The Chatbot Cure

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST BECKY KENNEDY HAS BECOME THE PARENTING GURU FOR THE SOCIAL MEDIA ERA. CAN AI TAKE HER TEACHINGS EVEN FURTHER?

- Yasmin Gagne

DOLORES BALLESTEROS, A MEXICO-BASED MOTHER OF TWO, WAS getting desperate. Her 6-year-old son kept hitting his brother, age 3, and seemed angry at her all the time. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get through to him. At her lowest moments, she says, “I really thought he was acting like a psychopath.” Last Mother’s Day, she asked her husband for outside help: a subscription to the Good Inside parenting app and its AI chatbot.

Ballesteros began using the chatbot to coach her through her son’s temper tantrums in real time. It encouraged her to ask him about his feelings and embrace the most generous interpretation of his actions. “That was really good for my relationship with him,” she says. It also reminded her to set aside time for herself. “The chatbot told me that I only have so much patience,” she recalls. Today, Ballesteros feels more connected to her son and more confident as a parent, and she credits the companion in her pocket with the transformation.

Launched last August, the Good Inside chatbot is trained on the teachings of Manhattan-based clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy, known to her 3.2 million Instagram followers as “Dr. Becky.” Kennedy had a thriving practice focused on helping parents through difficult moments with their kids when she hopped onto Instagram in 2020 to share her wisdom. She quickly found an audience, especially among parents who were struggling to manage their kids in COVID lockdowns.

In her plainspoken videos, Kennedy coaches parents through common dilemmas (difficult potty training; how to speak with a teen who feels “fat”) with an emphasis on developing a healthy parent-child relationship. Often appearing in sweatpants and with messy hair, in videos filmed between family therapy appointments or in the aftermath of a struggle with one of her own children, ages 13, 10, and 7, Kennedy is relatable and full of actionable advice.