Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

“Understanding that we’re all good inside is what allows you to distinguish a person (your child) from a behavior (rudeness, hitting, saying, ‘I hate you’). Differentiating who someone is from what they do is key to creating interventions that preserve your relationship while also leading to impactful change.”

“Good Inside” is both the title of the book and the first and most important underlying parenting principle in Dr. Kennedy’s approach. In Chapter 1, she explains the importance of reiterating a child’s inner goodness. Separating behavior from identity allows a parent to feel empathy for the child and remain connected to them; over time, this has a higher chance of impacting behavior than immediate consequences. Along with the central theme of Everyone Is Good Inside, this reflects the theme of Prioritizing Connection Over Consequence.

“This idea of multiplicity—the ability to accept multiple realities at once—is critical to healthy relationships. […] Multiplicity is what allows two people to get along and feel close—they each know that their experience will be accepted as true and explored as important, even if those experiences are different.”

The second parenting principle is multiplicity, the idea that two things can be true at once. Dr. Kennedy explains the importance of this not just to the parent-child dynamic but to relationships in general. This is a reminder that Dr. Kennedy’s approach to parenting not only is targeted at children and changing their behaviors but also can help parents build self-awareness in their lives outside of parenting.

“In a family system, some roles are prioritized over others. Safety comes before happiness and before our kids’ being pleased with us.”

Dr. Kennedy establishes that there are certain roles that parent and child need to follow, respectively. Ensuring safety is the parent’s responsibility, and this takes priority over everything else. This perspective debunks the idea that respectful or gentle parenting is permissive, as Dr.