. Like when we're, we're not necessarily being as hard nosed, disciplined in the way that they're used to, in the way that we're used to, you know, waking people up at 3am can you walk.

Through an example just to make it specific and real vivid, where maybe we'll make it up, your whole family's around or the extended family and Levi does something, whatever it is, and then walk through kind of these different ways of parenting in that moment, probably with different goals in mind.

What's really common is, Levi, don't do that. Levi, don't pick that up. Levi, don't blank right. He may do it two or three times. And then I'll go over to him and say, hey, it seems like you're having a hard time controlling your body. Let's go calm down. Or you have a lot of energy. Let's do a little shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. Let's wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Let's go outside and run and. And the stares Are like, are you. So you're rewarding your child for not listening to you. And it's almost like, you know, I don't know if you've heard of this, but it's very common in the black culture. Like, I'm not watching your child unless I can whoop them. And we're like, well, I guess no one's watching our child because that's the boundary that we've set. And I think that when people see the parenting, they think it's permissive. Just let the kid do whatever they feel, whatever they want. But I think for us, because we're noticing, like, okay, first of all, we've all been cooped up in this room for the last three hours. I'm getting restless. There's no other toys here. There's no other kids here. He needs to burn energy. Of course he's going to destroy something. There's glass. Of course he's going to kick it over. And that's what I'm thinking. But what is on the other side when other people are perceiving it is you just told your kid to stop and he didn't stop. Now he must be punished for that. Like, it's very punitive in nature. And I think that the reason why it's punitive in nature, culturally, the way people see things is because it's almost like they're trying to get people honestly, trying to get black kids ready for a punitive system when they leave the house.

We're kind of talking about this moment where Levi doesn't listen. And then there's this for do I respond with punishment? You have to listen, or do I respond with kind of a boundary and maybe a redirection or a stepping in on my child's behalf? But before that, there's also this fork in the road around assumption of intention. Negative intention.

Right.

Or positive. Right. So am I assuming that my kid is purposely not listening, trying to pull one over me, doesn't respect me, a ton of kind of negative assumptions, or am I assuming my kid is missing some skill, overwhelmed with something else and doesn't hear me, struggles to switch from one task to another, struggles to inhibit an urge. Right. So tell me about that.

Yeah, so it's funny because one of our, like, cultural things in me and Kyle's home is A.P.I. assume positive intent, but we struggle with that.

Yes.

It's a tenet. We struggle to embody. And I think that also because of generational trauma, it's hard for people to see. There's no. There's no degree. It's either you fully understand or you don't understand. Right. And I think that oftentimes the idea is if the kid can understand the words that you're using, then they can understand the responsibility behind responding to it. And that's just not true. Right.

Interesting. There's a real sting up here in the brain, like, in cognition. My kid knows what the word stop means, as an example. My kid knows what stop means. Right. It makes me think about, you know, all the times I'm like, I know what I need to do to exercise, but, like, you know, seems not to be working in my favor. Right. But there's a real. You're saying there's a real focus on. My kid understands the word cognitively, so there should be a direct line into the corresponding behavior. Is that right?

Yeah. And I think that that can, like, be perfectly summed up in adultification, that, like, when black kids are seen as human, they're not seen as children, they're seen as adults. Right. Like, even thinking about Tamir Rice, how old was he? 12.

12.

He was 12.

They thought he was 18.

And they thought he was 18. Right. There was a study done on the perception of police officers on children, and they systematically viewed black kids at least four years older than they actually were and saw white kids an average of two years younger than what they actually were. And we've seen that be a reality in our lives, that people will be like, oh, how old is he? Like, three. And we're like, he's not even two. And there's this, like. I think sometimes parents get this weird, like, oh, my kid's so smart. Like, they, like, look how advanced they are. And, like, I have honestly had the opposite. It's like, I want my kid to be right on par. Not behind, not. Not in front. Because I don't want anyone else to think that they're older than what they actually are. And I think that as much as I believe in the way that we're doing this parenting, reality is I've still internalized and absorbed some of those beliefs, because my automatic thinking is, you knew not to do that, Levi. I told you twice, and you knew exactly what I said.

There's something I keep thinking about, like, giving the benefit of the doubt. Like, kids get the benefit of the doubt, but not you. Right. Because when you're. As soon as you look older than 10, you're not going to. And so I'm preparing you for that.

Yeah.

And then what happens inside your own home, inside your own home is you don't get the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah.

To prepare you for the world. And so one of the things you learn around that when these various struggles you have are kind of assumed with negative intent, is this kind of reflected back version of you of being bad, of being nasty, of knowing better and just purposefully doing otherwise, of kind of not being a good person inside.

