The Truth About: Raising Resilient Kids With Child Development Expert Tovah Klein

Psychology professor Tovah Klein takes us beyond social media soundbites to reveal what truly helps children develop resilience. Drawing from her 30 years directing the Barnard Center for Toddler Development, Klein offers a refreshingly balanced perspective on the trending "FAFO" (F Around and Find Out) parenting approach and why extremes rarely work when raising children.

Klein's wisdom cuts through the noise of modern parenting discourse, explaining why children need both loving support and appropriate boundaries. "Being a parent is not a soundbite," she reminds us, highlighting how unique each parent-child relationship truly is. Rather than focusing on perfect parenting methods, Klein encourages parents to embrace the inherent ups and downs while fostering children's emotional regulation skills and independence.

The conversation explores how community support for families has diminished in our individualized society, leaving many parents feeling isolated and overwhelmed. Klein shares practical insights on rebuilding supportive networks, allowing children to experience appropriate risks, and resolving conflicts independently – all crucial elements for developing genuine resilience. She distinguishes between harmful teasing and healthy humor, offering examples of how laughter can transform difficult parenting moments into opportunities for connection.

Throughout our discussion, Klein's compassionate approach acknowledges parenting challenges while providing reassurance: "It's going to be hard, and you're going to be okay." Her stories about shared joy with her own children remind us to treasure the meaningful moments amid the chaos. Whether you're struggling with a toddler's tantrums or a teenager's independence, Klein's nuanced perspective will help you parent with greater confidence and connection.

Listen now to discover how finding the middle ground between parenting extremes creates truly resilient children who can navigate life's challenges with both emotional awareness and inner strength.

Chapters

• 0:57 Introduction to FAFO Parenting
• 9:18 Parenting Beyond Social Media Soundbites
• 18:15 Building Community Around Children
• 31:26 Natural Consequences vs. Harsh Parenting
• 40:35 Finding Balance in Parent-Child Relationships
• 51:51 Learning Through Risk-Taking
• 1:01:38 Teaching Children Conflict Resolution

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

If you're a parent who is chronically online, guilty as charged, you've probably heard of FAFO parenting For the uninitiated. This is F around and find out parenting, which essentially means kids experience the natural consequences of their actions. Some claim this is the key to raising resilient kids. In an attempt to fact check this idea, we went to the expert. Tova Klein is a psychology professor and the director of the Barnard Center for Toddler Development. She has quite literally written the book on raising resilient kids and today she's here to share her take on this buzzy new parenting approach and so much more. Tova Klein, welcome to Do. You Want the Truth? Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2: 1:14

truth. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure, I am a psychologist by training and I spent 30 years as a professor and the director of the Barnard Center for Toddler Development, working with families and children. I now work with families and children of all ages, and that's mainly me. What do you mean? You have three kids, right? That's mainly me.

Speaker 3: 1:30

What do you mean? And you have three kids right.

Speaker 2: 1:33

I have three children. I have three sons, all of whom are now grown, one still in college, so young adults. And I should throw in there that I'm the author of two books that I'm very excited about. One is called Raising Resilience, one is called how to Hodlers Thrive.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Have you been working with children before you became a parent?

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yes, actually I mean, I say this actually in my new book, raising Resilience. I kind of go through my history. I started working with children, you know, not in professional ways, but as a teenager in summer programs, and that really is what piqued my interest in sort of like, hmm, bad things happen to children and good things happen, and how do children overcome this? But even before I became a psychologist, I was working with homeless families in New York City. I've always been interested in that parent-child relationship. So, yes, I worked with families and children before I became a parent, which is interesting, because then I became a parent and I was like whoa, it's a good thing that my advice was never extreme, because it turns out being a parent and what a child needs is very, very nuanced and hard and hard and challenging up and down. I say it's like a wild roller coaster.

Speaker 3: 2:51

Yeah, I remember being the parent of the person who, before I had kids, I was like nothing is going to be plastic, nothing colorful, it's all going to be beige. Now I look around and I'm only going to buy a second hand, I'm going to buy like one toy a year. And I look around my house and I'm like OK, cool, cool.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Yeah, that's what I mean Nuance, nuance, right. Almost everything in moderation is what children need. Almost everything.

Speaker 1: 3:19

So you were working in the space before social media really became such a home for all these parenting conversations. What do you think? I mean, do you feel like social media has made everything seem like it's so extreme when in reality it's more nuanced?

Speaker 2: 3:54

no-transcript or, you know, I have this book and that would be a really helpful reference for me. But then the space desk sort of grew and grew and grew, and even when I became a parent at the very end of the 1990s, social media was not a resource. The web was not really a resource. It was starting to be. I was getting called by journalists, but it's just starting to be. You still had to go to a bookshelf and get a book or read a magazine, and so I think people had a smaller space.

Speaker 2: 4:28

So there's more shared ideas, but there's always been what's the book of the moment or what's the, you know, theme of the moment. You know there was Dr Spock, going way back, and there's Penelope Leach and there was attachment. Parenting far predates the web, and so a lot of what we see on the web is taken from the past and repackaged, but it I think it puts a lot of pressure on parents as if, oh, there's one way to do this and you better do it right, and that nothing could be further from the truth. There's no such thing as one right way.

Speaker 3: 5:03

My husband gets so mad at all the information. He's like why don't you just listen to your instincts? He's like it's overriding everything that we know and I'm like I don't know anything about parenting. I have no clue. So I think, yeah, there's like two extremes. You can either reject it and it's more of like a kind of need, like a blended approach, right?

Speaker 2: 5:22

Right, it's, it's who am I and where do I come from and this is a big part of my work and we bring ourselves to being parents. We're humans. Sometimes we forget that we're humans and we came from somewhere. We've got all that stuff that we bring with us and that's this reflective part, actually, of raising resilience that I write about, like really coming to some awareness. It doesn't even have to be that deep of like.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Why does this thing upset me? You know, why do I not care about that piece of being a parent? But I really do care if my child does something wrong and it embarrasses me. And why does it embarrass me? That's the part of we're human and so we do have instincts that I think get very undermined by all of the bombardment of information.

