The Relatable Report for Parenting Things Archives

Taming and Learning From the Voice in Your Head

Sometimes my inner critic has a megaphone.

Like when I’m late to first grade pickup or send an email with a typo.

When does your inner critic show up? When you say the wrong thing in a meeting? At breakfast when you’ve burned the toast? Or maybe you’re in a season of high stress and your inner critic is consistently whispering… You could be doing more or better in life… You need to be more focused at work and at home… Why did you do that?

Helpful, right? Not always.

But here’s the twist: that critical voice is usually trying to protect you. And when we learn to listen wisely, it can actually help us grow.

Psychotherapist Richard Schwartz, who created a form of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS), says our inner world has “parts,” like members of a little family inside us. The inner critic is one of those parts, usually a protector, trying awkwardly to keep us safe from shame or failure. Instead of fighting it, IFS suggests we get curious about what it’s worried about. That stance can soften the sting and reveal what we truly need.

Research shows that self-compassion—treating yourself like you’d treat a good friend—links to better mental health and even healthier habits like sleeping, exercising, and managing stress. A large meta-analysis found people higher in self-compassion practice more health-promoting behaviors; the effect held across multiple samples.

There’s more: compassion-focused training (a cousin to self-compassion practices) reduces self-criticism and symptoms like anxiety and depression in clinical settings. In other words, practicing warmth with yourself can help you build grit.

And a simple language tweak helps, too. Studies on “distanced self-talk” (using your name or “you” with yourself like: “Okay, Lauren, take a breath”) show it can dial down emotional heat and boost self-control in tough moments.

Here’s a 5-step “kitchen-counter” routine I use to process my inner critic between packing lunches and board meetings:

Spot it. When the voice gets loud (“You blew it!”), pause and name it: That’s my inner critic. Naming creates a little space. (IFS calls this getting curious about the “part” that’s talking.)

Say thanks (yes, really). Try: “Thanks for trying to protect me.” This signals safety and often lowers the volume.

Ask what it’s afraid of. “What are you worried might happen if I relax?” You might hear: “People will think you’re careless.” Now you’ve found the deeper need—perhaps for perceived competence or respect.

Switch to coach mode. Use distanced self-talk: “Okay, Lauren, what’s one next best step?” (Fix the typo, send a brief follow-up.) Small actions restore control.

Add a dose of self-compassion. Try the “3s” check-in:

Self-kindness: “It’s human to slip up.”

Common humanity: “Everyone sends imperfect emails.”

Mindfulness: “This is stressful, and I can breathe through it.”

For parents, modeling how you treat yourself and how you process your inner critic for your children can give them lifelong tools to manage their own self criticism. When my son struggles with his math workbook and mutters, “I’m so dumb,” I try to model a reset: “Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend.” Practicing out loud teaches our kids a lifelong skill—turning the critic into a coach.

If your inner critic is relentless—fueling shame or shutting down your life—extra support can help. Reaching out to a counselor, especially one trained in IFS-informed therapy, can help you ease harsh self-attacks and build a steadier, kinder inner voice.

Asking for help is strength, not failure.

Your inner critic will never fully disappear, but with practice, you’ll hear its warning, meet the real need, and move forward with a clearer head and a kinder heart–which, honestly, is something we could all use.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

September 28, 2025/0 Comments/by Lauren Hall

How We Learn to Hate and How We Can Stop

Recent events (both near and far) have led me to question one small little word with a big bite: “hate.”

My son’s school had to go into lockdown mode while we were having an outdoor celebration breakfast for his class. Nothing was going on at the school, but only a couple of blocks down the road gunshots were fired between people who were raging with hate towards each other. Out of an abundance of caution, we made our way into the cafeteria and had a giant dance party instead.

Of course the kids asked all the questions, “Why did we have to come inside?”, “Are we safe?”, “Will we ever be able to go back outside?”

But they had no idea what happened only a few streets away, and they definitely didn’t feel the hate that started the whole issue.

Where does hate begin? How do regular disagreements turn into something darker? What helps us step back from that edge?

Psychologists say hate isn’t just “really strong dislike.” It’s a hot mix of anger, contempt, and disgust that can push us toward action. One brain-imaging study in 2008 even found a distinct pattern when people looked at someone they hated. Parts of their brain tied to strong emotion and action planning lit up, as if the mind were putting the body on standby.

But the slide into hate usually starts earlier. We sort the world into “us” and “them.” Then we tell simple stories about “them.” Psychologist Nick Haslam’s review of decades of studies shows how this can turn into dehumanization, which means to treat other people as less than fully human. This makes it easier to justify harsh words or worse. We don’t notice it at first; it feels normal, and that’s the trap.

Politics turns that trap into a bear pit. A team led by Northwestern’s Eli Finkel, director of the university’s Relationship and Motivation lab, calls today’s political dynamic “political sectarianism,” othering, aversion, and moral contempt mixing into a poisonous cocktail. Their work notes that in the U.S., many of us feel more heat toward the other party than warmth for our own. That’s not just disagreement; that’s relationship acid.

Here’s a twist that sounds like every family argument ever: research from Adam Waytz and colleagues finds both sides think we act from love, while they act from hate. It’s called “motive attribution asymmetry,” and it locks conflict in place because compromise starts to feel like giving in to bad people with bad motives.

So what actually helps? First, real contact. The human kind, not the comment-section kind. Back in 2006, a massive meta-analysis of 515 studies found that contact between groups reliably reduces prejudice, especially when people work together as equals and leaders support the effort. Translation: volunteering side-by-side beats arguing on Facebook.

