Speaker 1: When I was in college, I lived in a big dorm,
Speaker 1: like there were probably thirty of us on one very
Speaker 1: long haul, one bathroom. I don't know how we did it.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the year we had like
Speaker 1: a pizza party. We're all freshman and it was all
Speaker 1: women on that floor. It was like male female by floor,
Speaker 1: and they went around. People went around and said, let's
Speaker 1: talk about first impressions. You know, what were first impressions?
Speaker 1: And people were laughing, and they said, who did we
Speaker 1: get the most wrong? And then everybody seemed to agree, Tova,
Speaker 1: we got Tobah the most wrong. And I was totally
Speaker 1: taken aback. I said why. They said, we all thought
Speaker 1: you were kind of standoffish and snobby, and I was like, really,
Speaker 1: why and they said, because it took us time to
Speaker 1: learn that you spent a lot of time kind of watching,
Speaker 1: just watching before you kind of started to befriend us
Speaker 1: and go along with us. And I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how's been my whole life.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we share
Speaker 2: with you the latest science of human potential from scientists
Speaker 2: who are doing cutting edge research that can help you
Speaker 2: self actualize and realize the best version of yourself. I'm
Speaker 2: doctor Scott Barry Kaufman, a cognitive scientist, author, coach, and
Speaker 2: public speaker on human potential. In this episode, we have
Speaker 2: Barnard College professor doctor Tova Klein on the show. Doctor
Speaker 2: Klin is director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development,
Speaker 2: where she aims to understand children's social and emotional development,
Speaker 2: parental influences on children's development, and experiences that parents have
Speaker 2: raising children. In this episode, we discuss her groundbreaking research
Speaker 2: and new book, Raising Resilience, How to help our children
Speaker 2: thrive in times of uncertainty. A key takeaway of this
Speaker 2: conversation is the importance of being a safe anchor for
Speaker 2: your children and conveying to them that you are there
Speaker 2: for them no matter what, that you accept them whoever
Speaker 2: they are, and that you can provide a sense of
Speaker 2: safety even in their worst moments. This episode has a
Speaker 2: number of really key insights and action takeaways as a
Speaker 2: parent to be a good parent and also to be
Speaker 2: an emotionally secure adult. So, without further ado, I bring
Speaker 2: you doctor Tova Klin. Doctor Klin, welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I'm excited for you to be here.
Speaker 2: You've had such a long and very notable career. Tell
Speaker 2: me a little bit about some the highlights. So you
Speaker 2: are a director of a child development lab at Barnard College, Columbia.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I am at. I've been at Barnard College
Speaker 1: now for twenty nine going on thirty years, and I
Speaker 1: run a program called the Center for Toddler Development. I'm
Speaker 1: a professor in psychology, so I feel like I've had
Speaker 1: it all. It's actually been the beauty of my career
Speaker 1: is that I get to be with toddlers and observe
Speaker 1: them every day, probably thousands at this point. And I
Speaker 1: get to be with college students, so as you know,
Speaker 1: teenagers to young adults. I have parents, wonderful staff, whole
Speaker 1: range of people, and I get to do like everyday
Speaker 1: development and I get to do the other piece of
Speaker 1: sort of my life on the clinical psych side, is
Speaker 1: more traumatic events and real significant life stressors that people experience,
Speaker 1: and the two together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a big part of what you're known for.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, because you've spent even going back to
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, right, didn't you study one of the
Speaker 2: classic studies that we all learned an intro to psyche class,
Speaker 2: you know, you learned about you know the impact of
Speaker 2: that on people's memories and they're traumatic, you know their trauma, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I did a study after nine to eleven
Speaker 1: of young children who had witnessed been witnessed to the towers.
Speaker 1: So these were all children under five. The oldest were
Speaker 1: six six and under. And it really came out of
Speaker 1: my training in graduate school was heavily in child trauma
Speaker 1: and adult trauma. And there I was running this center
Speaker 1: and I was a new mom, I had a what
Speaker 1: did I have at a one and a half and
Speaker 1: a three year old? And I was Professor Barnard And
Speaker 1: then nine to eleven happened, and it really came out
Speaker 1: of that kind of collegial I had met this woman,
Speaker 1: she did a lot of work in trauma at Columbia
Speaker 1: and the School social Work, and we called each other
Speaker 1: and just said what are we going to do? What
Speaker 1: are we going to do for those families? And that's
Speaker 1: how it started. And we went down town about six
Speaker 1: weeks after the collapse and started doing focus groups with
Speaker 1: families to say, can you tell us what you witnessed?
Speaker 1: What happened and what was it like for your children?
Speaker 1: That was our question. And then interestingly there was you know,
Speaker 1: as research grows, there were a lot of researchers wanted
Speaker 1: to do research in New York City and we met,
Speaker 1: you know, in a group of people who wanted to
Speaker 1: study children. We didn't want overwhelm families, and repeatedly people
Speaker 1: said to us, oh, you want the children under six,
Speaker 1: they're all yours. We're not interested, and that's the big
Speaker 1: gap in the literature. So we then did a study
Speaker 1: of the younger children. Now, yeah, and it was just fascinating.
Speaker 2: Some of the main findings.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to stress the positive findings because what
Speaker 1: your podcast is, but also my work and my frame
Speaker 1: on things, which is I was very interested in how
Speaker 1: children create safety because yeah, that was a horrible thing
Speaker 1: to witness, right, and it was scary and adults were scared,
Speaker 1: but you know, they all got to safety. They were
Speaker 1: all okay, at least physically. And I was very interested
Speaker 1: in the children who within time, not that they were
Speaker 1: life was perfect, but we're able to get grounded again
Speaker 1: and the parents were able to no matter how hard
Speaker 1: it was. And so we did play interviews with the
Speaker 1: children where we gave them blocks, and we had to
Speaker 1: give them airplanes and ambulances, but we also gave them
Speaker 1: animals so they could play with whatever they wanted. And
Speaker 1: we asked them very open ended, can you show us
Speaker 1: what you saw that day or what happened. We used
Speaker 1: whatever terms the parents use, like maybe they called it
Speaker 1: the big fire or this sad day. We just followed
Speaker 1: whatever the parents had told us the children had already said,
Speaker 1: so we weren't introducing anything new. And on the one hand,
Speaker 1: children would tell us people were hurt, people died. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, they would very much tell us people
Speaker 1: were safe. They would build these buildings. It was incredible.
Speaker 1: They would build buildings and then they'd take their hands
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, this is a safe building. It's low.
Speaker 1: And then they'd take a plane. They'd say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's safe. Then you know, we might say, well, oh,
Speaker 1: so who was in that building. Oh the people in
Speaker 1: the big buildings they ran to the safe buildings, so
Speaker 1: they the more I saw children creating safety, I thought,
Speaker 1: I wonder how this happens, because that's what you need
Speaker 1: to survive. It's not that bad things aren't going to happen.
Speaker 1: They are going to happen. That's a guarantee in our lives,
Speaker 1: in our children's lives. But the question is how do
Speaker 1: you get regrounded and know that you can be safe
Speaker 1: even when the world is not feeling so grounded at
Speaker 1: the moment.
