AEE 2437: Are You Good Cop or Bad Cop?
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This is the All Ears English Podcast, episode 2437. Are you good cop or bad cop? Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection. With your American hosts,

Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, coming to you from Arizona and New York City, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

You've likely seen police officers be good cop and bad cop, but you may not realize you're using this strategy too. Today, learn how to connect over parenting and relationship styles and find out who on the All Ears English team is the bad cop.

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Hey, Aubrey, how are you? Hi, Michelle, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited to record with you today. Guys, Lindsay is away, but she is coming back. So don't worry. She will be back soon. She'll be back next week. That's right. Aubrey and I are having the fun opportunity to record together. So we're having a good time. And Lindsay, we'll see you when you get back.

Awesome. This is so fun recording with you, Michelle. And as soon as I saw the question at the top of the episode, I got really excited because this has been, we'll go ahead and answer it here, but it's interesting for me and my husband. Okay. All right. Are you the good cop or the bad cop when it comes to parenting?

Yeah. So this has been really interesting for us. I am usually the good cop. And then my husband comes in, he's more strict. He lays down the law. He's the bad cop. But that's how it's always been when we had younger kids. And it has flipped with teenagers. Oh?

Really interesting. It's fascinating. And I'm sure some of you out there who had younger kids that are now growing up have been in this boat where you might parent toddlers, young kids, very differently from teenagers. So now we're sort of having to redefine the good cop, bad cop role. It's interesting. What about you, Michelle? Oh, that is very interesting because, yeah, I would say right now I'm the good cop. Well, I would say I'm the pushover. I don't know if that counts as a good cop.

But I, yeah, I'm very much the gentle parenting, you know, oh, we have to apologize if we say, you know, I'm very much like that. I'm not, I mean, of course, I have my moments, but I'm the good cop. That doesn't shock me, Michelle. You definitely seem like a good cop type of gal. I would be kind of surprised if you're like, I'm the bad cop. I'm so mean. What? No.

And of course the bad cops as parents, that doesn't necessarily mean they're mean, but they're, they are better able to maybe hold a boundary. They are able to get things like bad cops, get things done. Um, true. Cause sometimes you have to be strict in order to create good habits to really, for me, it's about following through on consequences because it's usually more difficult for me to, um,

follow through with whatever I've threatened, right? Yes, yes. Right. Because if you do, there's a lot of empty threats, I think, that parents make. What's an empty threat?

Yeah, this is something you don't really intend to do. Like I have threatened to sell my children's iPads because I want them to have less screen. I'll be like, if you know, sometimes I'll hide them and then they'll find them and sneak it. And so then I'll say, if you do that again, I will sell your iPad. That's an empty threat because I need them to have them on road trips.

I just need them to stop sneaking it when I don't want them to have it. Right. Or like, this is my favorite one. Dan is famous for the empty threats and it just cracks me up. Like right now, the Knicks are in the playoffs and we are watching every single game religiously. It's the only sport I truly, truly care about. And my son is watching. And so like if there's

I will not not watch a game and I want to watch with my son because it's fun to watch with him. It's special. And so Dan will be like, all right, well, we're not watching the next game if I blah, blah, blah. And I like

- We're not gonna actually do. - Do you think there's no way you're gonna follow through on that? - Well, I would, like, that would be punishing myself, you know? - Exactly. - That just makes me laugh. - It reminds me, I feel like the most famous empty threat is, "I will turn this car around." - Turn this car around. - When kids are fighting in the backseat, we've all done that. - Yeah, or, yeah, he'll be like, "We're going home." I'm like, "Really?" Like, we're obviously not going home with this. - Yeah, or like, "Don't make that threat, "'cause I don't want to, wherever we're going, "I'm the one that wants to go." - Right, exactly. - The kids don't care.

So my problem is that I don't make any threats and I just let them walk all through on it. That's really funny. Yeah, but that's what you're supposed to do. That's what the Instagram accounts tell me anyways, that you're supposed to show that boundary, show that you're serious. So I don't know. But what a great way to connect with friends to ask if they're the good cop or the bad cop. And this can be about parenting for sure, but also in relationships. A lot of different things about your life. You might be the good cop or the bad cop.