Speaker 2: 6:11

And even as somebody in the space, as a new parent, I was still a new parent and I was like I must be doing something wrong. My child doesn't sleep, I'm exhausted, and I went to Barnes and Noble because in those days you went and looked at books and I felt like every book was blaming me, the mother. You must be doing something wrong if your child's not sleeping. And I remember being in tears like maybe I am doing something wrong, but I need help. I just want this baby to sleep, so I can sleep, and so that movement has just become so much more potent. And the other piece I want to throw in there is that being a parent is not a soundbite. There's no such thing as one soundbite that's going to be like oh, that's right If I just say that my child will sit down and listen, or, you know, being a parent is being in relationship with a child, and if you have more than one child, each relationship is different child, and if you have more than one, child.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Each relationship is different, so you're saying that telling your child. I see you're having some big feelings right now won't solve all our problems.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yes, one word, one term, although I have to say there are some ways that you can relate that actually can be pretty good. But it's not just saying that in the moment I see you're upset. But over time, if you really help a child, feel like I'm not going to be able to go outside right now, even though I want to. But I'm understood, that's a longer term, sort of let's call it a project being a parent. Right that they're not being harassed or shamed because they want to go outside when it's bedtime. But it's not one simple answer. And I think the other thing is when we look at like this oh you know, I see you're upset we think that they should instantly say oh okay, well, thank you for seeing me, I'm not anymore, and no, it's allowing a child to be upset. They're allowed to be upset that you're putting them to bed. You're also allowed to say it's bedtime and I love you and I'll see you tomorrow, whether they're two or they're, you know, 12. So it's both.

Speaker 3: 8:32

Yeah, parenting is like the biggest group project you have, like your, your partner, if you have one, and then multiple children, if you have those, and animals and the yes, the kin around you and the community around you. You said something earlier about how you started working with kids when you were a teenager. My son just went to the most amazing last minute summer camp and it was essentially like a bunch of teenagers running this thing with the head person and around, but like the things he learns and he, you know, came home being like can you teach me to snap? The teenagers do it, and so I taught him to snap and I want to swim. I you know, like all these things that they see the cool kids doing and I think that you know, like we talk about grandparents and aunts and uncles, but I think there is that older kid component to a village that I had never thought of before.

Speaker 2: 9:32

Is that your firstborn, First and last, First and last. So for firstborns, when you think about it, they look up and see us and what do they see? This very high standard of you know they see it as perfect. You know mommy can do this or daddy could do that I can't is usually the feeling. But younger children if you have a family of two or five, right, they look up and they see their siblings. So they've got these built in. Older kids that they're trying, I would say they're trying to catch them and they're not there yet. So it's wonderful for your child to be able to go and have these older children who usually bring down, so they come down to the child's level, which is also great for older kids or teens.

Speaker 3: 10:15

Like.

Speaker 2: 10:15

I'm going to move this down a level to relate to this younger child and it's kind of cool. And then the younger child feels like they're in this not quite adult world, but this bigger world, and that's a wonderful feeling.

Speaker 3: 10:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:32

Yeah, it's, one.

Speaker 3: 10:33

I had never thought of before. Zara had you thought of that before? Are your kids around a lot of?

Speaker 1: 10:37

teens? They're not, but that's really funny that you said that, because I was. When I was a teenager I was one of those people who I could really connect with younger kids really well and I thought that I would always be that way and I feel like now, as a mom, I don't have that touch with little kids anymore where they just gravitate towards me.

Speaker 2: 10:56

And.

Speaker 1: 10:56

I was just recently thinking about that, and I think it's because that state of play and childishness is so far removed now, whereas when I was a teenager it was like I could access that a little bit easier.

Speaker 2: 11:08

And teenagers are fun. You know a lot of teenagers like to have fun if they're not so pressured that they've lost that ability. Teenagers play Like your son. Oh, they snap, Like that's cool. And it's also a mentorship relationship. I know that's not what we're talking about today, but you know mentorship matters and teenagers gain confidence from that. So it's kind of all of that. And you might find that in community settings too. You know if there's places you go or for some people that's church or synagogue or something. But you know, when you're in more communal settings where families are there and some of the older kids take on more responsibility, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 11:47

And that's probably something that we had more of in the 90s right, where it was much more normal for a teenage neighbor to come over and babysit or for, you know, neighborhood kids to all play together without a lot of oversight from adults. But we've become so fearful now that kids are missing out on some of that.

Speaker 2: 12:06

Yeah, Kids ran with each other, right, and there's no reason that they can't. The playground has some of that. But I often see people are like, oh, you don't want the older children at the playground, you know in the city or a park, you know in more suburban areas. It's like, yeah, you do. You want them all together, right. And one puts out a hand to the other. They're playing, run and chase, and you know the younger children and the older children can laugh together and have a good time and you know the younger children and the older children can laugh together and have a good time.

Speaker 3: 12:34

Yeah, and I think a lot of that, too, came from, I mean, we are so individualized but the 90s, that's when bad stuff was happening and we were hearing about it with, you know, babysitters or whatever, and I feel like we've kind of swung so far one way, instead of being like, hey, it's OK for us all to be in community and maybe you know, like, you don't need to have that kid babysit, but you can, they can all play together, and I think you know, I don't know, tova, what do you think about how our society is set up in terms of how it's set up for parents and raising children? Oh my gosh, that's such a big question.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Thumbs up or thumbs down. Well, it depends on the day, it depends on where you live. I mean, I think it's very evident in just about any community that we don't have enough resources for parents. So you know, that's at the level of do you have access to child care? Do you have access to good child care, right, good enough, kind, loving? Is it the hours that you need? You know, if you're going to work at 7 am, then you need your children to be somewhere, and if your school doesn't open, then you need before school care and after school similarly. So we don't have that kind of thing. We don't have great access to health care for families and what we've lost, as I think you know, is this sense of community.

Speaker 2: 13:55

So where I think parents can really take sort of their own initiative is where do I live and who are the people in my community that I can count on?

Speaker 2: 14:07

Can I take my child to the neighbor's house?

Speaker 2: 14:09

We used to go over to a neighbor's in the morning when I was a kid, before school, and some days when both my parents had to be at work early, we'd just go to the neighbor's house.

Speaker 2: 14:14

We used to go over to a neighbor's in the morning, when I was a kid, before school, and some days when both my parents had to be at work early, we'd just go to the neighbor's house probably I mean I don't know for 15, 20 minutes and then walk to school with those kids, you know. So can you do that with your neighbors, and they don't have to have children the exact same age, you know? Are there people who can pick up after school for you? So relying on each other is something that in many ways, communities have lost and I think, are trying to rebuild. Like, how can we have more community? Because no parent can parent alone, whether that's a partner in your, you know, in your whether that's a partner in your family, whether that's neighborhood, whether that's support people, whether that's grandparents like you have to have others who are there, and it's great for the children too.

Speaker 3: 15:06

Yep, when we were talking to Neha, your name came up and, as you know, and she was talking about you know your contribution to her book about. She was talking about you know your contribution to her book about the village, about you know that community and how that helps with resilience, and I was telling her that I felt that I was raised in a commune and a couple of different communal settings. For that specific reason, my mom got sick when I was young and so it was like who could be? How can I get the most safe adults around my child to help raise? And I feel like that's like a very extreme, obviously, example, but I've been trying to really bring that into our life and trying to teach our community how to do that as well, because it is so.

