This is Heather DeBros, world and now you can live in it two times a week right here on podcast one welcome back everybody. I'm very excited for my guest today. She she's really incredible. Dr. Becky Kennedy. She's a clinical psychologist. She's a founder and CEO of good inside and author of good inside a guide to becoming.

The parent you want to be the book is so so good. She's so funny on Instagram and I feel like we're kindred mom spirits. The book is under the guise of the fact that no matter who we are and who our kids are we're all inherently good inside.

And it's really really interesting. So I am thrilled to have her here. Please welcome Dr. Becky.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. We're talking right before we came on. It was funny because Becky's kids are a little bit younger than mine and I was asking a pet phones and they do not so it's about to tell you.

You know how like at your kids age it's about the bathroom for some reason when you go to the bathroom it's a child magnet. I don't know why you have to put children need to be with you that second must speak to its an emergency.

When they get a little older it's the telephone and I'm telling you anytime you have to do anything important everyone is going to text you call you and blow up your phone.

Things to look forward to I appreciate the the knowledge.

So funny. All right so I find it so interesting so you remind me so much of this gal that I was like one of my first mom friends Melanie who was a psychologist family psychologist and then you know she had her first child and and so we had our first kids together.

And I always thought it was so interesting watching her navigate motherhood with her career and I just wonder for you what that was like did you always want a family did you know you're going to go into family like that all come about.

My own family are working with families working with families and then having a family like did it all go hand in hand.

Well kind of so you know I started working with kids in play therapy so I'd see kids in play therapy play therapy and then inevitably I'd work with their parents in kind of a junktive sessions and even during that stage in grad school what I quickly realized for me was I have such a believer in the power of play therapy and child therapy.

And I personally was more drawn to the work with parents I was just always struck that I had a child in my office I don't know 45 minutes a week maybe at most and then this child go home to their family so I just think okay if I could impact the parents a little bit and help them with what they're struggling with.

Then a child's family environment is going to be different every minute but the 45 minute they're in my office and so I feel like I've always been driven by impact more than anything else so I realized I love thinking about family systems I love empowering both kids and parents I think that parenting side of the work is more for me than the play therapy so that's what really started my interest with working with parents and then did I you know I don't remember thinking growing up like oh I can't wait to be a mom.

I'm going to have a big family but I also think I just maybe wasn't thinking about it that way because I just kind of assumed I would and then I became a mom around the same time I finished my PhD degree and my licensing and so when I went to private practice I feel like so many of the people I've seen in my practice were kind of living through the stage of life that I was too like you have a young kid.

You're kind of like what the heck is happening why didn't I know this why am I freaking out why do I feel so triggered all the time why am I crying why does my marriage hurt her oh right and by the way I have to take care of this baby and I just really love this kind of duality of like living through that and knowing what it was really like and learning about it and connecting with other parents about it and helping them at the same time.

Yeah I love I love how you talk about the family system because I mean all of it resonates so much with me because it's true you know it's not it is it's the ecosystem of your family and and how you're all functioning super hard though you know I have some some friends who are divorced and I you would think and you know my husband are together so I don't know but you would think that co parenting in a divorce would be the most challenging but sometimes I

look at my friends that are divorced and they seem to have a better handle on it than parents that are still together because I mean you know it's not easy to insist upon certain things if there's no court decree.

I hear that I mean look I think there's so many ways to be a family and every family system is unique and everyone has kind of drawbacks and benefits right so I hear what you're saying that the idea of you know kids growing up with parents to

get married and live in the same home there's this idea like oh that's a quote intact family but also there could be a lot of things that are not intact in that family system and then there's other families where parents are no longer married and they don't live in the same home and there's really a sense of predictability and order right so you know there's not there's definitely not one right way to be a family.

But what is so in general what does one do let's say you're walking the walk you're talking the talk got your shit together and no one's perfect.

Yeah well I mean I think I'm doing okay honestly you're doing okay right that doesn't mean we're perfect totally totally okay yeah so understanding that I think pretty much doing okay but like I'm going to throw my husband under the bus but you know he was never a baby guy.

And so he really didn't pay attention to them any of them till they were like 10 8 some I don't know something like that and he's a great dad but that wasn't his thing so I was really running the ship for many many years by myself and then you know sometimes the other parent comes in and undoes everything and how does one handle that.

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