You’re listening to Burnt Toast!

We are Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay, and it’s time for your March Extra Butter.

Today we’re talking about Dr. Becky Kennedy, the beloved parenting influencer. We’ll get into:

⭐️ The Dr. Becky mantra that Virginia uses…often.

⭐️Why you don’t need to cook dinner for your kids at 3pm.

⭐️ The infamous “school nurse call” post.

⭐️ Is Dr. Becky — and parenting content more broadly— a diet or diet-adjacent?

This episode contains affiliate links. Shopping our links is a great way to support Burnt Toast! You’ll find all of the links aggregated here.

Episode 185 Transcript

Virginia

We’re talking about Dr. Becky Kennedy! I am excited. I think this is going to be a very interesting one, because Corinne, I don’t know if you are aware, people love Dr. Becky. Like, really, really love her. If you look at testimonials online, people will credit her with saving their marriages, saving their parenting life.

Corinne

So she has fans.

Virginia

Yes. And I think there’s a lot to love about her work and her messaging. But, as we’re going to get into, there are also some strange themes in her work. It’s a little bit diet culture. It’s a little bit Nice White Lady.

And I think there are ways in which all of that ends up making her advice less useful to the average parent than her Internet following wants us to believe. So I’m bracing for impact on this episode. Ee may get some emails.

To kick it off, Corinne—what do you know about Dr Becky, as someone who doesn’t have kids and doesn’t have to understand how to manage tantrums?

Corinne

Well, just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine sent me one of her Instagram reels, which was about learning to fail, living with failure, and how that can be useful. I liked it. I thought it was great. And then I went to look at her profile, and I was like, OH, this is that Dr. Becky??

I guess I thought she did more parenting and kid feeding stuff and her Instagram wasn’t really about that.

Virginia

So she is a clinical psychologist, and she specializes in parenting advice, not just feeding. She definitely talks about feeding, but it’s much more big picture. I will read you her official bio:

“I’m a clinical psychologist, mom of three, and founder of Good Inside. When I was first starting out, I practiced a popular behavior, first reward and punishment model of parent coaching. But after a while, something struck me. Those methods feel awful for kids and parents, so I got to work taking everything I know about attachment, mindfulness, emotion, emotional regulation and internal family systems theory, and translated those ideas into a new method for working with parents.”

So it’s like every aspect of parenting, potty training, sleep issues, whether or not to use punishments.

Corinne

I do not know what a “behavior first reward and punishment system” is. I don’t know what that means.

Virginia

So this is where I’m very much in agreement with Dr. Becky. She’s critical of authoritarian style parenting, where it’s very like, “ou have to follow the rules and do what we say, or there are punishments,” and the punishments maybe don’t always make sense.

Corinne

Like, eat your vegetables or you won’t get screen time?

Virginia

Right? Eat your vegetables or no dessert. No TV because you didn’t make your bed. All stuff that maybe seems sort of random to the kids.

She’s also critical of using rewards if kids do a good job, like using a lot of gold stars and prizes and things to get them to behave the way you want. Which is a very compliance-based approach to parenting.

I’m describing her work — I’m not blaming anyone who was raised in that model, or who finds themselves parenting in that model. There are definitely times where you’re like, “The only thing that’s going to get me through this is figuring out a bribe, and that’s just where we are.” And you know what, it’s real.

We can link to some work from folks like Melinda Wenner Moyer who reports on this in a lot more detail. (Check out: This piece, this piece and this one, plus Melinda’s episode of this podcast about why both pressure and rewards can backfire.)

Across parenting research, there has been a shift away from “let’s use prizes and punishments to get kids to behave,” towards “let’s understand what makes kids ‘misbehave.’” What’s going on underneath the outbursts or the lack of cooperation, or whatever you’re encountering? And so that’s what Dr Becky really talks about. She’s pulling together attachment theory, mindfulness, and Internal Family Systems theory.

Corinne

So is this what would be called gentle parenting, or is this different?

Virginia

Yes, this is definitely gentle parenting. Gentle parenting is a term that gets thrown around but it has no official definition. There are many different flavors of gentle parenting. But Dr Becky is, I think a lot of people would agree, the most famous face of the gentle parenting movement.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about gentle parenting, which are important to say, too. People often think gentle parenting means you never use a consequence for your kid, or you never give them boundaries. And that’s not what she’s saying. She actually gives quite a lot of boundaries. We’ll talk about that. But it is much more of a child-centered approach, where you try to understand them as people with complicated emotions and needs, versus “Why don’t you just do what I say!” I’m painting with a very broad brush, of course.

I will also say, unlike Mel Robbins our trial-lawyer-turned-self-help-guru, Dr. Becky is a real psychologist. She has all the degrees and clinical training. She has worked with families and has clinical skills and training. So that definitely makes me appreciate her perspective more.

I would say, though, as someone who’s reported parenting stories for a long time—a lot of her messaging is a repackaging of other people’s research and work. These are not necessarily her own innovative ideas. I think she’s very good at pulling together a lot of what other people are talking about, and figuring out how to distill it in a way that works well in Instagram reels.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not saying it’s like a plagiarism situation like we had with Mel Robbins. But I just think it’s worth noting that she is benefiting from decades of other people’s work in order to come up with her new method for working with parents.

Corinne

Hmm. Interesting.

Virginia

Okay, I’ve got a couple of Dr. Becky reels that represent the aspects of her work I first connected with. I mean, she’s someone who’s definitely helped me out of some tough spots. My kid’s dad also really likes her content.

So you can pick one that sounds interesting to you, and we can look at it.

Corinne

I’m just going to click on the first one:

Virginia

What’s your take?

Corinne

It’s interesting. It seems like the first thing is she’s acknowledging the feelings happening, but then also saying, like, “I’m acknowledging your feelings and—

Virginia

“We still have to get in the car.”

Corinne

“We still need to do what we need to do.”

Virginia

This is a common misconception about gentle parenting—that it’s only acknowledging the feelings. Because then. with a lot of kids, you just get caught in this loop. I think a lot of us, when we try it, get caught in that place. It’s really hard to move past the part where you acknowledge your child’s feelings, because no child in the middle of a tantrum or transition anxiety or anything is ever like, “Thank you for acknowledging my feelings. I will now put my shoes on.” They stay there venting and emoting, and you’re like, But I’ve acknowledged your feelings! Now I need to get you in the car.

Corinne

Does acknowledging a kid’s feelings help before you have to grab their arm and drag them out the door?

Virginia

I think it’s better to do it that way than to just drag them out the door?

As someone who’s been trying