Speaker 3: 15:45

It's so kind of not unnatural, but not a lot of people were raised that way and, like I went to my son started school last week and he is going to school about 25 minutes away from us, which I know in terms of like community and everything is not great. But I was at the little mixer in the morning and five there is a person who has two kids there who lives five houses away from me and I had no idea and we've lived next to each other for four years Like how is that possible? We live in a tiny community, but that just goes to show how disconnected we are. Even somebody who tries to make community that they can count on.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Or even, if it's just for this year, say that family moves. Okay, well, for this year, that was another person or a family that they could count on. There may be relatives, there may be neighbors. I love that about raising my children in an apartment building. You know people who don't live in apartments. They're like what's that like? I was like. What's that like All the doorman knew my children, and still do. My neighbors knew All the doorman knew my children, and still do. My neighbors knew People as they started to get more independent and maybe go to the store and pick up bread or milk.

Speaker 2: 17:00

I always had somebody say, oh, I saw your son walking back from the store. I felt like there were eyes in the best, most positive way and they learned to ask others for help when they needed something If they were home alone after school. Sometimes they would say, oh, and then we went over. We one time my children were doing a project for school. They said, yeah, but we didn't have the right markers. So we knocked on our neighbor's door and, oh, she had markers and I just thought, yeah, they have built in community.

Speaker 3: 17:30

Yeah, Zara, you don't do. You have a lot of that where you are. I know you have more space where you are. We live smaller.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Yeah, yeah, we don't have a lot of that. I mean, we have neighbors and what's nice is that my parents actually live in our neighborhood. So I grew up in this neighborhood and so I've known people for a very long time, but we don't have a lot of kids in our neighborhood. It's definitely skews older, but I will say my parents are immigrants and they came from India and there's a much more community focus there. So I think that I, you know, I grew up with a little bit more of a community and now my kids have a little bit more of a community than I think most, but it's still. I mean, it's just it's hard in the States to completely access that, especially if you live in an area that doesn't sort of force you into proximity with other people.

Speaker 2: 18:22

Yeah, and if you're going to work and then coming home and then you've got to pick up some groceries on the way home before you get the kids from after school, it's there's a lot of stress on people. We have long commutes Not everybody, but many listening have long commutes or you're at home and you're doing all the things you need to do in a day and you feel like there's not enough time, and then the kids are coming home. So we have a lot of stress. And if we get back to the social media question, I get concerned that what social media does is stresses people much more than it supports them.

Speaker 2: 19:00

Not to say that there aren't good, there are good feeds and there are people giving really sound advice, but whether you can find one that works for you and not allow it to undermine you. And no, no day is there's no such thing as a perfect day but really being a parent is like up, down, up down, up down. Embrace the ups because they're really good, or watch your. You go in and peek at your child particularly a younger child, you know elementary school or younger sleeping at night or you pull the blanket over them. That should be a moment where you go like another day done and look at this beautiful human, even if you had a rough day.

Speaker 3: 19:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:43

But it's not going to be good all the time and I don't know where this idea also got put in. Oh, this is going to be fun, happy you know. Cakewalk all the time is kind of an unfair message that I think we're fed as well.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Yeah, I don't think it was. You know, people didn't share, women didn't share how difficult it was before. Or you know, like if you complained about motherhood like I never saw women complaining about motherhood when I was a child, but now when I talk to them as an adult, they're like it was the hardest of my life and I just never said anything and I'm like but why it would have helped us so much, like the parents coming later and it's almost like there's a stigma around it. I would say less so now. But I agree with you on the social media. It does cause a lot of anxiety and, depending on your algorithm, like Zara and I have radically different algorithms we're always like we got to change your algorithm up, zara, because yours is like mine is really weird. But I mean, what was that trend that you were talking about? Zara the F around and find out on social media. I don't know what this is.

Speaker 1: 20:50

Yeah, so I think, in response to gentle parenting, there's this new parenting trend called F around and find out, and really I think there's a big focus on natural consequences, which is interesting because, gentle parenting there was also a lot of talk about natural consequences. But, tova, do you have any thoughts on this sort of phenomenon that's happening now?

Speaker 2: 21:12

Yeah, yeah no-transcript, and this is our moment. Right, I'm new to having young adults. I'm like how do you do that? And so we lose context. And what I mean by that is the pendulum always swings. It swings from kind of like let's be harsh and strict to let's that's too much to we need to be kinder. And this word, gentle, got put in.

Speaker 2: 21:56

If you look at the science and I can't help myself, I'm a researcher first and foremost, probably within psychology it's that we have known for decades that children need a couple of things. They need love and care. No question, every culture has that. How you show love and care varies by who you are, by what your culture is, by you know how you were raised. There's all kinds of factors, but children also need what we call structure and limits, which is we sit down for a meal at dinnertime around this time each night, or on the weekends, if the weekdays are too busy, you still feed your children, but we have breakfast, lunch, dinner. Here's how that happens. That's what we call structure or routines. Routines are very grounding and I think what happened is, as the science of emotion regulation which is very important science got put into place.

Speaker 2: 22:57

One of the pieces that importantly was pulled out is that you don't just gloss over negative emotion, you focus on it. And again, these are complicated brain and I say brain and heart and body systems. But when we throw it into the mainstream it gets simplified and we like soundbites. I think even before social media, everybody liked soundbites. It's just easier. Oh, do it this way, we're good.

Speaker 2: 23:27

And so I feel like what happened with gentle parenting is that there was such a focus on recognized negative emotion. That is important. Children can't be happy all the time. No human can be. And it got carried away for some people, not for everybody, and the carried away was don't ever either overlook a negative emotion or put up a limit to say like that's not happening. I think of how many times I said to my children you might want to do that, that's not happening. Right, it's not harsh, it's just like I'm an adult and I'm in charge here.

Speaker 2: 24:08

So now the pendulum swings because people, understandably, as the parents, are losing the sort of modem of control that we need is the adult. The adult who says to the child, and the child feels safer when we go I got this, I'm the adult here, you don't want to leave the playground, I'm going to pick you up and take you to your car seat in the car. Why? Because it's too hard for you and I'm not going to be here for three hours negotiating that, and so it swung one way. And now I think this F off or, you know, find out is sort of a response to one extreme to the other. And yet there's three of us on here who are mothers. You probably have fathers listening too.

Speaker 2: 24:55

As a parent, we all know extremes don't work, and so if you start at one extreme, like what people have interpreted gentle parenting to be as a human, you're going to get frustrated and you know what you're going to do. You're going to go to the other extreme. I hear it all the time when I work with parents. They're like I try to be kind, I try to be nice, and the first thing I say to them is bring it up a little. And they go what do you mean? And I'm like, rather than saying oh honey, you don't want to eat dinner, you say I know you don't want to eat. I got it, it's dinner time. I'm going to help you get to the table. It's bringing it up a little bit because otherwise you're going to lose your mind at some point. For 15 minutes I tried to get him to the table. Well, he's three years old.

