Our Grandkids are Good Inside (and So Are We)
Today's post was written by Emily Morgan, host of the The Grand Life: Wholehearted Grandparenting podcast.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy, author of parenting guide Good Inside, seems to have struck a nerve with a whole generation of millennial parents. Although she’s not the first to prescribe something generally known as Gentle Parenting, she is one of its most popular proponents. The premise, that every child is good inside and that we must treat them with the respect they deserve, triggers the grandparenting baby-boomer generation in a particular way, especially if we were reared and then reared our own children with an authoritarian bent.
The old adages “do as I say,” and “because I told you to” just don't cut it with Kennedy. Nor does it fly with her over one million followers on social media who quote her like the Bible and refer to her simply as Dr. Becky. “Underneath bad behavior is a good child,” she writes. That philosophy would not have flown in my own upbringing either.
I was born into a Baptist home and, consequently, into a belief system that supported the biblical notion that my sin nature (original sin) existed in me from the beginning. As Psalm 51:5 of the Bible states, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” I didn’t stand a chance of being considered good inside. Guilt was my friend from day one, and it was assumed that when I said something that sounded wrong, I was probably lying. When I questioned any authority, especially a parent, I was considered rebellious. I learned early on that my heart was really not to be trusted to do the right thing, say the right thing, or have pure motives about much.
I was born a Baptist, yes, but as an adult I no longer embrace those doctrines. However, pushing aside the feelings that I still get when I do something as a 60-year-old that was considered “bad” in my upbringing—drinking a glass of wine, going to an R-rated movie—those actions often evoke a cascade of guilt. It’s hard to rebel. Just ask an Amish kid during Rumspringa. For much of my life, my worth was predicated on how much of who I am could be emptied out and replaced with a righteousness that I didn’t naturally possess. If I left those doctrines behind, who was I really?
Dr. Becky actually addresses this deep-rooted shame and guilt when she explains that the early years matter. “Even if kids can’t remember with their words, they can—and do—remember with something more powerful: their bodies. Before they can talk, children learn, based on interactions with their parents, what feels acceptable or shameful, manageable or overwhelming. In this way, our “memories” from early childhood are in fact more powerful than the memories we form in our later years; the way parents interact with kids in their early years form the blueprint they take with them into the world.”
As a child, I was not the architect of my own life, but I’ve carried a rolled-up blueprint under my arm ever since.
Let’s just say: I remember. I remember the spankings, the slaps to the face, the bloody noses, and the taste of the bar of soap that was shoved into my mouth when I “talked back.” And this didn’t only happen at home. Societal norms of that time often embraced disciplining children by spanking, shaming, and yelling. Even schools, both public and private, were encouraged to paddle their noncompliant youths. As Dr. Becky predicted, my young body remembers the PE teacher who yelled at me in second grade, humiliating me because—as a semi-dyslexic—I couldn’t remember which way to turn when I was square dancing. She yelled at me with even more gusto when I waddled back to her office in urine-soaked gym shorts only to be shamed in front of my whole class.
Childhood was brutal for many of us, even those who weren’t Baptist. And I’m afraid we probably handed down that attitude in our own parenting to our own children. I am not proud of the way I sometimes handled our children. My husband and I may not have fully believed that our children were bad inside, but we certainly weren’t happy if they came off as bad outside. Many of our parenting techniques revolved around keeping our children under our control, addressing the behavior instead of the person. We didn’t want to look bad in front of others, and we recognized that the structure we imposed on our children might make our lives easier down the road. It was like training a dog; after you get them under your control, you have very few problems. Problem is, they carry with them from childhood a bundle of baggage into adulthood, then straight on into the office of the nearest therapist.
Admittedly, every parenting style has its downsides that we can’t predict. It’ll be another twenty years before we start discovering what gentle parenting has done to our newest generation of adults. But I’m pretty convinced that even with its flaws, it seems like a better alternative than what came before it. To an objective observer, it looks harder and requires way more patience to implement. Dr. Becky’s techniques are great; but in the hot moment, being kind and soft-spoken doesn’t come naturally when we, ourselves, are tired and overwhelmed. The good news is that I’m not the parent to these little ones, so the onus doesn’t land on me.
Instead, I’m a grandparent, and I am interested primarily in bettering my skills as one. I read Good Inside with a twofold purpose: understanding my adult children and their parenting better; and, being a better grandparent by viewing my grands in a different light.
As a grandparent, the pressure is off because we are not being judged by others over how our grandchildren act. Or are we? Do you find yourself on an outing with a grand feeling uncomfortable when they act out at a restaurant, or when they grab things off the shelf on a grocery run? How do you handle the interaction with them? A gentle grandparent will try to understand what’s going on inside their grandchild’s little brain instead of judging what they’re doing with their little hands. If they reach to grab something, I might now say something more like “that looks pretty interesting, doesn’t it? Of all the items on the shelf, why did you pick that one up?” instead of pulling their hand away and saying something like “Stop it. Put that down and don’t touch things.”
I am learning not to shame their behaviors; to have what Dr. Becky calls the “most generous interpretation” of their actions. I’m learning to assume that they’re just curious, or something unusual caught their eye, and that they actually had a good reason to pick up the container of grape jelly they saw on the shelf. So I ask them about it instead of castigating every move that doesn’t meet my expectations or that threatens my pride.
It’s a learning curve, for sure. And it doesn’t come naturally to those of us who were spoken to with a different tone or attitude. In my young world, I was judged as being either right or wrong, good or bad; there was black and white but no gray. Dr. Becky admonishes us to believe instead that “these two things are true:” In this gentler parenting world, you can both be the authority for your child AND be empathetic to their dilemma. Here’s a scenario she recreates, using the ‘Two Things are True’ philosophy: “Screen time is over now. I’m going to turn off the TV.” You turn off the TV and place the remote somewhere it cannot be reached by your child and say, “You wish you could watch another show. I know! Stopping TV time is so hard for me too. Want to tell me the name of the one you want to watch tomorrow? I’ll write it down for us so we don’t forget.”
That kind of respect engenders a connection with your child and grandchild which Dr. Becky believes makes all the difference. Not to mention a connection with yourself that is forged along the way. You are acknowledging those hard parts of life in your own world and also in theirs. Honestly, this is where I think we as grandparents can benefit the most. I have been scarred by my authoritarian upbringing, yes. Heck, by my authoritarian world. And I clearly brought some of that into my own parenting. But grandparenting is my chance for a do-over. I can change and evolve. I can come to an understanding that, yes, I am actually good inside. And even though I can’t quote the Bible on that count, I sure can reference Dr. Becky with a sigh of relief. Thank goodness.
© 2022 Emily Morgan
You may also like:
Mike and Emily Morgan host The Grand Life: Wholehearted Grandparenting podcast which is in its fourth year. It consists of stories, interviews and conversations about grand parenting . She and her husband Mike enjoy their 10 grandchildren who reside with their respective parents in IN, CO, and VA and who range in age from six months to 11 years old.