I've sometimes wondered whether or not parents are either afraid of or not afraid enough of their kids. I've known some parents that are afraid of their kids because, and perhaps as a consequence, who knows what the chicken egg is there. All we know is the parent was alive first.

The kids learn to control their parents through not necessarily emotional outbursts, but the threat of emotional outbursts. I've seen this again and again, and it's a pretty wild thing to observe. And of course, as an observer, it's far easier than when you're in it, but this idea like, well, like they're like a pot ready to boil over, you know, like they're gonna pop.

And I've seen this in teachers in the classroom. I've seen this in so many venues where whether or not the child understands that they're somehow controlling the situation or not, there's just an inherent fear of what could happen. And then I think kids feel a certain power, but they don't feel safe, right?

I mean, how could they, right? They're children. - Yes. - So for the parents out there that are afraid of their kids' potential responses and/or how bad their kid, quote, unquote, might turn out if they were to really lay down the law. Here I'm using kind of old school language.

Listen, I grew up, you know, I'm 48 years old. So, you know, yeah, I mean, my parents, you know, didn't physically abuse us, but there might've been a spanking every once in a while, or I don't know what the rule is nowadays or the standard out there. You know, I think, I won't say which, but I might've taken a smack here or there, but not many.

And there was also a lot of love. But clearly, and here I'm not supporting the use of corporal punishment. I want to be very clear. But, you know, kids can be tough. And then also, you know, it wasn't long into my high school years when I was physically larger than both my parents.

I never used that to intimidate them, but I have to imagine when your kid is larger than you, if you were already psychologically afraid of them, now it's clear to both of you that the tables have turned. - That's right. - Right? I'm talking about the unconscious, semi-conscious aspects of this.

I'm not talking about who can, you know, obviously physical fights. There's not something I ever want to see or participate in in a household. - So this is an amazing topic, like walking on eggshells. This is right? And this is terrifying to a kid. Because again, if a kid is trying to figure out, like, am I real?

And am I safe? Kids do experience feelings in such an intense way because they don't have any of those skills and they're so surprising and they're so visceral that it is scary to them. And there are kind of, especially these groups of kids, I call them deeply feeling kids, that do feel things more intensely.

And they do have more of these big, massive tantrums. They even look animalistic often during, they try to scratch you. They'll hiss during them. They'll growl. - Hiss, really? - Yes. - I grew up with some biters. - Yeah. - Kids that bite. Because again, those are just feelings literally uncontained that are exploding out.

And where do they explode out? Through your extremities. So they, that's really what it is. And so what will happen, and this is this really unfortunate dance and one of my favorite things to help people turn around, is then kids kind of sense from a parent, like, I really am as toxic as I worried I was.

Right? And again, if we go back to that pilot thing, like I think about a pilot, it's like, we have to make an emergency landing. We're not gonna be able to go to LA. And we're all gonna land in Cleveland, whatever it is. I picture the passenger who's like, "You are going to take us to LA." And the pilot's like, "Okay, okay." Like, can you imagine?

You're like, it doesn't matter that this person is pissed. Like, you're the pilot. You don't have to keep us happy. Please keep us safe. And if you're on that plane and you're terrified 'cause you're like, we have to make an emergency landing, I promise you, you're way more terrified when you hear this person change the decision because of the threat that a passenger is going to be very, very upset.

And that is actually what we do when we're walking around on eggshells. Now, the alternative to this, again, we live in this world in parenting where there's a binary, where we say, and you said it yourself, so I'm gonna lay down the law. Like, I don't recommend that either.

Like, especially with a kid like that, that's not gonna be the best solution. These kids have to be seen as good kids. They are good kids. And when I meet with parents of these kids, I hear about them. And like, I always say, I hear about them. And I have a kid like this, so I get it.

And I'm just like, I really like your kid. And they're like, what? I was like, I do. And they're like, and then they usually start crying. And they go, you're literally the first person in 11 years who's ever said that, including like the parents. Like, you like our kid, why?

I'm like, they're tenacious. They know what they want. They seem like they have 0% people pleasing in them. These kids will change the world, but not if they're boundary lists, then they'll become tyrants. And that's really terrifying. And I'm gonna teach you how to be the sturdy leader, which is equally firm as it is warm.

And that's gonna start today. And so like, here's an example of these deeply feeling kids. I think you said something about like watching like a TV show where these kids, it feels like they hold the family emotionally hostage. And because if you don't pick the movie that they wanna watch on family movie night, they will scream, they will cry, and they will do that for three hours.

They will. Other kids after you're like, they don't peter out, these kids. These kids, interestingly enough, get in an awful cycle with their parents because they have such intense emotions more often, which more escalations, which tend to get met with invalidation. You're so dramatic. You ruin everything. They are that much more desperate to be believed.

They escalate further. You can understand how that will lead to more distance and invalidation. And we're off to the races in a bad direction. And I would say to the parents, during family movie night tomorrow night, this is what you're gonna do. And you're gonna, by the way, I would say, this is how concrete I get.

You're gonna write this down and you're gonna say it to a voice recorder with your own voice. And I want you to play it back and see how sturdy you sound. And they'll often do it. They'll be like, wow, I didn't even believe myself when I said that. I'm so scared of my child.