Speaker 2: 25:39

You could also say this is hard for you.

Speaker 2: 25:41

I'm just going to walk you over there. But if you don't want your child to ever be upset, that's going to be hard for you. And if you have any history, whether it's abuse or just harsh parenting or not being understood yourself as a child, it's going to be very hard to interact with your child when they're upset. And I think that's the crux of this is that how do we handle when our children are upset, whether it's for a reason we understand, like they didn't make the soccer team, that is upsetting, or they don't like the color shirt you just gave them, which we might think is ridiculous, but the child doesn't. And so you know, I call sort of the insults big, medium, big, medium, small, and then of course, there's trauma or more toxic, but in a day to day there's little, medium, big, and so, either way, you're helping children every single day through negative moments. That's our, that's part of being a parent who knew yeah, we thought it was going to be joy. And those beautiful pictures of babies yeah, cookie baking yeah, it's not like that.

Speaker 2: 26:57

Planting flowers together. You know like no, yeah, you have moments, hopefully, but they're not clean. Baking with children is fun, but it's not clean.

Speaker 3: 27:05

Yeah, gardening with children is fun, but you're going to turn around and they're eating a worm.

Speaker 2: 27:08

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3: 27:10

I think what you're talking about is so important because so many of us were not taught ourselves how to regulate our own emotions, and so when we help my child regulate has just changed. It's like our whole dynamic in our household is different and better and my relationship with him is better. And it just has me wondering how do we do that when families don't really have that option or don't know how? Like, how do you teach an adult to be resilient and regulate their own emotions while you're trying to teach a child that?

Speaker 2: 27:53

Because we're all learning this together, it seems like I think I love how you said that we're all learning this together, right? And this just to harp back to the conversation we had just a few minutes ago a society that doesn't provide a lot of support for parents makes this even harder because we are stressed as parents. I got this question on a radio show, like are we more stressed now? Is it hard? And I said, you know, I think that's irrelevant, like we are parents right now. So whether people were stressed 50 years ago, that wasn't fair to them, but we are stressed right now and it is hard right now. So how do you do that? You have to start with yourself, and I think it starts with I mean, this is going to sound really simple and I realize it's not so easy to do but saying to yourself I have to be kind to me, meaning we are hard on ourselves as parents and particularly mothers, right, this is a big women's issue, right. But I have to be a little lighter on myself, and I said it during the pandemic and now I'm bringing it into work now, which is when parents were really, I mean, stressed out, you know, beyond limits in the pandemic.

Speaker 2: 29:10

And I would say to them did you get one decent meal into your child. Today, they go oh yeah, there was more than one. Okay, and did you have one moment, one moment of shared joy? Yeah, when I got him out of the bathtub, you know, I snuggled him and we just I said, okay, that's it. And are they sleeping now? Yes, okay, they're alive, you're good. Because that says to the child I'm here, I love you. But if you take that to your day-to-day life, you can probably say, yeah, you know what. We've had these moments. But we've also had rough times. It's been hard to get out the door. We battle over food. I couldn't get his shoes on, whatever it is, I was upset about their homework. If you take a step back, you have to start with yourself and say I got to be lighter on myself, I got to just accept that sometimes it's rotten.

Speaker 3: 30:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Right, and it's supposed to be. I mean, if there, if I was going to have like my own meme, it would be. It's supposed to be rotten Now go enjoy it.

Speaker 3: 30:10

I love that. It makes me think of like an apple, like okay, this is good enough.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Yeah, exactly, cut that piece out and we're still okay, yeah and so. But we always start from whatever concept we have of the beautiful mother and child and it's like that's a moment, that's not all the time. So it's being lighter on ourselves, it's a lot of awareness. You know what? I was hurt as a child. Or my parents really weren't kind to me. Maybe it all looked good, you had everything you needed, maybe you didn't, but in the end my parents didn't get me. Or, yeah, they were humiliated. You know, I often talk to parents who come from these homes where there was a lot of teasing. They say, well, we're always having fun, my parents are always teasing and I say let's talk about what that was.

Speaker 3: 30:58

Teasing is mean my son hates it. That's in our family and he's like not in my family but in the other side, and he's like I don't like it. They tease too much.

Speaker 1: 31:10

And I'm like I love that he can articulate that and that he feels safe telling you that, yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:15

Well, he knows I don't like teasing either, so yeah, we're very sensitive.

Speaker 1: 31:19

It's mean, but it's also mean.

Speaker 2: 31:21

You don't tease, unless there's like a mean component. You can have fun with somebody, but then it's a shared fun.

Speaker 3: 31:28

So what is that? Why is teasing I mean, there's so many families where that is like teasing is the form of connection. What is that?

Speaker 2: 31:36

I married into it and I was so taken aback I didn't know what it was. Yeah, I was like well, I think teasing is. You could probably do a whole podcast with people. I think teasing is a form of like anger, you know, like, rather than saying, hey, that's enough, or you know what, you know, it's not happening. That way, you can't talk to me like that. It's some gesture that gets funny and I'm all for humor. In fact, I have it in both my books, like in the sort of tips for parents. Here's one that doesn't need nuance. Maybe it does need nuance, but is you've got to have humor for yourself and for your child? Like, okay, I did mess up, okay, sorry, but teasing is something else. It's a dig. It's a dig at somebody. It's not agreed upon teasing, so is it like?

Speaker 3: 32:31

passive aggressiveness where it's like, maybe, emotional immaturity. People don't know really how to bring up issues with one another, and so they just tease.

Speaker 2: 32:40

Yeah, they're uncomfortable, right, most of us are not sort of raised or let's call it training or educated to feel really comfortable being mad, feeling insulted, handling frustration. We're basically veered towards be happy, be nice, be happy, be nice. So what do I do when I'm not feeling that way? What do I do when I'm disappointed in the response? What do I do when I really don't like my child at this moment? Right, that's like I would say that that's a tough one. That's like the in my book. I say, well, that's kind of the final chapter, but it's really the first chapter. Just read it. You know how do you come to accept this child for who they are, not for who we want them to be? And if you do that by teasing, you're going to do a lot of damage. Oh, always tripping over your own two feet, ha ha ha. Your child feels terrible.

Speaker 3: 33:39

I guess I did have that in my family too, which is why I'm not very close with them, because I'm like, what is this? I don't know how to, but if you're raised around it it seems like that's normal. How did you work through that in your family dynamic?

Speaker 2: 33:53

if it's okay to ask, Did you work through that in your family dynamic, if it's okay to ask, yeah, I mean, first of all, it took me a while to identify that's what that was.