Speaker 2: What do you think of George Bonano's research on resilience.
Speaker 2: He finds that people tend adults tend to be a
Speaker 2: lot more resilient than they think they're going to be, right,
Speaker 2: you know, do you find that same thing with young children?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting you ask that because I
Speaker 1: have doubts more about parents. So and you probably know
Speaker 1: in the trauma literature people who are caregivers, So that
Speaker 1: could be parents of children, or maybe somebody who's got
Speaker 1: some disability or sick or olders under really stressful traumatic conditions,
Speaker 1: you know, situations, they're going to suffer more. And it
Speaker 1: makes sense, like to get out of a burning building
Speaker 1: for myself is one thing, but to get out with
Speaker 1: somebody who's in a wheelchair or who's bed bound is
Speaker 1: a really like next level responsibility. That's what parents are,
Speaker 1: and so in ways, they're much more vulnerable because they're
Speaker 1: not only responsible for themselves, they have people dependent on them.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I think what we find over
Speaker 1: and over is that people, if they have community, if
Speaker 1: they have people to turn to, they can recover more
Speaker 1: than we give them credit for. And the reason that
Speaker 1: children can do okay is that parents buffer. That's so
Speaker 1: much what my new book is about. What is this
Speaker 1: buffering that parents do naturally? And so that's I think
Speaker 1: the positive and the book really came out of this
Speaker 1: idea that the world's going to always be answered. I mean,
Speaker 1: uncertainty is here, yes, but what's the strength that can
Speaker 1: come of it? When children, whether they're two or twelve
Speaker 1: or eighteen, when they have somebody to ground them, I
Speaker 1: call it anchoring and being a container, so you know,
Speaker 1: when you're not alone and you build that sense of
Speaker 1: I'm not alone. This is hard, but I'm not alone.
Speaker 1: That really propels children forward. And we know propels are
Speaker 1: teenagers forward too, like they push away, get out of here,
Speaker 1: I hate you, and they don't say it nicely and
Speaker 1: then hey, you there because I'm upset and I want
Speaker 1: you to listen for a while. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: really about steadying parents, I think, and I think Banana's
Speaker 1: work is really important that you know, with the right
Speaker 1: supports in place or with the right inner trust, resilience
Speaker 1: is definitely possible. And that's what parents are building every day.
Speaker 2: Yes, you call it an incubator. Yeah, yeah, I trub
Speaker 2: you said there. You said there are two aspects of resiliency,
Speaker 2: and the one is the parent child relationship incubator able thing.
Speaker 2: The second one in that chapter.
Speaker 1: Well, what I talk about is that the parent child
Speaker 1: interaction be with this incubator every single day. Sort of
Speaker 1: typical interactions have this I call anchoring. That's like, I'm
Speaker 1: your secure base, ah right, and then this container. I
Speaker 1: can handle your emotions.
Speaker 2: You can anchor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can show me you're good, you're bad, you're rotten,
Speaker 1: you name it, and I'm going to be able to
Speaker 1: handle it, gotcha, right, And I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: afraid of it. And I'm not going to shame you.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to scream at you. There may be
Speaker 1: some limits on you know, you can't really kick me
Speaker 1: or all the furniture, but we can go outside and
Speaker 1: you can find something to kick. So it's that idea
Speaker 1: of being their base, that anchor for them that really matters.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, I'm gonna back to trauma for a second. You know,
Speaker 2: in the long lasting effects of trauma, especially in childhood.
Speaker 2: How how robust is that correlation you know, between uh,
Speaker 2: childhood trauma and and and the way to fix your
Speaker 2: brain in the way that you process the world as
Speaker 2: an adult. Yeah, how strong is that correlation? Really?
Speaker 1: Well, it can be very strong if a child, for example,
Speaker 1: is not believed. Let's say it's you know, some kind
Speaker 1: of abuse, sexual abuse, something or just bad things happen
Speaker 1: that people want to quickly brush under the carpet, even
Speaker 1: if they're known. So what we know is that when
Speaker 1: children aren't believed, they're not listened to, they're not supported.
Speaker 1: Anytime we have to keep something in a secret, it's
Speaker 1: potentially going to bubble up because it's there, It's really there.
Speaker 1: And I have to say I almost got into my
Speaker 1: interest in child trauma. I always had that, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't call it trauma, always said abuse or violence
Speaker 1: or when bad things happen. But because in graduate school
Speaker 1: I worked with adults who were coming with this set
Speaker 1: of behaviors or problems that they were reporting that turned
Speaker 1: out to be really related to their childhood traumas, and
Speaker 1: they didn't have support to process them. So you can
Speaker 1: still do that as an adult. But if the stories
Speaker 1: you're tell told and the stories you have to tell
Speaker 1: yourself force you to push this thing aside, then children
Speaker 1: often feel bad, they feel responsible. I must be really bad,
Speaker 1: I must be a terrible person. And so you can
Speaker 1: then rework that as an adult. But someone has to
Speaker 1: listen to you and understand you that we're all complicated
Speaker 1: and that's a piece of you, just one piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And then I'm fascinated with all the research
Speaker 2: on attachments attachment patterns, and there's no sort of debate
Speaker 2: what do we call these things styles? They're all on continuums.
Speaker 2: And then are Chris Frailey's research, you know, yeah, just
Speaker 2: showing that like there's no such thing as a securely
Speaker 2: attached person. It's all we're all just like on a
Speaker 2: contine the two axes avoidant and anxious, and we're just
Speaker 2: secured to the extent to which we score low in
Speaker 2: these two dimensions of personality. So, you know, just because
Speaker 2: you do work on attachment and you've thought a lot
Speaker 2: about that, what is that correlation? Like, you know, because
Speaker 2: I've seen some research showing it's a lot weaker than
Speaker 2: you know, the childhood attachments patterns and adult attachment patterns
Speaker 2: are a lot weaker than people tend to think. There's
Speaker 2: not a great continuity there. What do you find in
Speaker 2: your research?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, you know, it's an interesting question because, as
Speaker 1: you know, something goes from the research realm to a
Speaker 1: popular realm, and there's often interpretations that I would let's
Speaker 1: call them loose researchers. We're doing that original research in
Speaker 1: a very scientific, experimental paradigm. People still do, but then
Speaker 1: it springs into our more common knowledge, and I think
Speaker 1: both gets water down and maybe misunderstood. So if you
Speaker 1: look at like the longitudinal studies, like you take Sroph's work,
Speaker 1: you know, really important work followed a very high risk,
Speaker 1: potentially cohort of children and families living in pretty low
Speaker 1: income and poverty situations. He followed them over a long
Speaker 1: time and he finds that secure base is very important.
Speaker 1: So having that security of attachment. But where I think
Speaker 1: it gets misinterpreted is this idea that while however attached
Speaker 1: you are at a year when that's measured is life
Speaker 1: where relationships are dynamic. Relationships shift, and so what we
Speaker 1: do is we say, oh, today's not a good day.