You're gonna do it again. And then you're gonna do it again. And this is just like any other skill we practice. And you're gonna say to your kid, look, I know in this family, Bobby, usually we let him pick the movie. He gets really upset. If not, well, tonight's gonna be different.

Bobby, it is your sister's turn to pick the movie. And I know you're gonna be upset. And I just wanna tell you exactly what's gonna happen. And I'm gonna, in this example, I'm saying there's a two-family household, which is an assumption. But even if there's one, I'm gonna say, if you're super upset and screaming, I'm going to bring you to your room.

And this is important. I'm gonna sit with you and I'm gonna stay there. And this is a line that I know from our Deeply Feeling Kid workshop has really, and you have to believe it to say it. I am not scared of your feelings. And I know parents will say to me, but Dr.

Becky, I am scared of their feelings. I'm like, yeah, you're gonna fake it till you make it. They need to hear that. Because if you think about the image of these kids, their feelings feel so overpowering to them. They feel more, but they're actually more porous to the world.

So they both have more coming in and they're actually always terrified of how much of them can flow out. And so they feel their feelings that way. It's almost like my tantrum in the house takes up the entire living room. That's why you actually have to bring them to a smaller room.

And you actually have to contain them in that way as a way of kind of saying, like, it only goes this far. Like literally, I will not let you dictate family movie and always sitting in the front seat and your favorite chair at dinner. It only goes this far.

And that is truly an act of love and protection and safety for those kids. - How often do you observe that these deeply feeling kids, is that how they're referred to? - Yeah, I mean, I made up the term, so, but yeah. - Great. - Deeply feeling kids, yes.

- You are qualified to, qualified to. So deeply feeling kids also express these deep feelings in the positive sense. I mean, 'cause I can think of some kids I grew up with and I can look at my own experience of like, it's hard to know. We don't have a calibration point.

It's not like body temperature of like how much I feel versus how much you feel. We look at the external expression of these things. Like did the lacrimal glands secrete some tears or not? Like, you know, as you were talking about this thing before I'd noticed, I like welled up a little bit and I'm thinking, yeah, like I can remember seeing things and feeling things and like, whoa, it's a really big inside.

I don't remember screaming at my parents, telling them I hate them. I probably did at some point. But I have observed other kids, peers that grew up that clearly fell into this category and have gone on to do remarkable things. Remarkable, like extraordinary things. Because it's a capacity that doesn't always skew towards a negative expression.

It can also like immense expressions of love. And, you know, I think these days that there's a tendency to for unqualified or like truly unqualified people because they're not trained to do so, to slap labels like borderline, right? Splitting, like good object, bad object, splitting. And indeed that exists as a diagnosis and symptoms of borderline.

But that we punish rather than believe and observe that these things exist. There's range in nervous system tuning and affect. And so put simply, do deeply feeling kids also tend to express love and joy and positive emotions with the same intensity or near same intensity? - I would say it depends on like, it depends on kind of their stage of development and the nature of the interactions they've kind of received back.

I think deeply feeling kids, I always say are super sensors. Like if you've won these kids and I've won these kids, we live in New York City. She will not go into a New York City garage, okay? Like where we park our car. And she's like, "The smell." And the rest of us are like, "What are you talking about?" Meanwhile, I have another friend who lives in totally different area of Manhattan and she's a deeply feeling kid.

She's like, "My daughter, the same thing." Like, I actually believe that my daughter smells something that I don't smell. Like they are super sensors in that way, right? And she notices the little detail of something. Now, in terms of the intense love, I think for these kids, their vulnerability sits so close to their shame.

This is why they get so explosive. They almost experience their feelings as attackers, which is again, why parents can get scared of them. And they do, because again, they feel that feeling so intensely that they have this deep fear of abandonment, of being too much. And so that shame tries to shut it down, although it obviously doesn't work and it explodes.

What I've noticed with deeply feeling kids, and this to me is actually like truly my proudest body of work. And you mentioned borderline, so we'll go there. People have said like, these sound almost like kids who are like have some predilection to borderline. And obviously having gone to a PhD program, we're told a lot about invalidating environments and things like that.

I'm not really one for labels either, but I just got so much insight from my, honestly, my own kid where I was like, "Wow, like she is so different in how she processes things and what she needs and how she responds to my very same interactions as my other kids." Like, they're very different.

And that fear of abandonment and being too much, it was like, it was like there from the start. It really feels like it was like there. What's so interesting is I feel like through working with her, by the way, in a very different way, 'cause these kids reject almost every typical parenting strategy.

You go to validate these kids' feelings, it's like you're trying to intrude on them and steal their heart. Because if you think about their porousness, they're so terrified of being taken over that when you're like seeing a feeling, they feel like you're like seeing into them. And so they reject you.

I always say, you can't go in the front door with these kids. You've got to like find these side door approaches. But now of all my kids, she is by far the cuddliest, the most loving, the most emphatic about our relationship. Oh, this trip now, I'm gonna miss you so much.

Like the idea when she was four that any of that, I would say to someone like, "You are crazy. You are talking about a different kid." So I think that, yes, that deep love is there. And we just have to kind of make it a little safer for those kids to access it.

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