Second, a bigger “we.” Social psychologists Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio show that when we recategorize from “us vs. them” to “all of us,” bias drops. In normal life that sounds like, “We’re neighbors raising kids in the same city,” before we ever talk about policy. It’s simple and surprisingly powerful.

Third, shared goals. The classic 1954 “Robbers Cave” summer-camp study split boys into rival teams and—surprise—hostility erupted. What cooled it wasn’t a lecture; it was fixing problems together (like hauling a stuck truck) that neither team could solve alone. Families can borrow this: when a fight stalls, pick a goal bigger than the argument and push the truck together.

Fourth, better conversations. “Deep canvassing” is the term to describe 10-minute, nonjudgmental, story-sharing chats. In 2016, researchers David Broockman and Joshua Kalla found these conversations produced durable attitude change on a hot-button issue. The magic wasn’t debating harder; it was listening, reflecting, and trading personal stories.

And because our media diet shapes our mood, here’s a timely note: a 2024 University of Michigan analysis warned that rage-bait politics on social media can crank up our cynicism and hostility. If your feed makes you feel permanently itchy, that’s not a character flaw, it’s a design feature. Curate accordingly.

What does all this mean for daily life? In my house, we try to “disagree like teammates.”

We name the shared goal first (“We both want kind, sturdy kids”), we assume decent motives (“You’re aiming for safety; I’m aiming for independence”), and we take a break when we start narrating the other person as the villain. It’s not perfect. But the research backs up these small habits: contact, common identity, shared goals, and decent motives interrupt the slide from conflict to contempt and from contempt to hate.

So here’s a simple play for this week. Invite one person you disagree with for coffee. Ask three sincere questions before you share your view. Tell a short story about why you care. Then look for one thing you can do together like coach a team, pick up trash on your block, help a neighbor.

It won’t fix the internet, but it can change a relationship. And relationships are where the heat cools and the future is built.

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

September 21, 2025/0 Comments/by Lauren Hall

The Relatable Report, The Relatable Report for Parenting Things

Understanding the Stories We Tell Ourselves About Our Childhood

There’s a story I tell myself about my childhood.

It goes something like this: I was a pretty easy kid. My parents loved each other. My siblings and I had some spats here and there, but nothing too out of the ordinary. We laughed a lot. There were Saturday morning cartoons, tons of playing together outside, the occasional grounding, and a general sense that life was simple and safe.

But lately, as I watch my two-year-old daughter throw bananas on our glass door for sport, and my six-year-old son asks questions that would make a philosopher sweat, I’ve started to wonder if the story I tell myself is… entirely true.

Several of my close friends and colleagues have been processing the same questions. Things like: Did coming home to an empty house everyday really not bother me? Should I have been left alone at seven-years-old with my teenage siblings and their friends? Did my mom and dad enjoy being together or did they tolerate their marriage?

Because sometimes, what we remember and what actually happened aren’t the same thing.

Memory isn’t a recording device. It’s more like a scrapbook we keep rearranging.

According to Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a leading expert on memory and false memories, our brains are constantly rewriting the past based on new experiences, emotions, and even the way we talk about what happened. “Memory is malleable,” she says. “We can be led to remember our past in different ways.”

That means the bedtime stories we heard, the way our family framed events, and even the old photos we looked at can all shape or reshape how we remember.

And if we’ve spent decades telling a particular version of our childhood? That version starts to feel like gospel.

What happens when our story starts to crack? Sometimes, it’s subtle. You hear a sibling talk about “how chaotic things were” growing up—and you think, Wait… what? Or maybe a therapist asks a question that makes a memory pop up sideways. Or maybe, like me, you become a parent and start seeing your own upbringing through a totally different lens.

And when that happens, it can feel disorienting.

Realizing your childhood wasn’t what you thought, whether it wasn’t as happy, or it was better than you gave it credit for, can trigger a whole range of emotions: grief, anger, guilt, even relief.

But here’s the good news: This is part of growing up. Even at 35.

Dr. Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, talks about the power of developing what he calls a “coherent narrative” about our lives. He found that people who can make sense of their past (especially the hard parts) are more likely to have secure, healthy relationships with their children, even if their own childhoods were rough.

In short, it’s not about having a perfect past. It’s about making peace with it.

When do memory shake-ups start to happen? Usually during what researchers call “identity-shifting moments.” Big life changes. Getting married. Becoming a parent. Losing a loved one. Moving back to your hometown. Turning 30. Turning 50. Sitting in the car after a long day and realizing… huh, maybe I wasn’t the “easy kid” after all.

One fascinating study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that our memories tend to be filtered through who we are now, not who we were then. As our identities shift, so does our version of the story.

Which explains why, when my toddler throws a tantrum that rattles the windows, I suddenly remember my mom closing her bedroom door a lot. I used to think she just really liked her alone time. But maybe—just maybe—she was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to handle my own emotional outbursts.

Here’s the truth: Our memories might not be perfect, but they’re still powerful.

Looking back with clearer eyes doesn’t mean we have to villainize anyone. In fact, it might help us extend grace to ourselves, to our parents, and to the whole messy cast of characters who shaped our early years.

It also helps us do better. Be more intentional. Choose the kind of stories we want our kids to tell themselves when they’re grown.

So if you’re ever surprised by a memory you forgot, or one you’re starting to see differently, you’re not broken. You’re evolving. And that’s a beautiful, brave thing.

Don’t be afraid to tell a new story. One that holds both the good and the hard. One that lets your past be honest and your present be hopeful.

And if your toddler ever chucks a banana at your face, just know: You have the opportunity to give them something sweet to remember (even if it’s a little mushy).

Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org.

September 14, 2025/0 Comments/by Lauren Hall