Speaker 1: That's not a secure attachment, and that's just not how
Speaker 1: it works. It really is about do I have a caregiver,
Speaker 1: particularly for younger children. Do I have a caregiver who
Speaker 1: I can trust gets it right a good amount of
Speaker 1: the time. Shall we say perfect? None of us are,
Speaker 1: nor should we be for sure? Right, But then I
Speaker 1: can internalize this sense of me as a very young child,
Speaker 1: as I'm a good person, I'm okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be okay in the world, and that then keeps getting
Speaker 1: reinforced over time and other relationships. But it starts as
Speaker 1: a base, and again you can go back and correct
Speaker 1: that base. So I think those are some of the
Speaker 1: misnomers that people have, like this is a static thing
Speaker 1: and relationships aren't static, and nor are we as people,
Speaker 1: because if we were, none of us would go to therapy.
Speaker 1: Why would we bother We say, oh, we're doomed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're not doomed. You know, we're always works in progress.
Speaker 1: And children are too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean your your your work has touched so
Speaker 2: many parents and even I believe Amy Schumer you've touched
Speaker 2: as well, right bath.
Speaker 1: Night, Yeah, Well, during the pandemic. So our program, which
Speaker 1: is for one and a half to three year olds. Well,
Speaker 1: first we went on Zoom, which I never really thought
Speaker 1: we could do, but we did. Our teachers were fantastic.
Speaker 1: We did this fantastic, very emotionally connected program with the children.
Speaker 1: And then we opened in the fall of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: on Barnard's beautiful campus when Barnard was closed, so no students,
Speaker 1: almost nobody except some facilities people, some security people in
Speaker 1: that Barnard Toddler Center and a beautiful tent outside. And
Speaker 1: she was one of the parents who had signed up
Speaker 1: for that year and came, I see interesting. So we
Speaker 1: had about total just ten children at a time because
Speaker 1: we have different groups, but we had about forty families
Speaker 1: that year because I thought who would trust their child
Speaker 1: in the fall of twenty twenty to a program. But
Speaker 1: for this group of families, people were like, A, I
Speaker 1: need to get out. If you remember how closed in
Speaker 1: we were at that point, Yes, and my child needs
Speaker 1: to be with other children that my child needs to
Speaker 1: be out of the house. We were outside and we
Speaker 1: were masked, which seems crazy now because these are little kids.
Speaker 1: And so she, she and her husband and child came
Speaker 1: for that program and we have stayed in touch, you know,
Speaker 1: as he's gotten older, and like many of the relationships
Speaker 1: that come out of my work, they just you know,
Speaker 1: they go a lifetime. And she offered she when I
Speaker 1: was writing a book, she actually said, oh, I nominate
Speaker 1: myself to write the forward. And I was like, seriously,
Speaker 1: and then she was like, oh, you didn't ask for nominations.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I went back to her and said,
Speaker 1: were you serious, she said absolutely.
Speaker 2: That's so funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean she's made it public that her husband's on
Speaker 2: the automce spectrum, so obviously I want to ask, like
Speaker 2: if their child seems to be nerdiverse, and all.
Speaker 1: All I can say is he's a great kid. And
Speaker 1: you know, that year, I'm so grateful to any parent
Speaker 1: who believed in us that year. You know, Amy and
Speaker 1: thirty nine. Other family is like and all the children
Speaker 1: separated eventually, like we you know, our philosophy that you
Speaker 1: have parents there and then you have them slowly move back.
Speaker 1: And I said in my program director and it was aliceon, like,
Speaker 1: how are we going to separate people in a pandemic
Speaker 1: who've been huddling at home? Yeah, but we did it,
Speaker 1: and we always sort of queue into the child, like,
Speaker 1: what does the child need? I can take a crying
Speaker 1: parent out or an upset parent, but I want to
Speaker 1: hopefully figure out what a child needs. And every child
Speaker 1: was able to separate and play and be friends, and
Speaker 1: that class actually that she was in. They still get together,
Speaker 1: a group of them, like six or seven of them.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, that's partly the work of
Speaker 1: our center and much the work of people in the
Speaker 1: pandemic who came together and it was scary, and they stayed,
Speaker 1: they've stayed friends.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful. I am very my own resources under diversity.
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious how many kids that you've worked
Speaker 2: with in the in the center that you've run are
Speaker 2: nerdivergent and sort of how do you deal with that
Speaker 2: any differently than others in your child development?
Speaker 1: So, I mean, let's face it, toddlers are neurodivergence. Yes,
Speaker 1: as an age group, always say we have a very
Speaker 1: wide range of what we would say, I've seen that
Speaker 1: before or it's not atypical, right, because as you know,
Speaker 1: we live in a world where we you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's teachers or psychologists, which we are, or other professionals,
Speaker 1: tend have a very narrow view of what's like okay
Speaker 1: or normal or typical, And I would say we've got
Speaker 1: a pretty broad view on that. But when I'm concerned
Speaker 1: about a child really not showing progress or in some way,
Speaker 1: you know, after they separate, am I seeing movement forward?
Speaker 1: We meet with parents just say look, this is what
Speaker 1: we're seeing, or you concerned And if they're not, but
Speaker 1: then I like say to them, you know, and a
Speaker 1: three's program, just keep your eye on this. Now if
Speaker 1: I think as child is autistic, not autism, spectrum disorder,
Speaker 1: some other sort of lesser thing. But I will say
Speaker 1: to parent, you know, I think the sooner that we
Speaker 1: get a kind of understanding of this and the sooner
Speaker 1: you get help, that's what the data shows us. So
Speaker 1: I sometimes push parents. But two year olds are so
Speaker 1: all over the place, and they start to come together
Speaker 1: as they get old, come together, meaning those very vastly
Speaker 1: varied behaviors or development, you know, whether it's language development,
Speaker 1: social development tends to narrow as children get older. So
Speaker 1: on the one hand, we know that earlier you intervene
Speaker 1: for certain children, the better, And on the other hand,
Speaker 1: lots of children sort of get on a path. So
Speaker 1: it's always a little tricky like is this something we
Speaker 1: should be concerned about or is this who this child
Speaker 1: is and they're gonna you know, walk a path that works.
Speaker 1: And so it's a little of both.
Speaker 2: People. Some parents can be very quick to medicate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at a very very young age, and that's a whole
Speaker 2: can of worm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, very much, particularly in those early elementary years.
Speaker 1: You know, I do private work with parents, and they're
Speaker 1: often hearing from schools, particularly private schools. Well, if it's
Speaker 1: really not going to be on medication, this probably isn't
Speaker 1: the right school, friend, you know, and then I will
Speaker 1: work with them around well, you know, is it that
Speaker 1: it's not the right school And do we want to
Speaker 1: look for something else? Or do you want to medicate
Speaker 1: a six year old and eight year old? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean we live in a culture certainly that is quick
Speaker 1: to medicate. And I think if we could reframe things
Speaker 1: a little and say, well, what kind of environment would
Speaker 1: really support this child creativity, curiosity? You know. I tell
Speaker 1: people often about a child, Well, if you were raising
Speaker 1: her on a farm, all would be well, I mean
Speaker 1: imagine you get up, There'd be all those chores, there'd
Speaker 1: be the animals. She could run with the horses, and
Speaker 1: they say, yeah, but we're not raising her in a farm,
Speaker 1: And I say, I know, but do you want to
Speaker 1: like try to figure out what she needs to be
Speaker 1: her or do you want to go this other route?
