The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy, Becky Kennedy

This TED Talk is applicable to any meaningful relationship, but especially to our relationship with our kids. Because they are so young and impressionable, their lives are particularly amenable to editing after a regrettable event.
 

Millennial parenting whisperer, Becky Kennedy, says there is almost nothing in our interpersonal relationships that can have as much impact as “repair”. If there is one strategy we should work on as parents, it is to get good at repair: going back to a moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for our behavior, and acknowledging the impact it had on the child. Kennedy unpacks the reason that repair is so important. I (James) find her “why” both sobering and compelling.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Mistakes and struggles come with the job. But what we do after a schism matters far more than we might imagine. And how we do that also matters more than we might think. Becky tells a story of a rupture and a repair that gives us an actionable template for how we might get our connections back online.  A fifteen second intervention can have a lifelong impact on our child. And Dr Becky reminds us it’s never too late as I can attest.  My father repaired our relationship in his sixties, and it led to a very meaningful friendship for the last fifteen years of his life!