Speaker 2: 34:01

I was like something here doesn't feel right to me and I come from a family that has its own issues. But teasing wasn't like we weren't mean that way. Edgar was very direct with its own issues, but so was kindness, like it was both, and so I had to really first identify it and then I had to really say to my husband, like that's not OK for our kids, like I can handle it, but I also, you know, put a stop on it. Basically. So to people like no, I don't find that funny, you know, put a stop on it basically. So to people like no, I don't find that funny. Yeah, and I was told at times oh, you're humorless, which is funny, because I actually have great humor, as does my spouse has great humor, but and we use it a lot with our kids and but it doesn't have to be in digging ways, it doesn't have to have an undercurrent of you loser.

Speaker 3: 34:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:53

Right, it's kind of like a competitive one upping, but I was like, no, that's not OK for our children.

Speaker 3: 34:59

Yeah, so you're really direct about it.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Yeah, I had to be really, because it took me a long time to identify it. Like what is this? That's you, yuck? I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 1: 35:16

It is interesting too because I think so much comedy in the United States is really mean spirited and even if you watch a sitcom like Friends is one of my favorite shows but so much of the humor in that show comes from them just teasing each other and kind of getting at each other's pain points. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:30

And we laugh at that, which is different. I think that humor, that kind of states what humans do that we're not supposed to talk about. You know like you know our bodily functions and you know why do kids like to talk about farting all the time. I mean a put down, and we're the adults and our children are little people, yeah Right, and they're looking to us as a guide. And again, you can use humor in fun ways.

Speaker 2: 36:05

I mean I can't tell you how many times when my children wouldn't get dressed and I was starting to lose my mind because I had to get to work, I had to get them to school. We all know this scenario. I was like I guess I'm wearing your clothes and I had somebody's underwear in my head. I mean that's humor. But that's only when I would say to myself I better get my thermometer down, because I'm either going to lose it, which will go nowhere in the morning, or if I could ground myself. Back to your question like how do we do ourselves? First it's to say, okay, I'm getting heated, I've got to ground myself.

Speaker 3: 36:36

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 36:36

These are just little kids. I'm the adult here. You've got to laugh. Okay, underwear is going on my head. And then it sort of breaks the tension and they somebody would grab it. Or I. One time I said to one of my kids it was the middle of winter, he was not putting shoes on, he was not putting. I was like put something in your feet, I don't care what they are. And then I finally said, okay, go outside barefoot. He was like what, it's cold out.

Speaker 2: 37:01

I said I know but we got to get to school, you know. So when we lighten it, our whole body's lightened, and they do too. And again, it's not perfection, it's getting some mantra into your head that goes these are little people, feel my own feet on the floor and it's like exhaling, I think.

Speaker 1: 37:20

On the subject of humor, I think we would all agree that a sense of humor is really important in parenting, but I've noticed on social media that I think there is a lot of creators who are making their kids the butt of the joke. Yes, I noticed there was that trend where I don't know if you watched Full House ever, but it was the Full House theme song and it's people kind of pantomiming, talking about what it's like to be home with kids over the summer and they're kind of like you know, like pantomiming, different things, and I was looking at a few of those and they're funny. I mean, some of them are done in a really funny way, but I keep imagining a kid growing up and seeing that their parent posted that about their days at home with them and what that would feel like.

Speaker 2: 38:05

I worry about it too, because I mean again, like, humor is a great thing. It lightens us, it lightens the air. It says to a child it's not the end of the world that you didn't want to eat dinner.

Speaker 3: 38:17

Like I still love you, Right, and it's like it feels like the end of the world sometimes yeah, and then you get yourself out of the battle and you're like you know so.

Speaker 2: 38:27

So to be fun and funny is different than making fun of and so yes, and I'm as guilty as anyone is laughing at some of these things and then going. I can't believe I'm laughing at this because that is making fun of children. And if there's something I put front and center at any age, it's you've got to respect where they are. Right. There's a reason. Your child is doing it.

Speaker 2: 38:50

Even if you're going to pick them up and say, no way, you know, even if you're going to say to a teenager here's where humor comes in and I write this in my books, I did it so many times I'd be like, as I was just about to like say something right back to one of my teenagers that I was going to regret If I could get a hold of myself, I'd say I would try that again. If I were you, I would just turn and walk out of this room and try that one again, and eventually we'd be laughing about it. Right, because it's bringing myself down to bring them down, but making fun of them. I don't know really how children forgive that. I think they then feel less than and that becomes the water sort of that your child swims in in their relationship with you my parent makes fun of me.

Speaker 2: 39:40

You don't want your worst characteristics or your hardest days portrayed to the world. And I think, when you can still use humor in social media, in memes, whatever, by saying I'm having a hard time, Help me. But it's easier to do it at the expense of children, because children are, you know, powerless in many ways. Even though they feel very powerful to us, they've got less power than you. And that's again gets back to like why this trend to this, like you're calling it FAFO? Like why this trend to this, like you're calling it FAFO, right, I think, is you know? Do we have to be harsh with children? No, but we do need to give them room to figure things out, and sometimes they're going to stumble and fall, but I don't think we have to turn to them and say told you so.

Speaker 3: 40:29

My son says that to me enough. He'll be like I told you. Oh God, so there's a unique humor.

Speaker 2: 40:35

You're like oh, you did, and mommy was wrong. Yet again, yeah, yeah, if you can do it.

Speaker 3: 40:42

Yeah, engaging in play.

Speaker 1: 40:43

that's a little bit risky, and you tell them that they might get hurt, but then they do it anyway and then they get hurt, does that?

Speaker 2: 41:00

kind of thing build resilience, or is it just they?

Speaker 2: 41:01

just get hurt for no real reason yeah, you know, I think that's a great point which is children get hurt. And if we're there, rather than saying to them you're going to get hurt, you're going to get hurt, which is our need for control. If you can move to a position that says I'm here even if you get hurt, then they you know they try the scooter the way they're going to try it they get hurt and you're like I got you that hurt. Do you want to get on the scooter again or do you want to walk it home? That says to them I tried, it's not the end of the world, I'm going to try it again. Eventually, some kids get right back on it, others wait a day or a week or whatever it is. Then you encourage them do you want to try that again?

Speaker 2: 41:47

Because we're often thinking or talking out of many sides of ourselves, because taking risks is the core of learning, and what's a risk for one child is not a risk for another. But who's held back in life as adults? Those adults who are terrified of taking risks. This is where anxiety too much anxiety stops you. Enough anxiety propels you. And so when we say to a child if you really are afraid of your child getting hurt, then you say to them no, you know, when you contacted me about the theme, this theme, I was like I was thinking about my children. We live on a big hill, a big hill in Manhattan. We live in the Heights, and so when they were little and they would ride their bike or their scooter down that hill, I couldn't let them, because I wasn't going to trust a three, four or five year old, even with a lot of control, to be able to stop at this very busy street at the bottom. So I didn't just say to them that's dangerous, I didn't want to scare them all the time, but I just said that's dangerous, there's a big street there. So we came up with ways that they could do it.