Exactly. So Lindsay and I recently had this expression come up on an episode of Business English, and that's why we decided, oh my gosh, we have to cover it on All Ears English. So I'm excited to talk about it with you, Aubrey. But it sounds like you use this expression. I do. This is pretty common, right? Exactly, right? It's often if one person's acting really nice or is really nice, and then the other person is either strict,

lays down the law, acts like the tough one or sometimes the mean one. It's usually on purpose. It actually happens. You see this a lot in true crime shows when they bring in whoever's been accused of a crime and you have the good cop go in and be really nice. And then the bad cop comes in. It's usually bad cop first. They scare them. And then the good cop comes in and they trust them. Right.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. One is really nice. The other one lays down the law. I love that expression. They act like so one is kind of acting like the tough one or is the tough one. So that's this idea of good cop, bad cop. And it's and it's usually a purposeful approach maybe to get someone to act in a certain way to do something, sign on to something. I mean, again, Aubrey, we're talking this just made me think of parenting right away, of course. So

Like an example could be maybe a kid wants to sleep over at a friend's house and one parent says no. And the other might say, oh, it's OK if you do whatever, if you do your chores, something like this. Aubrey, how do you feel about are your kids allowed to have sleepovers? Oh, you know, they weren't when they were younger. But now as they get older, a lot of birthday parties are sleepovers and I don't want them to miss them. So we do allow that.

And sometimes we'll allow them to have a sleepover, but it's really hard because I feel like they're so tired and cranky the next day. So that's really why I hate sleepovers. That's fair. That's fair. My kids have had, you know, friends sleep over, but usually it's when the parents, like we had friends from out of town come and so, or New Year's Eve, if we're all sleeping over, but they're too little right now to have sleepovers.

know a real sleepover but i used to love it as a kid um yeah but we were always really naughty on sleepovers we would go and toilet paper people's houses in idaho where i grew up very rural we would just get a ton of toilet paper and throw it up in the trees and over the house we would just toilet paper someone how someone's house in the middle of the night that does not happen in arizona because there's cactus everywhere everyone has cacti oh you get toilet paper in the cacti

It's never coming off. You can't get it off. So that's not really a thing here, luckily.

Wow. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, any, I mean, we already kind of touched on this, but any other examples you can think of in parenting where there's a good cop, bad cop situation? Yeah. To get kids to do chores, I think sometimes, right? If they're just not doing very good at helping on their own, sometimes one parent will intentionally like come down really hard and be mean. And then the other parent comes and be like, we love you. We're grateful for all you do, but if you could just do your chores, right? And then you're hopeful that they,

that's the same as what the cops are doing, where you're like, maybe they're scared of or...

you know, more intimidated by one parent and then they'll actually do what the nice parent wants them to do. It's interesting. I could imagine it creating sort of some toxic relationships. So it's probably not always the best parenting strategy. What do you know? Right. You don't want it to be that one person is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. In this role. So it's it's good if you switch off a little bit or. Yeah.

But yeah, to me, this can also be really useful in the business world. So like, for example, two supervisors, maybe they're trying to set limits and one of them is really strict and the other also gets people to get things done, but lets them vent about the strict one, right? Or just vent about their situation. Right.

Interesting. But do you think doing good cop, bad cop, is it manipulative? Absolutely. It's definitely manipulative, especially if it's being used intentionally. Here's where I've seen this the most, Michelle, is when I'm buying a car at a car dealership and you have the person who's helping you is so nice and we're going to be able to help whatever. And then if you try to negotiate the price,

they say oh i need to go and speak to my supervisor and they come back and they're like no he said and that that person is the bad cop that is saying no to all the things that this salesman said you have right and if you're really insisting they'll bring in the bad cop they'll bring in like the supervisor who's like sorry this and then they give you all the reasons it can't happen so that your sales person can stay good cop the good one yes have you had that happen

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I haven't bought a car in a while, but I do know that. Yeah, those are the those are the kinds of games you can feel that manipulating you. You're like, but what are you going to do? Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I also sometimes this makes me think of when people say like, oh, don't blame me. You know, it's it's not it's not me. Those are the rules. I didn't make the rules. I'll say that as a parent, too. Right. Those are the rules. You know, I didn't write the rules. Yeah.

