Do You Actually Like Your Kids? The Parenting Question No One Wants to Answer

Do you love your kids—but sometimes realize you don't actually like the behavior they've become?

That's the uncomfortable question Elisabeth McKay is asking in this episode of Decoded. Because parenting isn't a lottery, and a child's behavior doesn't develop inside a vacuum. Your household is constantly providing inputs—and those inputs are helping shape the behavioral outputs you eventually have to live with.

This episode challenges both ends of the parenting pendulum: harsh, authoritarian discipline on one side and hyper-attentive, permissive parenting on the other. Elisabeth argues that love, empathy, and good intentions don't automatically produce resilient, capable children. Sometimes the behaviors parents believe are compassionate in the moment can create dependency, emotional dysregulation, entitlement, or a lack of self-trust downstream.

Using the household as a Petri dish, Elisabeth breaks down how everything from boundaries and routines to emotional reactions, family dynamics, work, spirituality, conversations, and even what parents don't explain becomes part of the environment shaping a child's developing brain.

She also examines why the toddler years shouldn't simply be survived, why children repeatedly test boundaries, and why rescuing a child from every struggle can interfere with the exact capabilities they'll need as adults.

In this episode:

Why loving your kids isn't the same as liking who they're becoming

Parenting as an input → output relationship

Why permissive and authoritarian parenting can both miss the mark

The household as a developmental Petri dish

Why children continually test inconsistent boundaries

What happens when parents threaten consequences but don't follow through