Speaker 2: 42:57

And then one day one of my kids I don't know how old he was, let's say five or six said you have to leave me alone and trust me. And I thought, ok, and I had seen him do it enough times with me and I was like OK, and I was like is he really going to run into traffic? Probably not. But I was nervous and it was on me. And so it's knowing your child, it's knowing how much they can do, but also saying they're going to get hurt. But the teasing part is when we go to them and go ah, how many times did I tell you that's what we call tough love, and that's different than limits, that's different than saying that really hurt, let me, let's go get a bandaid for that.

Speaker 2: 43:41

I remember one of my kids flying over their handlebars I mean really getting hurt and of course I wanted to believe my husband, who was with him. I was livid, I was like what happened and of course I wanted to believe my husband, who was with him. I was livid, I was like what happened, as my kid was bleeding, but you know, he was riding fast because he wanted to ride fast. I remember flying over the handles.

Speaker 3: 44:02

It hurts, it hurts, but it's fun, and you're like, oh, and then you have a story to tell. And he was like he was.

Speaker 2: 44:09

You know, his lips bleed a lot.

Speaker 2: 44:11

So it took me a while to figure out that his teeth were okay. And then I was like it's just your lips, they're bleeding. And he kept saying am I going to die? Am I going to die? It's so much blood. And I was like no, you're not going to die. And I also didn't say to him you'll never ride fast again. I had to get over my anger at my husband.

Speaker 2: 44:29

We blame somebody. So we either blame the child or we blame the adult who's with them, which is all unfair. You're going to learn by doing, by making mistakes. This is how children learn, but it doesn't have to be harsh. I mean, I see it all the time. I watch children building some tower or something with whether it's magnet tiles or blocks, and it falls down. They may get upset or they may not. Sometimes they laugh, it's fun. But the first thing they're doing I guarantee you, whether they're three or they're six is how can I rebuild that, even if they're mad, even if they kick it and they don't return to it for days, which always upsets parents. I'm like leave the blocks out, they'll get back to them. I see it happen. The work I do with children. They have that. That's their thinking process. If they want it tall, they're going to try it again, but the blocks have to fall and maybe the blocks fell on them and they got hurt. But that's the learning process.

Speaker 3: 45:31

Yeah, there's one thing that I've basically done everything wrong in motherhood, but the one piece that I've done, we all do right.

Speaker 3: 45:38

Join the club is teaching my son. When he tries to do something risky, I'm like, do you think you can do it? He's like, yeah, I'm like, okay, trust your body. And and he, when he was little he would like me to go to the playground with him and not his dad. Still now he wants me to take him swimming, because I'll always push him harder because I'm like, okay, you think you can do it, go for it, because I trust his ability. Trust, but I know that he's not going to do anything too bad, because if he does get hurt then he's not going to do that again is something that I have noticed, at least with him. I don't know if all kids are like that, but I do think teaching kids to trust themselves is really important in all ways You're also doing something else.

Speaker 2: 46:20

You're saying I believe in you. You don't have to use the words. Your emotion, your being there, says trust yourself, I believe in you, trust yourself, I believe I believe in you. And I mean I have seen probably thousands of children over, like my career, my life, my personal life. You know, with three children they bring friends home is that children don't try things they can't do. But some kids are bigger risk taker than others and that's on us again to like go okay.

Speaker 2: 46:52

One of mine was like that and I just I had to learn, let him do it, even though he one time was climbing in a tree, I mean high in a tree, and I said to him if you get stuck up there, I can't get you. And he said why would I need you to get me? If I can get up, I can get down, but of course you know that getting. So he got up and he couldn't get down and I couldn't get there. And I remember thinking, uh, this is that. And I just was like you're going to figure it out. I see a branch lower, like, because we were in this like, but him saying to me why would I need you to help me.

Speaker 2: 47:28

I realized I have just let him do it and he's going to figure out a way down. Even though I was nervous he was, he's still that child. He's he's more of a risk taker than my other ones were. So it's up to us to calibrate, because I rarely see children do things that they really can't do. You know there's children who won't climb high. They're not comfortable yet, but when they get more comfortable they will. If you encourage it, you say like, okay, when you're ready, when you're ready, I'm right here. You know they over time take risks, but at a slower rate, which is always easier for us. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:05

Yeah, you know I wonder if we had more, if we had any childhood development in you know high school programming or in college as mandatory, I feel like our society would set up, be set up better. Yeah, did we used to have that? Does anyone know if we used to have that in curriculum? Because I know we used to have home ec and when I was going through high school, they were starting to remove that and you know it used to be cooking and they removed that. In California we're getting finance classes as a requirement personal finance, as I think it's 2030. It'll be in all high schools. But it feels like we need to have childhood development, like what is age appropriate for? Because I think I know for myself I expected my three-year-old to behave like a seven-year-old. I didn't know the difference.

Speaker 2: 48:49

All firstborns. We do this too sadly, whether we have one or we have. You know many, yeah, we expect our firstborns. We do this too sadly, whether we have one or we have you know many yeah. We expect our firstborns to be little adults quickly, especially once they start talking.

Speaker 3: 49:00

Yeah, or when they're not. I mean mine talked later because we didn't realize his first language was Chinese. He was speaking at school in Chinese. We just thought he had a speech delay. And then I asked the teachers and they're like, he talks all the time, so we just had a language barrier.

Speaker 2: 49:19

Yeah, but that's great. Yeah, like expecting them because you don't know what is age appropriate. No, you don't know, and all your energy is on them, right? So, um, yeah, I mean, I do get students. You know, I teach. I taught for many years Barnard Columbia students and some of them had child development, but I think they had to take a course in it, like it was a psychology course. But we also used to have more when when there was more teen pregnancy. Not all high schools have this, but many had childcare not enough of them, but 14 moms. So New York city had a huge program like that. The high school I went to eventually after I graduated had something like that, but they also used it for teaching, not just the teen parents, but it could become a course.

Speaker 1: 50:04

And I thought this is brilliant.

Speaker 2: 50:06

People have babies. We don't have to make this shameful. They still need to come to school. They can learn to be a parent, but we could also use that to teach about the incredible variability in child development. And so and I have a friend, actually, whose child went to her she and her husband were school teachers, are school teachers, and when they had a baby, he went to the local. The high school had a daycare that was both for the teachers and the staff, and there were students with babies and I was like this is brilliant, why don't we have this everywhere? Yeah, and then they used it as a course for the students.