Speaker 1: And it's hard to know sometimes what's the right thing.
Speaker 1: I just always wish people would have a broader perspective
Speaker 1: on what is someone's strengths and how can we build
Speaker 1: you know, an educational environment around that and not be
Speaker 1: so quick to judge.
Speaker 2: We covered neurodiversity a little bit, but I'm also really
Speaker 2: interested in highly sensitive children and I'm wondering how much
Speaker 2: you've interacted with that literature And do you queerly notice
Speaker 2: it in some kids like that they have that temperament?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean you know some I think you
Speaker 1: see this often in children at all ages who you know,
Speaker 1: somebody says, oh, they're very reticent or they're shy, or
Speaker 1: whatever label they You know, again, we're quick to put labels.
Speaker 1: And I'm always saying to my students, watch that child
Speaker 1: who you think is shy or whatever inward in some way,
Speaker 1: and I want you to describe to me what you
Speaker 1: see in that child. And they'll say, this is really
Speaker 1: hard to do because you have to really then queue
Speaker 1: in to how are they not just where are they looking,
Speaker 1: but how are they looking? Where is their body moving?
Speaker 1: Even in little ways, Like I think we have to
Speaker 1: be more sensitive. But often I find those are the
Speaker 1: children who the parents then tell me at home, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he comes home and he sings every song. He literally
Speaker 1: mimics the teachers, every movement of theirs, remembers every detail
Speaker 1: of every child, right, taking in a lot, and the
Speaker 1: younger you are, the more overwhelming, that is, right, So
Speaker 1: it's not even peer pressure yet, it's just whoa, my
Speaker 1: brain is still really new in this world, and that's
Speaker 1: a lot. And so I think of it as again,
Speaker 1: you know, well, where are good environments for that child
Speaker 1: and we're not Probably going into a big birthday party
Speaker 1: is not the best thing. One of my children was
Speaker 1: like this, and at some point we were like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe going to birthday parties is not a good thing
Speaker 1: for him. Like so, so I think for the highly
Speaker 1: sensitive children, again, you know, sometimes the label helps. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it helps an older child to know there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with me. I am this sort of you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's autism, high sensitivity. Oh I'm not alone. I'm not
Speaker 1: wrong all the time, but it's really looking for ways
Speaker 1: to say, how do we support this child child, give
Speaker 1: them other people who understand them, whether that's peers, teachers,
Speaker 1: because I think we're quick to blame and shame, not purposefully.
Speaker 1: I don't think parents or professionals want to do that,
Speaker 1: but that's what we end up doing accidentally. But if
Speaker 1: that could be really hurtful. The younger the child, the
Speaker 1: more it's going to be embedded within them.
Speaker 2: And they are, the more.
Speaker 1: Sense they are, the more they withdraw, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was an extraordinarily observant child, and I think it's
Speaker 1: why I got into this field. And you know, and
Speaker 1: I used to think to myself, the adults just don't
Speaker 1: get children. They just don't. But I would push myself.
Speaker 1: I can remember thinking, adults don't get it. They just
Speaker 1: don't get it, and like, oh, but I accepted it
Speaker 1: as a child. I kind of accepted it, like that's
Speaker 1: just how it is. Was as I got older that
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, there are adults who
Speaker 1: get us. And I was always watching, always watching, yeah,
Speaker 1: to the point that you think funny. When I was
Speaker 1: in college, I lived in a big dorm like, there
Speaker 1: were probably thirty of us on one very long haul,
Speaker 1: one bathroom. I don't know how we did it. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the year we had like a
Speaker 1: pizza party. We're all freshman, and it was all women
Speaker 1: on that floor. It was like male female by floor,
Speaker 1: and they went around. People went around and said, let's
Speaker 1: talk about first impressions. You know, what were our first impressions?
Speaker 1: And people were laughing and they said, who did we
Speaker 1: get the most wrong? And then everybody seemed to agree Tova.
Speaker 1: We got Tova the most wrong. And I was totally
Speaker 1: taken aback. I said why. They said, we all thought
Speaker 1: you were kind of standoffish and soobby, and I was like, really,
Speaker 1: why and they said, because it took us time to
Speaker 1: learn that you spent a lot of time kind of watching,
Speaker 1: just watching before you kind of started to befriend us
Speaker 1: and go along with us. And I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how good my whole life.
Speaker 2: Are you an introvert?
Speaker 1: I think? Aren't we all a mix? No?
Speaker 2: No, As a personality psychologist, I'll say there's some that
Speaker 2: are extreme, most of us are a mix. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: a mix. I would say that you really do have
Speaker 2: in the bell curve. You know, you don't have the
Speaker 2: two percentages that are obviously either.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely a mix. I mean, I can be very social.
Speaker 1: I love to be with people when I want to
Speaker 1: be and I like a lot of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm I want to be with someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So I pull back. That's my nature. And
Speaker 1: that was eye opening for me though, because I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I need to be aware of that. I don't want
Speaker 1: people to think I'm being you know, mean or stand offish.
Speaker 1: So I kind of became aware of that. And again
Speaker 1: that's a big piece of my new book, Raising Resilience,
Speaker 1: is like, how do parents get to know themselves so
Speaker 1: they can know their own reactions to their children? Because
Speaker 1: the better we know ourselves, the more clearly we can
Speaker 1: see our children. Definitely, and that can be hard. It's
Speaker 1: hard to look at ourselves and shed our vulnerabilities.
Speaker 2: And radical self honesty is not.
Speaker 1: It's not people now, and you have to get through
Speaker 1: a lot of sort of icky and shame and like
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, you know that is me, that is me.
Speaker 2: Sure you have these five five something pillars, Yes, you
Speaker 2: have these five polars in your book That strategy strategies
Speaker 2: Learning to Trust learning to regulate, developing agency, connecting to others,
Speaker 2: and loving oneself. These are great strategies for adults, of course,
Speaker 2: right and children children become adults hopefully. So we have
Speaker 2: a lot of man babies interisting in the world right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or I don't know, or what what what is the
Speaker 2: female version of that too? Women babies? Yeah, but that aside,
Speaker 2: that aside, let's talk about the first one, learning to trust.
Speaker 2: So how can parents provide great your emotional safety for
Speaker 2: their children?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And I think a big part of this across
Speaker 1: the ages is when parents start to say to themselves
Speaker 1: what does it mean? Asking them themselves this question, what
Speaker 1: does this mean? To tune into my child? Again, not perfectly,
Speaker 1: no one's perfect, but seeing what a child needs. It
Speaker 1: starts off with basic needs. I mean, we start off
Speaker 1: with our youngest children providing them, you know, physical safety,
Speaker 1: nutrient sleep. But that kind of goes through life and
Speaker 1: then it becomes emotional safety and responding to them and
Speaker 1: knowing because it goes right into emotions, knowing sometimes they're
Speaker 1: going to be happy and a lot of times they're not,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. Well we message our children that way,
Speaker 1: like I'm here for you no matter what, even and
Speaker 1: probably most importantly, in your worst moments, we provide a
Speaker 1: sense of safety to them. I'm not going to judge
Speaker 1: you in your worst moments. I'm not going to judge
Speaker 1: you when you're upset, you know, over something that I
Speaker 1: think is small but you think is big.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, So we when we do that through life mostly
Speaker 1: that's sort of the the basis of the relationship, then
Speaker 1: we can get through the other hard parts when we're
Speaker 1: going to get it wrong, because every parent's going to
Speaker 1: get it right and they're going to get it and
Speaker 1: not so right. But that trust has to come from
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to tune in as best I
Speaker 1: can to what you need.
