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Alright, quick poll --
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raise your hand if you have
a relationship in your life
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that's meaningful to you.
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OK, I assumed, but always good
to check our assumptions.
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(Laughter)
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I’m saying this because
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while I'll be focusing today
on a parent-child relationship,
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please know that everything
I'm talking about
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is applicable to any
meaningful relationship.
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So with that in mind, let's jump in.
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So it's Sunday night, I'm in my kitchen.
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I just finished cooking
dinner for my family,
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and I am on edge.
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I mean, I'm exhausted,
I haven't been sleeping well.
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I’m anxious about the upcoming workweek,
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I'm overwhelmed by all the items
on my unfinished to-do list.
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And then, my son walks into the kitchen.
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He looks at the table and whines,
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"Chicken again?"
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(Laughter)
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"Disgusting."
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(Laughter)
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And that's it. I snap.
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I look at him and I yell,
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"What is wrong with you?
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Can you be grateful
for one thing in your life?"
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And things get worse from there.
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He screams, "I hate you."
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He runs out of the room
and he slams his bedroom door.
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And now, my self-loathing session begins,
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as I say to myself,
"What is wrong with me?
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I've messed up my kid forever."
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Well, if you're a parent,
you've probably felt that pain.
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For me, it comes
with an extra layer of shame.
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I mean, I’m a clinical psychologist
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and my specialty is helping people
become better parents.
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(Laughter)
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And yet, this is true as well --
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there is no such thing
as a perfect parent.
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Mistakes and struggles,
they come with the job,
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but no one tells us what to do next.
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Do we just move on?
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Kind of just pretend
the whole thing never happened?
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Or if I say something,
what are the words?
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Well, for years, as a clinical
psychologist in private practice,
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I saw client after client
struggle with this question.
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And now, as the creator of the parenting
content and community platform
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"Good Inside,"
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I see millions of parents
around the globe struggle with this issue.
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All parents yell.
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No one knows what to do next.
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Well, I'm determined to fill this gap.
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After all, there's almost nothing
within our interpersonal relationships
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that can have as much impact as repair.
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Whenever a parent asks me,
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"What one parenting strategy
should I focus on?"
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I always say the same thing:
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"Get good at repair."
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So what is repair?
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Repair is the act of going back
to a moment of disconnection.
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Taking responsibility for your behavior
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and acknowledging the impact
it had on another.
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And I want to differentiate
a repair from an apology,
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because when an apology often looks
to shut a conversation down --
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“Hey, I’m sorry I yelled.
Can we move on now?” --
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a good repair opens one up.
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And if you think about what it means
to get good at repair,
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there's so much baked-in realism
and hope and possibility.
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Repair assumes there's been a rupture.
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So to repair,
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you have to mess up
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or fall short of someone
else's expectations.
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Which means the next time
I snap at my kid,
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or my husband, or my work colleague,
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instead of berating myself,
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like I did that night in the kitchen,
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I try to remind myself I'm focusing
on getting good at repair.
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Step one is rupture.
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"Check that off, I crushed it."
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(Laughter)
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Step two is repair.
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"I can do this.
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I'm actually right on track."
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So let's get back to my example.
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I'm in the kitchen, my son is in his room.
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Well, what will happen if I don't repair?
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That’s really important to understand
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and helps us make a decision
about what to do next.
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Well, here are the facts.
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My son is alone, overwhelmed
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and in a state of distress,
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because, let's face it,
his mom just became scary mom.
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And now, he has to figure out
a way to get back
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to feeling safe and secure.
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And if I don't go help him do that
through making a repair,
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he has to rely on one of the only
coping mechanisms
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he has at his own disposal ...
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self-blame.
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Self-blame sounds like this:
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“Something’s wrong with me.
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I’m unlovable.
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I make bad things happen.”
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Ronald Fairbairn may have said it best
when he wrote that, for kids,
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it is better to be a sinner
in a world ruled by God
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than to live in a world
ruled by the devil.
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In other words, it's actually adaptive
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for a child to internalize
badness and fault,
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because at least then,
they can hold onto the idea
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that their parents
and the world around them
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is safe and good.
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And while self-blame
works for us in childhood,
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we all know it works
against us in adulthood.
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“Something’s wrong with me.
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I make bad things happen.
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I’m unlovable.”
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These are the core fears
of so many adults.
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But really, we see here,
they are actually the childhood stories
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we wrote when we were left alone
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following distressing events
that went unrepaired.
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Plus, adults with self-blame
are vulnerable to depression, anxiety,
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deep feelings of worthlessness --
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none of which we want for our kids.
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And we can do better.
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And it doesn't mean we have to be perfect.
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When you repair,
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you go further than removing
a child's story of self-blame.
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You get to add in all the elements
that were missing in the first place.
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Safety, connection, coherence,
love, goodness.
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It's as if you're saying to a child,
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"I will not let this chapter
of your life end in self-blame.
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Yes, this chapter will still contain
the event of yelling,
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but I can ensure this chapter
has a different ending,
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and therefore a different title,
and theme and lesson learned."
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We know that memory is original events
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combined with every other time
you've remembered that event.
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This is why therapy's helpful, right?
