So here's a question I get asked a lot from reporters from parents.

Tell me about gentle parenting Dr Becky.

Tell me about gentle parenting.

And you know I often am struck by this question

because I don't even exactly know what to say. Nothing about my approach to

parenting nothing about good inside to me actually reads gentle and to be clear I don't think there's anything wrong with the word gentle and when I say it's not gentle I don't think the opposite has to be true either it's not harsh it's not mean

But when I think about a word that describes good inside parenting and my whole approach it's the word sturdy and I want to go

into this a little bit because I think it's really important it's not just

semantics that good inside is sturdy not gentle.

gentle.

So many of the most critical moments with our kids

require intense sturdiness.

The moment when I have to pick my kid up because they're out of

control at a play date and all the other parents are around and I carry him to the car

and he's screaming I hate you let me down I don't think there's anything

gentle about me in that moment there's also nothing punitive there's nothing hurtful

but I think to be effective in that moment, I need intense grounded

sturdiness, sturdiness in my role, sturdiness in my body, sturdiness in my intention.

It makes me think a lot about a pilot.

Right, if you think about flying through intense turbulence, and you think about the

pilot you might have, I don't want what I would consider

a kind of gentle pilot. All right everyone we're going to figure it out, seems like you're

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