Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Parenting
From WWSG exclusive thought leader, Dr. Sanjay Gupta:
“Really hard.” “Virtually impossible.” “I have no idea how I’m going to do this for the next 20 years.”
That’s what some of you said when we asked you to send us your thoughts on the stress of parenting these days.
If you’ve ever felt this way as a parent (I know I have), you’re not alone, and I hope that knowledge makes you feel a little better.
It’s why I wanted to talk to parenting expert Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist with the Child Mind Institute, for our “Chasing Life” podcast.
We can worry so much about our children’s anxiety, she notes, that we forget how much our own anxiety feeds into it. We need to soothe our own stress first.
And better yet, parenting is a skill we all learn, so if you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s still hope.
One tip from Dr. Becky that really stood out to me was about being a sturdy leader.
It’s not about being a dictator, but you can set boundaries and validate your kid’s feelings. She likens it to being a pilot: “The pilot of the plane does not ask for permission from the passengers to make an emergency landing. And if they’re complaining because they want to go to Los Angeles, even though we have to make an emergency landing in Kansas, a good sturdy pilot would say, ‘Oh, I know it’s annoying. I’m going to get off the loudspeaker now and land this plane in Kansas.’ Because they know their job.”
She also says people misunderstand boundaries.
“Boundaries are things we tell our kids we will do. And they require a kid to do nothing,” she says.
Think about it in the context of asking a kid to get off the couch. That isn’t a boundary, according to Dr. Becky.
“A boundary would be saying, ‘I’m gonna walk over, and if by the time I’m there, you’re not off the couch, I will pick you up and I will put you on the ground, because it’s just not safe to be jumping so close to our glass table,’ ” she says.
But perhaps most important, Dr. Becky told me that we have to rebrand parenting from a sense of martyrdom — taking pride in being a mess because you have to take care of your kids — to prioritizing yourself.
“You taking care of yourself is the single most important thing to even have the capacity to take care of another person,” she points out. “Self-care isn’t selfish.”
I know all of this is easier said than done, but I must say that talking to Dr. Becky was almost like therapy for me, and I hope you all will get that same feeling listening to our conversation.