Speaker 2: Trust is so important, and like being able to self
Speaker 2: trust is so important as well. And like I'm a
Speaker 2: very like humanistic psychologist, you know, Carl Rogers, And yeah,
Speaker 2: and that was a really big part of that that
Speaker 2: that philosophy. It was important of trusting yourself and trusting
Speaker 2: your inner experience. And something you talked about a lot
Speaker 2: is like if you grow up in a family where
Speaker 2: you're every time you express your need, your parent is like,
Speaker 2: oh no, it's not as important as my need. You
Speaker 2: start to not trust yourself as much. So I would yes,
Speaker 2: and what you say and see what you think. But
Speaker 2: it seems like that's a good add on as well,
Speaker 2: that as a parent be aware to the extent to
Speaker 2: which you're shooting down the real felt experience of a child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's belief in them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Do I believe you? You know, when the child says
Speaker 1: I'm really upset because this happened, you have to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: they're really upset because it's happened, even if I don't
Speaker 1: get it. Yeah, even if I don't get it. I
Speaker 1: always think of when I was raising my children, who
Speaker 1: are now all young adults, when they would be younger
Speaker 1: and they'd say something like, look, do you see And
Speaker 1: one time it was this cat in a window which
Speaker 1: I could not see for the life of me. We
Speaker 1: were on a trip, and I remember saying to myself,
Speaker 1: jes say you see it, because it's first I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't see it. My child was getting so mad
Speaker 1: at me because they wanted to, like, they wanted me
Speaker 1: to see what they were saying. So I finally said yes,
Speaker 1: and I thought he's going to also know I'm being disgenuine, right,
Speaker 1: And then I spotted it and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: right there, it took you a long time, But that
Speaker 1: idea that then we were in it together.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's a concrete thing. But they need that
Speaker 1: when they're saying I'm hurt or I'm angry or I'm upset.
Speaker 1: What's empathy to say, Yeah, okay, you're upset. But we
Speaker 1: tend to say things like that's not something to be
Speaker 1: upset about, or that's not so important right now. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you have to stop and kind of
Speaker 1: stay in it. It doesn't have to be overly, but
Speaker 1: it does need to be somewhat genuine, right, not dismissive. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like that, Yes, at least somewhat.
Speaker 1: Genuously, somewhat genuine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. Well, let's
Speaker 2: talk about the second one, so big, learning to regulate.
Speaker 1: I'm the entire field of psychology, yes.
Speaker 2: The field of self regulation. Now, I've always been really
Speaker 2: interested in various definitions of self regulation in the field.
Speaker 2: So Clancy Blair is research at n y U. I'm
Speaker 2: really interested in his research, and his definition of self
Speaker 2: regulation is not inhibiting emotions it really is. It's about
Speaker 2: using it and channeling contextually appropriate. Is that how you
Speaker 2: see so far?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Because you know, like emotions are partly mostly what
Speaker 1: makes us human, right, It's how we connect, It's how
Speaker 1: we feel ourselves, it's how we feel others. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's everything. And I do think for a long time
Speaker 1: people had this idea. And again, when a psychology term
Speaker 1: then moves into the mainstream, which is important, our research
Speaker 1: should go outwards, but it can be either watered down
Speaker 1: or just made too broad that it was thought like,
Speaker 1: regulation means I'm calm, and I hear this a lot.
Speaker 1: Now this child's disregulated, and I say, well, does it
Speaker 1: mean she's mad? Is he upset? Like? Yeah, that's human.
Speaker 1: So regulation really is about it. And I write about
Speaker 1: this in the book. Right, So it's feeling an emotion,
Speaker 1: experiencing it, and not being judged for it. Right, that's
Speaker 1: where shame sets in. I must be so bad that
Speaker 1: I even feel this way, So first being able to
Speaker 1: feel it, you know, for the younger, the child, the
Speaker 1: newer this is to them, so having a label for it,
Speaker 1: a name for it. But let's face it, that's true
Speaker 1: for adults too, you know, sometimes you might be agitated
Speaker 1: about something or you're feeling out of sorts, and at
Speaker 1: some point you're like, oh, I'm actually angry about this thing.
Speaker 1: It's a big relief. I've got a word for it.
Speaker 1: I feel it within my body and soul, you can
Speaker 1: think of it. So it's understanding emotions as a first
Speaker 1: step to then being able to handle them. And for
Speaker 1: younger children, parents are parents are the person helping them
Speaker 1: do that. We do that for infants. We hold them,
Speaker 1: we stroke them, we rock them, we change them, because
Speaker 1: we don't expect them to handle those emotions. Toddlers have
Speaker 1: a big range of emotions, and I always say to parents,
Speaker 1: I put my arms out in like a big arc
Speaker 1: and say you are their emotional regulator right now, and
Speaker 1: little by little they're going to get better at it.
Speaker 1: But of course then you get into the teen years,
Speaker 1: when the brain's going through a whole shake up again,
Speaker 1: it's harder again. So what children are looking for as
Speaker 1: a parent to be there but slowly move into the
Speaker 1: background as a touch point because emotions go up and
Speaker 1: down and some days are better than others. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: it's really about regulating emotions, is about understanding them. Feeling them,
Speaker 1: really feeling them, but then being able to get through
Speaker 1: them in a way that says I am angry and
Speaker 1: then eventually I was angry. Now I'm feeling better. And
Speaker 1: as children get language, parents can remind children and you
Speaker 1: know that that was rough and you were mad at
Speaker 1: your friend, and I'm just thinking about what calmed you
Speaker 1: down or what what made you decide to go back
Speaker 1: to her, And then children can learn from that. They
Speaker 1: get better in time, but it takes a lot of practice.
Speaker 2: I mean I see a lot of instances as a
Speaker 2: professor at Barnard College of students that are you know,
Speaker 2: kind of have meltdowns, you know, and it's like, as
Speaker 2: you know, you're not you're not their parents, but you know,
Speaker 2: as a professor you kind of it's true. It feels
Speaker 2: that way sometimes to be honest, But you know, what
Speaker 2: are some examples of what you know, how do you
Speaker 2: handle that in the classroom, you know, because as much
Speaker 2: as I think they all think they're adults, you know,
Speaker 2: they're not really Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny doing this work for so
Speaker 1: many years. I can remember early on having a really
Speaker 1: fabulous student and she showed up for class for the
Speaker 1: seminar on early development, and it was her day to
Speaker 1: present an hour presentation and she showed up late, really
Speaker 1: responsible student, and then she said, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: was my day. And I remember thinking this was before
Speaker 1: we had all of this really deep knowledge of brain
Speaker 1: and prefrontal cortex and stuff. I remember thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: think the data was starting to come out like, oh,
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex really develops into the mid twenties, right,
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking, oh, okay, well she's like twenty
Speaker 1: and she's not there yet. So then I started saying
Speaker 1: that to the students, like when I would be teaching that,
Speaker 1: you know, think about this. You know your brains aren't
Speaker 1: fully developed. They're close. Because I'm also teaching about early development,
Speaker 1: and I say, watch those two year olds. They're just
Speaker 1: on the path, like just there. They need adults to
Speaker 1: support them. But I remind them, you know, you've probably
Speaker 1: had this, like they don't show up for the final.
