“Good Inside”: A restorative Christian approach to parenting and beyond

I was a few hours from home, towards the end of an eight-hour drive from visiting family in Nebraska. It was dark and my three kids were asleep. I needed something engaging to keep me going. A few weeks earlier, I had put on my playlist the audiobook version of a few different parenting books, optimistic that these might get more attention than the unfinished stack of physical parenting books in my home, all with bookmarks about 20 pages in.

It was as good a time as any to try one out. Within the first few minutes, it was clear that the content was hitting chords that went a little more deeply than some other parenting guides. I remember hitting pause several times and taking deep breaths to keep my emotions neutral enough for safe driving.

We are all good inside. This is the basic assumption of Dr. Becky Kennedy’s parenting approach documented in her book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. It is a core belief with implications far beyond parenting. Without ever mentioning Christianity or restorative justice, Dr. Becky — one of the most influential parenting gurus of the day with more than three million Instagram subscribers — speaks truths that reach to the core of what living a Christian, restorative mindset looks like in the real world. That is, living according to the life and teachings of Jesus, including the fostering of right relationship built by healing, accountability, and mutuality. 

Within the opening pages and throughout the book, Dr. Becky writes directly to the reader: You are good inside. As a person who struggles to release myself from the grip of “good/bad” value judgments, I find great comfort in these simple words. It is an affirmation that hearkens to the opening pages of scripture. While Christians often focus on the original sin parts of the Genesis story, what truly sets the Hebrew creation story apart from other ancient stories of creation is that everything was created inherently good. 

Dr. Becky explains what she means by “good inside:” that every person has an inherent ability to be compassionate, loving, and generous. We don’t have to train children to be kind, she writes, but rather have to “help them manage some of the barriers to kindness that can look, on the surface, like harsh behavior but that, in reality, emerge to protect a child” (90).

Her description is incredibly consonant with the message that I as a minister of the Catholic Church hope to impart on society: every human being is made in the image of God, no matter what they might have done. Every human being carries the inherent goodness of creation, no matter the ways they have fallen to sin and harmed others. 

In the area of prison ministry and emergent psychology on the impact of childhood trauma on human development, this theory rings true. We are beginning to understand that harmful actions are less a reflection of a person’s character than they are of the coping mechanisms that have been developed in order to survive in the world in the absence of healthy tools for processing emotions. 

I see this repeatedly in the world of prison ministry, especially evident when folks are released from prison. We’ve had intensive, parish-based support systems in place, helping individuals overcome the significant barriers of housing and employment, only to find that their psychological barriers were much more difficult to address. Community members who had researched housing options for hours, invested in furniture and transportation, and helped set up appointments for therapy and job interviews, have been ghosted, yelled at, and lied to as the individual made one bad choice after another, squandering one opportunity after another. Each time, we would come together and remind ourselves, This person is good inside. And we would affirm each other in setting healthy boundaries, modeling healthy relationships, and showing unconditional love.

Unlike punitive justice, which does little to take into account why a person might have behaved in a certain way, restorative justice welcomes this complexity. Restorative justice recognizes crime as something much deeper than the breaking of a law: it is an act of harm toward another person (victim), toward society, toward the individual themselves — and it is often also a symptom of previous harm, be it individual harm like child abuse or domestic violence, or structural harms like poverty and inequality. 

A widely used method to process this complexity in a restorative justice setting is the peace circle. Peace circles are a safe space where everyone has an opportunity to speak, listen, and find truth. They are able to hold complexity in a way that the punitive legal system cannot. 

Dr. Becky, too, invites caregivers to hold complexity. She calls it “Two Things Are True,” and her description of this principle could have been written for a restorative justice manual:

“Our ability to hold on to multiple truths at once–ours and someone else’s–allows two people in a relationship to feel seen and feel real, even if they are in conflict” (13). 

Some might get caught up on this phrase “multiple truths.” Truth is central to Christianity. The Gospels tell of Jesus identifying himself as “the way, the truth, and the life,” and promising that the truth is what will liberate us. Yet, modern-day Christians often seem preoccupied with the idea of a single, objective truth, and thus become legalistic — resonant with images of court rooms and judges, rather than peace circles.

Yet unlike a courtroom focusing on truth-finding, a peace circle is focused on truth-telling, because truth is less an objective observation of external events and more an honest, vulnerable account about each person’s experience of the events. 

Dr. Becky has helped me see how the scripture verses quoted above must refer more to this latter sense of truth than the former; less a mission to uncover facts and more a mission to make space for honest expression of feelings. She names the principle, “Tell the Truth,” and acknowledges that “when it comes to addressing complicated, nuanced issues, naming what is truth is often uncomfortable.” (95) 

For example, “Reassuring your kid after she overhears an argument between you and your spouse brings up doubts or sadness or frustrations about your partnership and your reactivity. … Confronting and explaining racism can put us in touch with rage or fear or guilt, or some combination of those feelings and more. Explaining how babies are made … leads to all types of complicated feelings around how sex and sexuality were addressed in our own childhood homes” (95).

In the example of community members supporting someone after being released from prison, they were hurt by being lied to and they were open to learning how lying is sometimes a coping mechanism learned earlier in life. In exploring the truth of our feelings in the experience, we were also reminded of earlier experiences of being lied to, or the ways lying was handled by our own parents growing up.

Yet herein rests the very power of gentle parenting, the power of restorative justice, the power of Christian living: by exposing our vulnerabilities in safe spaces with others, we come to see each other’s humanity, we affirm ourselves and each other of our inner goodness, and we create connections that open previously unimagined pathways toward healing. It is not an easy or quick road, and we may not fully arrive at the destination in our lifetimes, but it’s better than traveling alone with our wounds, surviving from one day to the next. 

Since that night I first started listening in the car, I’ve come back to Dr. Becky’s central mantra many times. When I’ve given everything to help someone who doesn’t reciprocate, that person is good inside. From the prison cell where society has cast them out, individuals who have caused harm to others, they are good inside. During an argument with a spouse, neighbor, or political adversary, the person opposing me is good inside. In the midst of fights, shouts, and tears, my children are good inside. In my moments of most intense dysregulation, I am good inside. 

Perhaps Dr. Becky’s popularity is a sign that this generation of parents and caregivers are looking for new ways to relate to our children, one that rejects labeling our kids as “bad” and punishing them into compliance. And it comes as a better time than ever, when we all must stand our ground in defense of the goodness of all of humanity, including our children and extending to each one of us.

Go to messyjesusbusiness.com to read more from this author, and other articles about parenting and prison ministry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Cortina is a mother raising three bilingual, bicultural children alongside her Mexican husband. She advocates for transformative and restorative justice through her work in prison ministry and parish outreach at Kolbe House Jail Ministry in Chicago, Illinois.