Yeah. It's like the first recording of their internal voice of shame, you know, in your. I think it was your managing meltdowns course. Like you were saying, like, what we reflect to our kids is what they embody. And so at such a young age, embodying to our kids, rather reflecting to them like, you know, better, you should have. You should have done better. How did you not know? Right. And thinking that that's like creating these guardrails, but, like, it's really creating this internal, like, prison of shame where they don't get to be human. And I think one of the most transformative things that you've said to us as we've kind of in conversing with you was we were like, well, if we implement this stuff out there and like, out there is scary, so why would we, you know, why would we be soft with him here? And you said something to the effect of, if he's not going to be safe out there, like, why would you not create a safe place at your home? And Kyle and I were like, that is a really good point. And I think that that safety starts with what we reflect of our children.

Yeah. So let's, let's like, play this out really concretely because I think so much about kids and development and what we need, and yet also everything I say is influenced by my experience. And I'm a white woman who grew up with white parents. I have a white partner, My kids are white. And that obviously influences things I say. And so I think I'm gonna put out some ideas that I just kind of, you know, are general principles. And I want you to tear some of them down.

Okay.

That's. That's the goal. Or to poke holes in them. Right. So general idea. Our kids respond and our kids build up the parts of themselves that we reflect back. So when we reflect back a version of a child who isn't listening because they know better and just purposefully don't listen, and then we punish them accordingly. Our kids building up the version of themselves that's, that's bad. I'm bad inside. I'm dangerous. I'm disrespectful. On the other side of things. The idea that I'm going to pause the punishment to instead say something like something about listening is really hard right now. I'm going to help you. I'm going to put that truck away since it's hard to stop throwing it, and it seems like you have all this energy in your hands. Let's go get some softballs and throw, throw, throw. What I'm doing is I'm reflecting back to my child. You have some urge to do something that's normal. I'm gonna stop you from being dangerous and instead redirect that. And I'm gonna preserve for you the idea that you're a good kid. You just were having a hard time. Now, this is something I know is not new for you. That's like, this different. So tell me your reaction to that. Tell me. Okay, Becky, but you. Here's the difference. Okay, but I'm out with my kid at a grocery store, and my kid does this, and here's. It'll be different. Talk to me about when you hear that. Where. Where do you feel like there. There needs to be something a little different, or there needs to be an understanding of the world Levi's entering into that's very different from the world my kids will immediately experience.

Yeah, so I hear something like that. And I think the fear that rises up is something to the effect of if you don't punish bad behavior, you're just going to get bad behavior. And like, to. To act like that isn't reality is to operate, like, with your eyes closed. And it's not. My. My dad would literally say, it's not fair to your kids to treat them like they're just gonna do the right thing because you were nice to them. And my dad would say all the time, even as he's, like, tried to coach us in parenting early on, we don't necessarily receive it as much anymore. He's been gracious about that, but he would say all the time, like, well, no, like, your. Your kid is selfish. He's a kid. He's gonna be. He. He's trying to wedge in between you. Like, you guys have. That. Have to have a united front. He's trying to manipulate you. Like, that's what they do. And that may all be true intellectually to some extent, but the posture of those words really does convey this active negative intent and this idea that, well, it's not even his fault. He's a kid. That's who he is.

He.

You've got it. So thus, you've got to help them not be A kid. But. But it's. It's the idea of like, no, you can't not punish something and then just expect it to be okay. The. There's a reason the rest of the world works the way it does. You do something wrong, you get punished.

Well, it also makes me think about this kind of decision point around the. The feelings and urges that we have that end up manifesting as, quote, disobedient behavior or a moment where we're struggling. Is the answer to try to shut off, kill off the origin of that behavior, you punish it away? Or is there something about the experiencing of it that helps our kids learn to manage it? Are we trying to help our kids manage the urge not to listen or are we trying to kill the urge not to listen? They're very different goals.

Yeah. Yeah. I would love to say that we're trying to help him manage and I would say about 60% of the time we are trying to help him manage. But there was like a framework that I started kind of journaling about. It was again, from your managing meltdowns, you can tell what we're dealing with at home. Of course, you talked about how dysregulation leads to co regulation, which hopefully leads to self regulation. Except for my kid is co regulating with my dysregulation because not only am I witnessing his being triggered, I, like I mentioned before, am having this flashback of you cannot do this in these places. You cannot say these things, you cannot act this way, you cannot put your finger up and say pew. Pew. No more Power Rangers, no more anything Marvel. And for me, I'm realizing I had to stop at that module because I was. I don't think the co regulation demands something of me. And I have to figure that out internally because if I'm being honest, I think that the desire is to redirect, but the urge in the moment is to kill. Like kill that thing that makes you want to run around the circles for three hours. Kill that thing that makes you want to reach out and, and touch strangers bags in the store. You know, there's a. And it's. It. It is hard to manage. But like that, that dysregulation, Mommy's dysregulation to co regulation of dysregulation to more dysregulation.