Speaker 1: You're like, what do you mean didn't show for the final?
Speaker 1: They just forget, you know, and you have to say, oh,
Speaker 1: so the brains are still developing. But where I find
Speaker 1: it the most over the years, but is Barnard's students
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like I don't use this word lightly,
Speaker 1: but I truly feel privileged to be a professor to
Speaker 1: Barnart students of Columbia students too. But I mean, students
Speaker 1: are Barnard right, They're they're curious, they're thinkers, they're right,
Speaker 1: they want to do good in the world, the world,
Speaker 1: they want to do good. They're really just they're need people.
Speaker 1: And Greta Gerwig talked about that in an interview after
Speaker 1: she made the Barbie movie, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that, Like I've been teaching students like that,
Speaker 1: but would be less so now. But they wouldn't get
Speaker 1: into a class that they wanted, although it still happens, right,
Speaker 1: and they come in in a panic. Now they just
Speaker 1: come on zoom. But they used to come into my
Speaker 1: office crying or in a panic, and I'd say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't get that class. What was planned? B No,
Speaker 1: I need this class, but you know they've got it all.
Speaker 1: This is a very planned student. Yeah, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to take these classes now that I'm going to go
Speaker 1: broad money. And I say, okay, but you didn't get
Speaker 1: that class. And I'm very like empathic that way, but no,
Speaker 1: I can't change it. Did you speak to the professor
Speaker 1: wisentas what are you go to the office hours? What
Speaker 1: did you do like a face to face but also
Speaker 1: what you're going to be your backup plan because you
Speaker 1: actually do need a full load of credits. Let's come
Speaker 1: up with a backup plan. But to just in some ways,
Speaker 1: I'm modeling what parents have to model, which is like
Speaker 1: it's going to be.
Speaker 3: Okay, I have this is just just just shop talk
Speaker 3: off the record.
Speaker 2: I have this. I'm teaching this, you know, application only
Speaker 2: class and having all these students last second being like
Speaker 2: I need to take your seminar class at Columbia GRADU
Speaker 2: Like it's my fault, Like it's all it's all on
Speaker 2: my shoulders. And I think that if some of these
Speaker 2: students actually are too perseveran, it's not like they think
Speaker 2: that's like going to convince me, win me over, right,
Speaker 2: but it's actually the opposite, Like that's what you're going
Speaker 2: to be like in my class.
Speaker 1: But also, you can't just give it to the people
Speaker 1: who write, because what about the people who.
Speaker 2: Way back in April they filled out my application, yeah.
Speaker 1: Or they're sitting on the wait list and they're like
Speaker 1: I'm hoping I'll get in, but they don't know that
Speaker 1: they could. Yeah, you can't just do the go getters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like last minute, like I need it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I need it, Like it's all on you. You know.
Speaker 1: I always tell my advisors, I will go to bad
Speaker 1: for you. Like if they've tried to get into something
Speaker 1: several semesters, I say, look, if you don't get in
Speaker 1: this time, I'm going to go to bad for you.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing that they need that they haven't planned for.
Speaker 2: You know, you sound good, good advisor. I'd like to
Speaker 2: I love advice someone I would like to have. You
Speaker 2: seem like someone I would like to have.
Speaker 1: I do love that, you can call it. I love advising.
Speaker 1: I love mentoring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can tell and I do too. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's such a purposeful, yeah thing to do, even just
Speaker 2: like I love having office hours, right, Like I love
Speaker 2: being able to mentor students informally, like in office hours
Speaker 2: right yeah yeah yeah. Developing agency, let's talk about that
Speaker 2: one a little bit. How do you establish limits alongside
Speaker 2: for you to make mistakes?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, you know this, I call this the you know,
Speaker 1: the freedom trail, right, I mean, you know, I always
Speaker 1: start thinking about the young child and then becomes the
Speaker 1: older child. The teenager is that, you know, as they
Speaker 1: get a sense of self and they start to move
Speaker 1: out in the world. First of all, they want to
Speaker 1: be with peers, right, that's the connected part. But there
Speaker 1: is a sense of I can do this, whatever this is.
Speaker 1: You know, it starts off with maybe completing a little
Speaker 1: puzzle and then climbing the steps, and then it's calculus
Speaker 1: before you know it. Right. So parents often think, let
Speaker 1: let my child do whatever they want. Right. We're in
Speaker 1: an age of you know, gentleness is interpreted as let
Speaker 1: them do it they want. But children feel safest when
Speaker 1: the adults say, even that's a great idea, but I
Speaker 1: actually can't let you do it. Right. So we we
Speaker 1: at our center have we have buckets all around the
Speaker 1: room because toddlers love to throw. That's agency. I've got
Speaker 1: some power. Now, I've got a cracker in my hand.
Speaker 1: It gets flung across the room. You know, I've got
Speaker 1: this little toy object or a bigger one. Whoa, you
Speaker 1: can see the wheels turning, like you can see yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like I can see they look at a toy.
Speaker 1: I'm watching them and I think that's going to get
Speaker 1: flung across the room, and so we give them buckets
Speaker 1: and the teachers will say to them, hey, you want
Speaker 1: to throw your throat in here. It's like a redirection.
Speaker 1: But that's the beginning of agency. I have an idea,
Speaker 1: I can carry it out. And then the adults go, well, actually,
Speaker 1: you can't run into the street, you know. Actually when
Speaker 1: we eat, we eat at the table. You can be done.
Speaker 1: But that's the limit. And then children start to feel safer. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can go out there, I can try all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. I can stumble, and i can fall. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to ruin myself, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: ruin my relationship with my parents because ultimately, in a
Speaker 1: healthy enough relationship, again not perfect, children want to know
Speaker 1: that they're in their parents' good graces even when they're
Speaker 1: doing what seemed like very challenging.
Speaker 2: That's a very interesting point. Yeah, they won't admit it.
Speaker 1: Right, Teenagers for sure won't admit it.
Speaker 2: They won't like explicitly say I would like to secretly
Speaker 2: be in your good grace. Yeah, but you can see
Speaker 2: that you are very observant. Yeah, so you know you
Speaker 2: have children.
Speaker 1: I have three children. Yeah, children, Yeah are now young adults.
Speaker 1: There's still my children.