Speaker 3: 50:46

I felt like a teen mom and I had my child at 37. I had no idea I'm like. I wish they had. I wish it was just like you. Go through these courses like teach me, I don't know what I'm doing and this is this gets back to community.

Speaker 2: 50:59

You know, both intergenerational, like when you have the elders, whether they're family elders or community elders, who are putting their hand on your shoulder and saying, yeah, it's hard, it'll get better. Or can I bring you a meal or whatever it is, can I pick up your child today? And however we have that we've lost. Passing down that information oh, I was a new mom 20 years ago. It was so hard you're going to get through. It is very needed. Yeah, I'm not alone, I'm not a failure, and this, too, shall pass.

Speaker 3: 51:35

I think that's kind of why people are turning to TikTok. I know that's why I did was because people on there are a bit messier, but then it can also veer into some weird algorithms, as we know. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:46

It gets very extreme. I know that there's this one woman whose house is just, I mean, dirty like to the point that it's probably not good for the kids, and she gets a lot of traction. And then, on the other hand, there's people who are like there's no excuse to have a messy home if you have children, and it's like, can we just meet in the middle? Can we just acknowledge that we're all doing our best, we're all. We all have homes that are a little bit lived in, you know.

Speaker 2: 52:12

And you want it to be lived in Like what's home for a child. It's a feeling of love and that it's lived in, and sometimes it's disordered and sometimes it's not. Like you said, neither extreme is good, yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:25

You know, I've also noticed a lot on TikTok now that it's like this competition to see who can be the most of a helicopter parent and who watches their child the most closely, and I noticed a lot of this talk about going to the park with kids and I see a lot of people, especially moms, come on and say people aren't parenting their kids anymore. And somebody came up to my kid and said something and I had to go in and parent them and this and that kid and said something and I had to go in and parent them and this and that. And my feeling is that we're not letting kids learn how to resolve conflict on their own. We're just swooping in and we're doing it for them. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that, because I know your work focuses a lot on resilience.

Speaker 2: 53:06

Yeah, so I ran a program for many years. I just stepped down for toddlers, and this is relevant across ages, and one of the things we do there which is hard to understand unless you see it over time, is we allow children at two and three to work out conflict, not on their own, it's not like a free for all, but we have adults that are supporting them. Because what are they fighting over at that age? Toys or materials of some kind, and so rather than saying she had it first or you had it enough, some arbitrary adult rule, we say to them if you need that, hold on to it. But we say it to both of them. Then they fight over it and eventually one gets it. At the same time the teacher's like if you, they're holding up the same toy, like you want this book and I want this book, that's my book, right? We say, oh, here's another one, just like it.

Speaker 2: 54:03

What do you think children do? They look at that exact same fire truck lock book. They don't want that one. Conflict is social, and so we really help them learn to work that out and it's amazing, by the end of one year, of children coming twice a week, they start working it out for themselves ages to do that. They don't ever learn to work out conflict, they learn to just kind of okay, I can't have that. Or the adults came up with a rule for the basketball game. But if you watch children older children like elementary, older elementary school kids, even younger elementary on the playground, if they're left to be and that's more so at school, right Now it's recess they're figuring out their game.

Speaker 2: 54:53

Maybe there's an adult there, you know meeting it, eating a little, but it does feel sometimes like Lord of the Flies. But they work it out. They go like this Nope, that's the outline. And as an adult I would sometimes be like that's the outline, like how are they gonna? But they would would know if you do that twice with the ball, you have to sit down. They come up with rules and they agree on that and somebody sulks because they don't like the rule. But when children transgress from those rules, they're like OK, you can't play now. Why? Because the group has decided on that.

Speaker 3: 55:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 55:28

And when we allow children to do that, they learn all kinds of things like I like fairness, I don't like unfairness, I negotiated, I didn't negotiate. They learn it all and that's what comes to eventually conflict resolution and then only step in if really needed. I think we really stop our children from growing what we call resilience, which is sometimes I get my way, that always feels good. Who doesn't like to get their way, and sometimes I don't. And what am I going to do next time differently? Or how am I going to learn that actually, sometimes I don't get my way, the rules don't go my way, I don't get picked first for the team, and so backing off and giving children that space, it's amazing. You turn away and next thing you know these two three-year-olds are in the sandbox playing and you're like wait, weren't they just fighting over that bucket? Olds are in the sandbox playing and you're like wait, weren't they just fighting over that bucket?

Speaker 3: 56:37

Yeah, and the answer is yes, they were just fighting over it, but now they're not. Yeah, what do you think about? I mean, I think I know what you think about this, but when parents make kids share or like, okay, let's set a timer for you to give over, I don't do that with my son Cause I'm like you guys have to figure it out. I would be mad if I'm using something in some adult. But then I feel bad because I have a little boy and I've noticed it tends to be little girl parents who do this that we play with, and I'm always like OK, well, I'm, my son is taking stuff. You know, like what do you?

Speaker 2: 57:06

this is this is a whole podcast for you. I have a lot of this in my first book, how Toddlers Thrive. Sharing is such a loaded concept and it's even more loaded today in this very divisive kind of hostile world that we live in. But it's always been loaded, at least in my lifetime, of being a professional or a parent, which is we as adults like control and we like to decide what children are going to do and we feel embarrassed when our children don't follow this adult social protocol. I see it slightly differently. I want all children to grow up to feel loved and to have a sound base and to be decent, like generous, caring people who can also stand up for themselves. So it's both there's self and there's other. Sharing involves both those things. I have what I need, I have what I want and in time I can give you some of it or I can give you the thing. But it's a long-term project and adults like to move quickly, oh, time's up. But when you really say to a child, use that till you're done, and when you're done she wants it, and I joke that you know we used to bug the kids so much and by the time we'd be like, oh, are you done yet? Oh, you're not done, Okay. Well, the kids so much of my son. We'd be like, oh, are you done yet? Oh, you're not done, Okay, Well, when you're done, not to say you have to give it up yet, but to say there's another human here, even though you don't, you're not focused on that human's feelings yet because you're only two, you're young, three. But it's the process of when you're done, she wants it, and then you know, eventually they go here and then eventually they start doing it on their own.

Speaker 2: 58:52

But the most generous children, genuinely not for show, are the ones who feel like I have what I need, I've got enough and I'd like to give you some too. And that's a long-term project. So if it makes parents feel better to do the timer, fine. But firstborns tend to be very good at following adult rules and I always worry about. But do they know that if they need more of that, or they need more time or they need more help, they can ask for it?