And then there's a real risk that the two of you have to look at each other every night and say, we're taking that risk. There's a real risk of we are trying to raise our kids in a way where they get to know and at some point feel more at home with a wider variety of their parts of who they are, of their feeling. I'm allowed to feel this. Hopefully over time I learn to regulate that feeling. I'm allowed to want this. Over time, I am betting on the fact that he's going to figure out where it's okay to say, no, don't touch my body, and where, if he's ever in the situation, he, he stays quiet. Right. But we're, we're taking on that risk of not shutting it all down. And that, that is a risk, as you parent your kids, that you have to take on that someone like me doesn't really feel. I don't really feel that risk with my kids. And that's a huge difference. Huge. And you're taking that risk while having family members who sound like in all their own ways, really love you and love your kids tell you you're endangering your children.

Yeah.

And you're saying, let's reverse that. Or take the risk of I want Levi to feel like a good kid inside. That doesn't mean hoping when he's 18 he has tantrums like now. And I'll just be saying as a mom, oh, look at my free child. That doesn't feel good. That doesn't feel good to an 18 year old. Right. Like no one wants to be dysregulated. But what I think what's key is it's taking the risk of tolerating this really messy period.

Yeah.

In the hopes that you have a kid who feels good inside and has learned how to manage so many different feelings and urges, but with the core belief that those feelings and urges are okay to exist inside. I don't have to kill them off or reject them. And my core story is, no matter what I'm feeling, I'm good. Nothing inside me is toxic. Nothing inside me is poisonous. Nothing inside me is bad. And I think one of the huge paradoxes is the wider range of feelings we help our kids with when they're younger, the less likely over time. And that's a huge asterisk over time. When does the time switch? I don't know. But the less likely over time, those feelings all convert into dysregulated behaviors. Cause the feelings we don't allow inside of us. Right. Our feelings are forces. I always think about them. They're forces. And if you can't allow and manage a feeling inside, it has no choice but to catapult out of you in some totally dysregulated. Behavior when you're older. And yet, having said all of this, the two of you are. Are doing something so. So massive.

Yeah, it is. And it's. I feel like it is heavy and it's hard, and I think I've said that a billion times, but the fruit is so sweet and unexpected. He had a soccer game last Saturday, and we're noticing that he loves to play with people, but he doesn't necessarily like to be watched by people. So here's this line of adults sitting in their pullout chairs just staring, and he is nervous. And you know, most of the parents, and this is no. No shade or shame to them. Most of the parents, like, just left their crying kids, right? And they're like, just go. And their kids crying in the middle of the field. And I said, you know what, Levi? I'm not going to leave you until you're ready for me to leave you. And I stood there and I held his hand the entire game.

She played more soccer than all of those choker.

I should have wore my. My apple watch so it caught the closed a ring. But I. I stayed there the entire time and. And there was a part of me, this really small part of me that was almost embarrassed. Why can't you get it together? But then there was like this really big, overwhelming part that was like, how cool that I get to experience this for my kid. That, like when I wanted something so ridiculous. Huge finger quotations as like my parents holding my hands through a soccer game. Like the times I just longed for someone to hold my hand in times that other people have said, doesn't make sense. And I got down and I looked in the face and said, levi, how you feeling? And he didn't say anything, but he did this. And it was like one of those moments where I was like. And that's why we can't stop.

I love you guys. You know that? I really do.

We love you. Dr. Becky's a part of the family. Yeah, we love Dr. Becky. T shirt. We're going to show up in your front yard.

I loved talking with Kobe and Kyle. They have truly taught me so much. But maybe more importantly, they've helped me ask more questions and consider new perspectives. I feel the need today to not tie things together with any clear takeaways. Instead, I just want to let this conversation sit with me and hopefully with all of you as we consider the different realities we all face. The ways our past lives on in our present, the ways we are cycle breaking and the bravery of each and every person in this community to reflect, consider new ideas and be vulnerable about our parenting and self discovery journeys. Thanks for listening to Good Inside. Let's stay connected. At goodinside.com, you can sign up for workshops and subscribe to Good Insider, my weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And for more ideas and tips, check out my Instagram Dr. Beckyoodinside. Good inside is produced by Beth Rowe and Brad Gage, an executive produced by Erica Belsky and me, Dr. Becky if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review. And if you really like the episode, please share it with someone you know. Many of you tell me that sharing an episode has a allowed you to start conversations about tricky topics with spouses or extended family members and to bond and connect with fellow cycle breakers. I actually do read each and every review, so please know that your feedback is meaningful to me. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves. Even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain Good Inside.