Especially if it's like going to school or something like that and they don't want to go. It's like everyone has to go to school. Don't blame me. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't invent school. Exactly. I love that. All right.

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Okay. So Aubrey, how do we actually use this in conversation though? Right. So I sometimes I'll hear somebody say, Oh, I'll, I'll be the good cop. You'd be the bad cop. Right. I've totally heard friends say this recently. I remember their, their daughter was asking for something. She wanted something and they had found out over like a text, they'd gotten a text.

And so then they were going to need to go and discuss it with her. And I think he was like, I'll be good cop, you be bad cop. And they were kind of joking, but also it's true. Like they're like, we're going to try and use this strategy to either talk her out of whatever she wanted, something like that. It's so funny. Right.

Right, right. Exactly. Or here, Aubrey, you want to read this next one on another example? Okay, I'll start us. My husband and I are very good cop, bad cop. It takes a little planning, but it works. Okay, so you could use it in that way. Or here's another example. When we go in there to close the deal, I'll be good cop, you be bad cop.

Yes, right. Whether it's at a car dealership or at work, a negotiation, trying to get a contract signed. Often this is a strategy for one person to be good cop and one to be bad cop.

That's right. So you think it's a good strategy? You think it's good for there to be good cop, bad cop? That's a good question. I think if it's really obvious, if the manipulation is obvious, I think it can hurt the connection actually. I think I'm less likely to like trust someone and buy it or sign the contract if I feel them using this tactic on me. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. And sometimes you kind of walk into a situation knowing that, like the car dealership. That's expected. Sometimes.

Sometimes that might be a little less obvious. But yeah, definitely if you realize that that's been done to you, you feel very slighted and that definitely is going to make you lose trust. So we're not suggesting this as a strategy. We're just letting you know that it does happen and letting you know about this expression because you will hear it out in the wild. Let's do a role play here. You and I are friends whose kids are playing at the park.

and we want them to leave the park. I've been there so many times. It is really difficult. I'm like kicking and screaming. God. Yeah. They don't want to leave. It always works when somebody like, I mean, the better thing is to leave at the same time as the friend. That's always, I've definitely been like, yeah, I've been, sometimes I've been like thinking, okay, well I could stay another 10 minutes, but when I hear a friend is going, I just go, okay, time to

go. This is my out. This is the moment. So here we go. Okay, so should I tell them about the ice cream? Sure. And I'll tell them it's time to leave. I'll be bad cop. Are you sure? I don't mind. You can be the good cop. Okay, fine. Next time we'll switch.

Yeah, this is funny to think about it as two moms. Like we got to get the kids out of here. But then we'll bribe them with ice cream. You tell them we got to leave. I'll tell them we're having ice cream. Next time you can be the good cop. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, you said, I'll tell them it's time to leave. I'll be the bad cop. And then I said, are you sure? And you said, yeah.

I don't mind. You be the good cop. And yeah, this, we will sort of name it sometimes, like whether it's with children or at work, sometimes we'll explicitly name that we're using this strategy. Often not, right? Often you just find yourself one person being more strict and one not, you're not really thinking it through, not intentionally like being good cop and bad cop all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Oh my gosh. This is fun. Guys, head on over to episode 2424. That was you strike me as someone who will love this episode. Yeah, that was a fun one. That was Lindsay and I, this phrase, you strike me as something or she struck me as you want to be using this. So if you missed it, scroll up and be sure to hit follow here on the podcast. If you missed it, you're probably missing amazing episodes. So hit follow right here on All Ears English.

Awesome. To get more connection. All right. Take away today. Yeah, this is super common. You're going to hear it. Use it to connect with someone. It's a really fun question. Look how much fun Aubrey and I have been having talking about this. It brings up so many other topics and can kind of be pretty humorous. But definitely look out for when somebody might be playing you with good cop, bad cop.

then. Exactly right. Avoid being manipulated by this. But absolutely, I think this is a great connection topic to strike this up with a friend. Just ask, you know, are you good cop or bad cop with your kids? And then sometimes it switches back and forth. It's going to be an interesting conversation. Definitely. Oh my gosh, for sure it is. All right, Aubrey. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. This was a lot of fun and I'll see you soon. Yeah, see you next time. Bye. Bye guys.

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