Speaker 2: 59:23

Latter-borns, particularly your second ones, tend to be fiercer about this stuff. No, I've got that, it's mine right now, but eventually. No, I've got that, it's mine right now, but eventually, eventually they. And so it's like who do you want that human being to be eventually? But we tend to focus on right now because, look, it's embarrassing when our kid holds on to what they need. It's really, you know it's like, oh, because we think it's us, we think it's a reflection of us and our firstborns always are, they always are a reflection of us, which we actually, I find you know I have three and I've seen people who have three or more that for younger children, we actually think it's funny when they stand up for themselves, when they go no, I'm not giving that to you.

Speaker 3: 1:00:10

We're like you, go girl, or yeah, little brother, you tell him.

Speaker 2: 1:00:13

But for our first ones, our older ones were like Pete, give it up, give it up. So I do worry about that. But again, it has to be nuanced. There are some times that you have to intervene and go hey, I wish you could have this all the time, but there's other people here. Yeah, yeah, but it's nuanced.

Speaker 1: 1:00:30

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:00:31

I know we're coming up on time. We have a couple things we like to ask, but I am going to throw a wrench in this one because I'm really curious. You've worked with thousands of kids and parents and you have three grown or nearly grown children. Do you have a favorite age that you either liked parenting or like working with, or both? Oh, that's such a great question.

Speaker 2: 1:00:55

Well, it was very hard to have multiple toddlers in my house, but I got a lot of joy out of it too. It was hard, yeah, it was hard, and I had multiple.

Speaker 3: 1:01:03

How close are they in age?

Speaker 2: 1:01:05

My first two are just under two years. My third one is four, four plus years later, for obvious reasons, yeah, yeah. But I will say I enjoyed the teen years. Oh, not because it was easy it was not and not because I doubted myself many times like should I let them be this rude, should I let them say that, but because they were coming into their own and I think because I had my own struggles with my own mother as a teenager, I was actually able to give them more space and, yes, we got into arguments and things like that, but I loved seeing them genuinely get that agency. I think at any age that I saw leaps in their independence. I really love that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:51

And then there was also that we had commonalities, like I have one who loved to go to photography exhibits with me. Neither two, I wouldn't have even asked, right, but I like photography a lot. I always have, you know. And I had one that would be the one who would go for long walks with me. Like, oh, you're going for a walk, I'll go with you. Like they're not adults, but there you have more that you can share. You know, they ask questions about the world in a whole new way and they knew more about the world and I learned from them. Maybe it's because I was a college professor and I was around young people, but I learned from them in bigger and bigger ways.

Speaker 3: 1:02:27

So maybe it was the teen years, the teen years Okay, that's good to know. So far I'm kind of similar to. I like every time I'm like, oh, you're more independent, great, let's go. Let's go. Like my son's now doing puzzles, which I love to do. So I'm like, yes, let's do puzzles all day, but it is cool when they start. You see those commonalities and their independence.

Speaker 1: 1:02:49

Yeah, yeah, I could listen to you for hours. I know, I know this has been very enlightening, but if you could go back and tell yourself something when you were about to become a parent, something that you didn't know, despite all the work you had done, what would it be?

Speaker 2: 1:03:06

Oh, what would it be? I think I would say it's gonna be hard and you're gonna be okay. I think I needed both, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:03:19

Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:20

Becoming a parent was very hard for me. I will say that Maybe that's a future essay or something. It was very with all my knowledge, with you know, it doesn't matter what you know, we all become a parent and yeah. So I think I would have liked to know it's going to be hard and you're going to still be okay.

Speaker 3: 1:03:38

I want to hear that essay or read that essay I'm not great at reading because my attention span has been ruined. I'll listen or we can record another one, but kind of following that thread. You know you talked about the hard. What is something that you got a lot of joy out of? Being a parent that you weren't maybe expecting.

Speaker 2: 1:03:55

Oh my gosh, there's so much. I was just actually saying this to my spouse the other day that yeah, it's been hard to be a parent, but I have to say it has been filled with joy. It was something I didn't know. I think just shared laughter was something I didn't know. I think, just shared laughter.

Speaker 2: 1:04:14

I can think of moments with each of my children that something clicked between us and we just laughed. You know, sometimes like outwardly, but sometimes it was just this like back and forth, like the giggle fits. The giggle fits are like I see what, you see we're on the same page and it unexpected moments but you can't plan for that, yeah, but there'd be this like clicked um, and that just it still brings me joy. I mean, I can think of so many moments of that and I would say to every parent listening you have to hold on to those moments because the rough ones are really rough and you you sometimes wonder will we ever get out of this or will my child ever be okay? But then, if you can hold on to some of these like oh, that twinkle in their eye and I I mean one of the funniest moments, I mean there's many fun.

Speaker 2: 1:05:05

But I one time said to one of my children, my second born, who was just railing on being younger and not not being capable of doing some of this. But he was just. He was driving me crazy because he used to push me a lot. We're very similar. He would push me and push me and one day I just looked at him and I said I am so sorry that I had you second. It's not my fault. That's when your egg came on and he's, he was four and he looked at me and then he started to cry and he said why did my egg come up second? I said I don't know, but I'm sorry. And the laughter, the crying then turned into us both laughing and we just were like you're the second egg.

Speaker 2: 1:05:47

It was this bizarre moment. Anybody listening is going to think, oh, that woman, tova Klein, is crazy. But it just was like I couldn't take his railing and like and I realized this was his thing, he didn't want to be the second born at that moment and so and then we just started laughing and we laughed about it for a long time. Right, it's just like that just became the thing. We just laughed about it. Yeah, because I couldn't change it. He was going to always be the second born. Yeah, there was no going back.

Speaker 3: 1:06:16

Yeah, yeah, and then it kind of took it out of you know either of you being powerful about it. It's like, yeah, it's fate, it's fate. Here we are, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:06:25

Put it in any religious or spiritual or practical context you want. But here we are and that became a funny bit between us for a long time.

Speaker 3: 1:06:40

I love those.

Speaker 3: 1:06:41

Those are the bit and nobody else understands it, Like my son and I have a lot of those too where we'll just start laughing at each other and my husband's like what is wrong with you two? Yeah yeah. And like yeah yeah, Um, share, share, joyared joy. And like inside jokes that need no words, kind of yeah yeah. Well, I know we are over time and I'm sure if you're open to it we'll have you back. But I wanted to say thank you so much. I've learned so much and I wish your programming could be turned into something for schools that's just like naturally taught, because it would save us so much Calm down.

Speaker 2: 1:07:12

Yes, yeah, I love working with schools because I work with the teachers and I do a lot of this self-awareness and sort of you know, ok, let's, let's think what's that thing that's driving you crazy? So it transfers from parents to teachers, to grandparents. It's like we're human, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:07:30

We're all human In a big community.

Speaker 2: 1:07:33

Yeah, so thank you for having me on. Thank you for joining us.