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When you remember painful
experiences from your past
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within a safer and more
connected relationship,
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the event remains,
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but your story of the event,
it changes, and then you change.
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With repair,
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we effectively change the past.
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So let's write a better story.
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Let's learn how to repair.
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Step one, repair with yourself.
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That's right.
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I mean, you can't offer compassion
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or groundedness or understanding
to someone else
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before you access
those qualities within yourself.
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Self-repair means
separating your identity,
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who you are,
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from your behavior, what you did.
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For me, it means telling myself
two things are true.
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I’m not proud of my latest behavior
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and my latest behavior doesn't define me.
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Even as I struggle on the outside,
I remain good inside.
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I can then start to see
that I'm a good parent --
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identity --
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who was having a hard time -- behavior.
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And no, this doesn't let me off the hook.
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This is precisely what leaves me
on the hook for change.
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Because now that I've replaced
my spiral with groundedness,
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I can actually use my energy
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toward thinking about what I want
to do differently the next time.
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Oh, and I can now use my energy
to go repair with my son.
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Step two -- repair with your child.
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There's no exact formula.
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I often think about three elements:
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name what happened, take responsibility,
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state what you would do
differently the next time.
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It could come together like this.
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"Hey.
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I keep thinking about what happened
the other night in the kitchen.
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I'm sorry I yelled.
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I'm sure that felt scary.
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And it wasn't your fault.
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I'm working on staying calm,
even when I'm frustrated."
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A 15-second intervention
can have a lifelong impact.
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I've replaced my child's
story of self-blame
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with a story of self-trust
and safety and connection.
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I mean, what a massive upgrade.
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And to give a little more clarity
around how to repair,
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I want to share a few examples
of what I call "not repair,"
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which are things that come
more naturally to most of us --
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definitely me included.
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"Hey, I'm sorry I yelled at you
in the kitchen,
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but if you wouldn't have
complained about dinner,
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it wouldn't have happened."
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(Laughter)
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Been there? Been there? OK.
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Or "You know, you really need to be
grateful for things in your life,
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like a home-cooked meal.
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Then, you won't get yelled at."
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(Laughter)
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Not only do these interventions
fail at the goal of reconnection,
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they also insinuate that your child
caused your reaction,
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which simply isn’t true
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and isn't a model of emotion regulation
we want to pass on to the next generation.
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(Applause)
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So let's say we've all resisted
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the "it was your fault,
anyway" not-repairs,
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and have instead prioritized
a repair that allows us to reconnect.
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What might the impact be?
What might that look like in adulthood?
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My adult child won’t spiral in self-blame
when they make a mistake,
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and won’t take on blame
for someone else’s mistake.
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My adult child will know how to take
responsibility for their behavior,
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because you've modeled
how to take responsibility for yours.
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Repairing with a child today
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sets the stage for these critical
adult relationship patterns.
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Plus, it gets better --
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now that I've reconnected with my son,
I can do something really impactful.
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I can teach him a skill
he didn't have in the first place,
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which is how kids
actually change their behavior.
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So maybe the next day,
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I say "You know, you're not always
going to like what I make for dinner.
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Instead of saying 'that's disgusting,'
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I wonder if you could say
'not my favorite.'"
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Now I'm teaching him how to regulate
his understandable disappointment,
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and communicate effectively
and respectfully with another person.
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That never would have happened if instead,
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I had been blaming him for my reaction.
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So here's the point where you might have
a lingering concern.
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Maybe you're thinking,
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"You know, I have a feeling
that my kid's older than your kid."
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(Laughter)
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"I think it's too late."
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Or "I have done a lot worse
than you did in the kitchen."
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(Laughter)
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"Maybe it's too late."
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Well, I mean this --
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if you have only one takeaway
from this talk,
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please let this be it:
It is not too late.
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It is never too late.
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How do I know?
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Well, imagine, right after this,
you get a call from one of your parents,
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and if neither of your parents are alive,
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imagine finding and opening a letter
you hadn't seen till that moment.
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OK, walk through this
with me, here's the call.
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"Hey,
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I know this sounds out of the blue,
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but I've been thinking a lot
about your childhood.
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And I think there were a lot of moments
that felt really bad to you.
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And you are right to feel that way.
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Those moments weren't your fault.
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They were times when I was struggling,
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and if I could have gone back,
I would have stepped aside,
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I would have calmed myself down,
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and then found you to help you
with whatever you were struggling with.
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I'm sorry.
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And if you're ever willing to talk to me
about any of those moments,
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I'll listen.
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I won't listen to have a rebuttal.
I'll listen to understand.
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I love you."
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I don't know many adults
who don't have a fairly visceral reaction
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to that exercise.
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I often hear, “Why am I crying?”
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Or "Listen, that wouldn't
change everything.
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But it might change some things."
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Well, I definitely
do not specialize in math,
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but here's something
I know with certainty.
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If you have a child,
that child is younger than you are.
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(Laughter)
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Always true.
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The story of their life is shorter
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and even more amenable to editing.
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So if that imagined exercise
had an impact on you,
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imagine the impact an actual repair
will have on your child.
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See?
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I told you, it's never too late.
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Thank you.
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(Cheers and applause)
