Good Inside: By Becky Kennedy Free AudioBook Chapter (6 - 29)

Chapter 6. Resilience. Happiness. My

kids should be happier than they are. A

mother tells me they have everything

they could ever need. And still all this

small stuff bothers them. My daughter

worries so much about such big things,

homelessness, death, inequity around

her. And she's only seven, a father says

in my office. I always tell her, "Stop

worrying. Let's think about all the good

things in your life." But still, she's

up at night unable to fall asleep. I was

a pretty lonely, depressed child. A

mother admits to me, "I want to be a

different parent to my kids than my

parents were for me." My partner gets

annoyed with me because he says, "I'm

always rescuing our kids and making

their lives too easy. Is that so bad?

Don't you want your kids to be happy,

Dr. Becky? Do I want my kids to be

happy?" Sure, of course. And yet, I

don't think happiness is what these

parents are really talking about. I

think there's something much deeper

going on. Consider this. What actually

leads to happiness? Does eradicating our

kids worry and loneliness and ensuring

they feel good at all times enable them

to cultivate happiness on their own?

What do we really mean when we say, "I

just want my kids to be happy." What are

we talking about when we say cheer up or

you have so much to be happy about or

why can't you just be happy? I for one

don't think we're talking about

cultivating happiness as much as we're

talking about avoiding fear and

distress. Because when we focus on

happiness, we ignore all the other

emotions that will inevitably come up

throughout our kids' lives. Which means

we aren't teaching them how to cope with

those emotions. And again, how we teach

our kids through our interactions with

them to relate to pain or hardship will

impact how they think about themselves

and their troubles for decades to come.

I don't know a single parent who doesn't

want the best for their kids. Count me

in. I want the best for my kids. And

yet, I'm not sure that the best for them

is to just be happy. For me, happiness

is much less compelling than resilience.

After all, cultivating happiness is

dependent on regulating distress. We

have to feel safe before we can feel

happy. Why do we have to learn to

regulate the tough stuff first? Why

can't happiness just win and beat all

other emotions? That certainly would be

easier. Unfortunately, in parenting,

just like in life, the things that

matter most take hard work and time.

Helping your child build resilience

certainly isn't easy, but I promise it's

worth it. Picture your body as a large

jar. Floating around are all the

different emotions you could possibly

feel. For simplicity's sake, let's say

there are two major categories of

emotions. Ones that feel upsetting and

ones that feel happier. In our emotion

jar, we have every single feeling under

the sun. The size of each emotion and

therefore the space it takes up in the

jar at any given moment is constantly

changing. Now remember, our bodies have

an innate alarm system and are

constantly scanning for danger before

anything else. When we aren't able to

cope with emotions like disappointment,

frustration, envy, and sadness, when

they take up all the space in the

emotion jar, our bodies initiate a

stress response. And it's not just the

difficult feelings themselves that

prompt our bodies to feel unsafe. We

also feel distress over having distress

or experience fear of fear. In other

words, assuming there's no actual

physical threat, but simply the threat

of uncomfortable, overwhelming emotions

as we start thinking, "Ah, I need to

make this feeling go away right now."

The distress grows and grows not as a

reaction to the original experience, but

because we believe these negative

emotions are wrong, bad, scary, or too

much. Ultimately, this is how anxiety

takes hold within a person. Anxiety is

the intolerance of discomfort. It's the

experience of not wanting to be in your

body. The idea that you should be

feeling differently in that specific

moment. And this isn't a product of

being a downer or seeing the glass as

half empty. It's a product of evolution.

Our bodies will not allow us to relax if

we believe the feelings inside us are

overpowering and frightening. So where's

the happiness here? Well, it's crowded

out. It cannot surface. Of course, it

doesn't have to be this way. The wider

the range of feelings we can regulate.

If we can manage the frustration,

disappointment, envy, and sadness, the

more space we have to cultivate

happiness. Regulating our emotions

essentially develops a cushion around

those feelings, softening them and

preventing them from consuming the

entire jar. regulation first, happiness

second, and this translates into our

parenting. The wider the range of

feelings we can name and tolerate in our

kids, again, this doesn't mean

behaviors, the wider the range of

feelings they will be able to manage

safely, affording them an increased

ability to feel a home with themselves.

Do I want my kids to experience

happiness? Without a doubt, yes. I want

them to feel happiness as kids and as

adults. This is why I'm so focused on

building resilience. Resilience in many

ways is our ability to experience a wide

range of emotions and still feel like

ourselves. Resilience helps us bounce

back from the stress, failure, mistakes,

and adversity in our lives. Resilience

allows for the emergence of happiness.

The power of resilience. Developing

resilience doesn't mean we become immune

to stress or struggle. These are of

course unavoidable facts of life, but

our resilience determines how we relate

to those difficult moments as well as

how we experience them. People who are

resilient are better able to cope when

stressful moments arise. Here's a

helpful, though slightly oversimplified

equation. Stress plus coping equals

internal experience. The good news,

resilience is not a static character

trait that children possess or lack.

It's a skill that can be cultivated and

one that hopefully parents help instill

in their kids from a young age because

we can't always change the stressors

around us, but we can always work on our

ability to access resilience. You might

be surprised how often the need for

resilience shows up in childhood.

Building a block tower back up after it

falls, sticking with a puzzle that's

tricky, learning to read, handling

social exclusion. All of this requires

resilience. In each of these situations,

kids who can access their resilience are

able to take a deep breath, say

something kind to themselves, and

continue engaging in the task even

though it's challenging and they won't

necessarily succeed. Adults often think

of resilience as the ability to succeed

in the face of challenge, to finish the

block tower, complete the tricky puzzle,

read the hard chapter, or say no big

deal after being left out. But in

reality, resilience has nothing to do

with successful outcomes. If we all knew

we'd be successful, there'd be no need

to flex our come on, I can stick with it

muscles. 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. Resilience building happens in

the space before a win arrives, which is

why it can feel so hard to access. But

that's also why it's so worthwhile. The

longer we learn to tolerate the

challenges of learning, the more we

maximize the likelihood of reaching our

goals. So, how do we develop resilience

in our kids? Psychologists Robert Brooks

and Sam Goldstein, authors of the