Speaker 2: They're still your children. That's still true. And and you've
Speaker 2: gained a lot of experience and knowledge through You've gained
Speaker 2: a lot of knowledge through experience. Yes, personal experience helps, yeah,
Speaker 2: inform your work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're also that's really what helps.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have different Yeah. I we have three male children,
Speaker 1: and for years people say, oh, you have three boys,
Speaker 1: as if they were clones of each other. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd say, yeah, but I'd have to go to the
Speaker 1: teachers each year who if they were going to get
Speaker 1: the same you know, if one of my children was
Speaker 1: going to get a teacher that one of my other
Speaker 1: children had, I would have to go in and say
Speaker 1: something like, I know you've had one. I just want
Speaker 1: you to know how different this next child is, because
Speaker 1: I thought it's not going to be fair if they
Speaker 1: think they're all alike. And we tend to do that,
Speaker 1: we tend to put sex in there as if it's
Speaker 1: that's everything right. Yeah, so you know, and then you
Speaker 1: would say to me like, oh, you know, what's amazing
Speaker 1: about your kids, like they are so different? I say, yes,
Speaker 1: they're out of the same family. I promise you. But
Speaker 1: they came into the world different. They've you know, they
Speaker 1: walk a different path, and that's I think. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: a psychologist, yest. I've worked with many, many children of
Speaker 1: all at this point, but it's really appreciating that individual
Speaker 1: means just that individual, and it's hard for us as
Speaker 1: parents to grasp that, often myself.
Speaker 2: Included, especially if the child is just so divergent from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and from their siblings maybe or anything that
Speaker 1: the family expected.
Speaker 2: That's and that's true as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Parents
Speaker 2: have a plan too, parents have anything. Ever go by
Speaker 2: the plan.
Speaker 1: A little bit in reality, and when it does, I
Speaker 1: worry actually for some of those children who are following
Speaker 1: the parents plan being really good doing what they think
Speaker 1: the parent wants. Then I really worry about where is
Speaker 1: their sense of who am I? And when is that
Speaker 1: going to come out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, very good point. Well, that might relate to the
Speaker 2: next one, connecting connecting to others. So there's obviously the
Speaker 2: part of that connecting with the child as a parent,
Speaker 2: but also developing in the child the social skills they're
Speaker 2: developing with other kids, you know, positively, how important is
Speaker 2: it for children to develop these social skills, like how
Speaker 2: important is it really?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the wonderful things I think about four year olds
Speaker 1: in particular is they they start to wake up to like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's an entire peer group here, and most of them
Speaker 1: want to be part of it in some way, and
Speaker 1: so it's almost like a gangstr mentality. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm supposed to be using that terminology, but they're
Speaker 1: very empowered and they want to be together. And two
Speaker 1: year olds want to be together too, without much skill.
Speaker 1: Four year olds have more skill, more language, they can
Speaker 1: do more cooperatively. They're sort of figuring that out. But
Speaker 1: I think the misnomer is that children have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends, and so you know, parents will
Speaker 1: come to me worried, whether it's about a preschool or
Speaker 1: an elementary age middle school, like name the level, she
Speaker 1: doesn't have friends, which would be worrisome for most children. Right,
Speaker 1: But then when I start talking to them, they do
Speaker 1: have a one friend one alley. Maybe it's at there
Speaker 1: after school poker, maybe it's at their church maybe right.
Speaker 1: My best friend growing up lived across the street and
Speaker 1: she wasn't in my grades, so we didn't see each
Speaker 1: other at school, but I had her like I could
Speaker 1: come home from a good or bad day and I
Speaker 1: hit barb. Yes, right, And so we tend to think
Speaker 1: children need to somehow be in the middle of the group,
Speaker 1: but not not all children are, and not all children
Speaker 1: want to be. That doesn't feel right. So there's again
Speaker 1: a big variation. But what we do know is that
Speaker 1: when children really don't have any friends or their reach,
Speaker 1: they're really outright pushed out, not like disliked. It can
Speaker 1: be problematic. And you know that's all of John Cooley's
Speaker 1: work out of Duke, right, And that's when I was
Speaker 1: in grad school. Actually he was not. I didn't work
Speaker 1: with John directly, but you know that work was just
Speaker 1: getting started and absolutely so really being rejected, you know, openly.
Speaker 1: But what we call the neglected children and pure relations, right,
Speaker 1: those are the ones I think parents worry about. They say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, when when all the kids are high fiving
Speaker 1: each other on the playground in the morning, mind standing back,
Speaker 1: and I say, yeah, but then what do you hear
Speaker 1: from school? She says, oh, I was with my friend,
Speaker 1: or he says, yeah, I found a game to play.
Speaker 1: You know, we're sharing it. Somebody told me recently their
Speaker 1: son discovered yo yo's as if it was a new thing.
Speaker 1: He's like ten, and he has a friend at school
Speaker 1: that also does yoyo's And that's not what they do
Speaker 1: at recess or whenever. They probably the cafeteria. And I
Speaker 1: was like, how cool is that? Like you found somebody
Speaker 1: who has his interest and he's learning tricks. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to belong. I think, right, we want to belong.
Speaker 2: That's not true where Yeah, I just actually just before
Speaker 2: you had Michael Morris from Columbia. He talked about tribalism. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the fundamental need to belong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we want to belong, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be in a big group. I mean I was never
Speaker 1: a group person, one of them. Neither things that somebody
Speaker 1: said to me my first high school reunion I went to.
Speaker 1: It must have been my ten year. This woman comes
Speaker 1: up to me and she says, I was hoping you
Speaker 1: would be here, And I said, oh, why, you know
Speaker 1: something I knew but we weren't. We wouldn't have called
Speaker 1: ourselves friends, but we knew each other. She said, because
Speaker 1: you never joined a group in high school, but you
Speaker 1: always had friends and I just thought you were cool.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, that's so funny because I was
Speaker 1: so anxious socially in high school. And she said yeah,
Speaker 1: but you didn't join a group just to join one.
Speaker 1: She said, you always followed your own path. And that
Speaker 1: was so interesting because for me that was hard, like
Speaker 1: that is who I was, but there was some price
Speaker 1: to be paid, and for her it was admiration. And
Speaker 1: she just thought, I'm so glad to see you here.
Speaker 1: And I was like wow, because here I thought if
Speaker 1: only I were a joiner and got in with a crowd,
Speaker 1: but she said, no, but you kind of mingled with
Speaker 1: all the groups, which was true, but I wasn't part
Speaker 1: of any of them. So I thought to myself, Oh,
Speaker 1: nobody really wins totally in these things, but we all
Speaker 1: want to be somewhere that we feel like we belong.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting one. I really resonate a lot with
Speaker 2: that the way I was as well. But I almost
Speaker 2: go to the point like if someone wants me to
Speaker 2: be part of the group, that actively don't want to
Speaker 2: be a part of that. So it's like there's a
Speaker 2: famous quote like that, right, like I don't want to
Speaker 2: be a member of any grip there was, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I feel that I do feel that way though, because
Speaker 2: I like, what do you want from me?
Speaker 1: You know, I would rather like not to We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to go back and talk about your parents now.
Speaker 2: Now I'm sure there's something stemming from that, but but
Speaker 2: I really resonated a lot with that, Like we may
Speaker 2: have been friends if we were in like elementary school together,
Speaker 2: because from what you're describing yourself, I would have been like,
Speaker 2: I like I like her. Yeah, she's a little bit
Speaker 2: of an outsider, but not totally about gravity towards my
Speaker 2: fellow outside. Yes, I guess that is. I guess that
Speaker 2: is then the group.
Speaker 1: But yeah, thinking people who are thinking for themselves. What
Speaker 1: I was saying, it was at some costs. Although then
Speaker 1: I became the yearbook editor, which was my savior in
Speaker 1: high school because there was a yearbook room and you
Speaker 1: had a then we had a print photos and lay
Speaker 1: them out and that was like my haven, right and
Speaker 1: keep other people who liked photography and liked doing layout,
Speaker 1: like we could just hang out, you know in that room.
Speaker 1: I can still picture. Yeah. Yeah, it was lovely actual. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last strategy I want to talk about is loving oneself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and look, it really ties up I think nicely a
Speaker 2: lot of the things we talked about today, like ner diversity,
Speaker 2: how individual difference is you know, how can you really
Speaker 2: kind of just accept your child as they are now,
Speaker 2: as you want them to be. It seems to be
Speaker 2: a really important key to well being, which is my key.
Speaker 1: It's such a key to well being because I think
Speaker 1: every parent wants to do well by their child. And
Speaker 1: I say this having worked in my clinical psych years
Speaker 1: with you know, parents who were abusive, but you know,
Speaker 1: then I had to come to realize they still love
Speaker 1: their children, and they were trying and didn't mean that
Speaker 1: the child shouldn't be removed at times. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, parents want to do well by children. But
Speaker 1: that often means really reflecting on ourselves to say, who
Speaker 1: is this child in front of me? Yes, because we
Speaker 1: all have if I'm being kind, I would say rose
Speaker 1: colored glasses, meaning that you know, we have some shading
Speaker 1: of our own expectations, our own desires, our own fears
Speaker 1: for our children, which can blind us from seeing a
Speaker 1: child and if they are neuro diverse or just really
Speaker 1: different from us, or maybe kind of like somebody that
Speaker 1: really drives us crazy. That could be they remind you
Speaker 1: of you're a parent or a sibling. You have to
Speaker 1: really get to that and say, wait a minute, but
Speaker 1: she's not my older sister. So how do we really
Speaker 1: come to know ourselves to say, why is this piece
Speaker 1: of my child upsetting me so much? Or why am
Speaker 1: I trying to force something on this child that doesn't
Speaker 1: fit for them? And as you know, I have examples
Speaker 1: and my book of trying to unpack that with a parent,
Speaker 1: like who is this child? And how can I help
Speaker 1: you work to see this child for who they are?
Speaker 1: Because every child, every human wants to be understood and
Speaker 1: seen and appreciate it. But the good news is when
Speaker 1: parents are able to say I see you, I hear you,
Speaker 1: even when it's hard, even when I don't like it,
Speaker 1: the child then internalizes that, oh I'm okay, I'm accepted
Speaker 1: for who I am. When we keep pushing them to
Speaker 1: be something that they're not or they can't be, or
Speaker 1: they're just not, they internalize there's something wrong with me.
Speaker 1: I'm bad, I'm not loved as me. There's a big
Speaker 1: price to pay later in life and as they go
Speaker 1: through life, not just anxiety or insecurity, but really a
Speaker 1: sense of deep seated shame. I'm not okay as me
Speaker 1: and I don't think any parent wants that for their child.
Speaker 1: I don't think they go into it saying, let me
Speaker 1: create this, but it invertally that's what happens.
Speaker 2: Can sometimes they'll create all sorts of fantasies about who
Speaker 2: they think they are. Though yeah, I'm just saying they're
Speaker 2: you know, like, I don't know about accepting that, but
Speaker 2: maybe you do. Maybe it all with hilarity.
Speaker 1: And well, that's such an important point. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I say this in my my points at the end
Speaker 1: of the book because I think this is the key
Speaker 1: to parenting. You've got to have humor, respectful. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: gotta have humor. I mean, I can think of children.
Speaker 1: I've had children at two, but then I see the
Speaker 1: parent at ten, I'm like, is she still calling herself
Speaker 1: little kiddy? I mean, I've had children march into a
Speaker 1: room and say I'm little kiddy, and then you call
Speaker 1: them by their name. They don't respond, right, which I
Speaker 1: think is kind of cool, you know. And then the
Speaker 1: parent I ran into a parent, I said to him,
Speaker 1: does she still go by little kitty? You know, thinking oh,
Speaker 1: at ten, she doesn't and he goes only in private
Speaker 1: at home, and I just thought, well, because there was
Speaker 1: a piece of her that was like saying, this is
Speaker 1: the tender piece of me. This is the piece of
Speaker 1: me that needs to be babied. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we still joke about it. No, she doesn't really, but
Speaker 1: you know there are private moments where she does. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we all want to be taken
Speaker 1: care of at some level, and that's what children are
Speaker 1: grappling with all the time. If I grow up, if
Speaker 1: I do this thing, if I get agency and walk
Speaker 1: that freedom trailed independence, will you still be here for me?
Speaker 1: That's our teens struggle, that's our toddler's struggle. And really
Speaker 1: I see it on my young adult children. They're moving
Speaker 1: out in the world, but when they call or say,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I'm coming home for the weekend, they
Speaker 1: want a touch point. They're not like saying goodbye forever.
Speaker 1: And that's like, I really think, what we want for
Speaker 1: our children. We want them to want to come home
Speaker 1: when they don't have to, right. They want them to say, hey,
Speaker 1: like can we have a meal together? Yeah?
Speaker 2: They don't need you, They just want to be with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get together.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Now there's a rumor going around that you're
Speaker 2: retiring soon.
Speaker 1: That right, So I'm putting it this way. I'm stepping
Speaker 1: down at the end of June twenty twenty five from
Speaker 1: my walls director of Barnard.
Speaker 2: And you're still so young.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm too young to I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like there's so much work I want to continue doing.
Speaker 1: Of course, children with families with programs. I spent a
Speaker 1: month in South Africa this past year working with a
Speaker 1: program that I've worked with from AFAR and then want
Speaker 1: one previous time there, and I thought, I want to
Speaker 1: do more of this. There's so much that could be
Speaker 1: done that I want to do. And yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard, but we've been, you know, making
Speaker 1: the transition, and we'll hire someone really good into that position.
Speaker 1: I have a great team of staff. So but yes,
Speaker 1: I've Yeah, it was not an easy decision to come to.
Speaker 2: But I bet there's still so much for you to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you.
Speaker 2: Have done so much, And just end by thank you
Speaker 2: so much for the great contribution you made to our field.
Speaker 2: I can I'm one of those interviewers that can truly
Speaker 2: appreciate what you've done to the fielding right it's supposed
Speaker 2: to you have an interviewers. You know what ifiate I
Speaker 2: got you, I got you, I see you. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: UH greatly appreciate what of the foundation you put for
Speaker 2: people like me, you know, interested in education and job
Speaker 2: developing myself, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. M.