Can Resilience Be Taught?

Tova Klein

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Vanessa

this episode is a re release of an answer to an eternal question. Vanessa. And that question is, is resilience a skill? And is it a skill that kids can develop over time? And we ask this in so many, across so many of our platforms and in response to so many questions that we get from listeners and readers. But in this episode, we have a real expert coming in to help us answer it. That's psychologist and child development expert Tova Klein, who unpacks what resilience really means and how trusted adults, not just parents, but all trusted adults, can help kids actually build it.

Cara

Right. Resilience has become such a buzzy word that it almost feels like it doesn't mean anything anymore. And we're trying to, with Tova's help, bring back the meaning and the underpinning of resilience, because this is at the heart of how do we help kids who are seeking independence, or maybe not seeking it, become more independent and also more able to handle frustrations and failures and how to build confidence in this time when st stakes get higher and yet the temptation is to become overprotective of them just at the moment when we need to step back a little bit. So it's a wonderful conversation. It's something we each grapple with in our own lives and we talk endlessly about in our work and we know you will find it so useful. Hi, Cara.

Vanessa

Hi, Vanessa.

Cara

It's so funny. For my many, many years of working with children and their families, the question I probably get most often, besides when is my daughter going to get her period? Is how do I build resilience in my kid? And today's episode answers just that question in a beautiful, thoughtful, profound, funny way. I mean, Tova Klein is like a gift to all parents everywhere. And the answer is, it's not a dose. You can't just put a little dropper in their mouth and build resilience. And that's really what this conversation is about.

Vanessa

It's not just you who gets that question. I mean, I might get like, how do I handle their acne? Do I need to worry about that lump in their scrotum? But I get the same thing, Vanessa, because this word, and this is where the conversation begins. This word is so buzzy. It's the 2024, 2025 word. Grit was the pre. Covid. Early Covid word. And it has sort of morphed into this concept of resilience, which we talk about. We cover the difference in those two concepts on the pod. But the idea is that parents, I think, feel, and trusted adults feel that building resilience is a box they need to check in helping to raise a healthy kid. And this whole conversation is about how that is true. And it is also not a box to check. Yes, resilience building is important, but there are lots of ways in which it happens. It happens over time. And as you said, there isn't something that you can just do to create it. You know, it is one of those outcomes of unplanned and often negative or sad or devastating or stressful circumstances. Although we get to that, too. Does it have to be negative?

Cara

So for those of you who didn't raise children in New York like I did, you may not know what a legend Tova Klein is. She's most recently the author of national bestselling book Raising Resilience, which we spend time talking about. But she's also a psychology professor at Barnard College and has run the Barnard Toddler center for many, many years. She's conducted research, she's taught. She does direct service with parents and families. She is the absolute gold standard. You are going to love this episode. It was a blast to record, and we know it's going to be so helpful.

Vanessa

Hi, Tova.

Tova Klein

Hello there.

Vanessa

We're so excited to have you here. We're going to jump right in. People are chomping at the bit to understand so much of what you write about, speak about, teach about. So let's start at the top with the definition of terms. That's how Vanessa and I so often go about things. And let's talk about resilience and what the word resilience really means, because it's very buzzy. Right. But it's not clear that people always know what it means. You know, people always talk about grit and resilience. It's like they're the same thing, but they sort of go. They're sort of peanut butter and jelly. Will you kind of walk through what it means to call someone resilient or for a person to have resilience?

Tova Klein

Yeah, it's a great thing to start with because you just said it. It's a buzzword. And when I was writing my book, which is called Raising Resilience, it was my editor at HarperCollins who said to me, you know, everything you're writing is about resilience. And I said, no, I'm writing a book about uncertainty. And this is like 2016, 2017 that I started writing. And it wasn't until 2020 and I aside then 2020 came and I was like, huh, this seems really uncertain. I should write that book. And I said to the editor, no, I'm really writing about stress, kind of trauma and what people do in the face of uncertainty. Because it's the same thing we do every single day with every, what you might consider typical challenge that, you know, a child has. Oh, that substitute teacher really threw me off at school or my friend ghosted me, whatever it is. And she said, yeah, but in this first draft everything you do is about resilience. So I said, well that's a buzzword and I don't do buzzwords. So I'm glad you called it that because she was like, then you need to own this because your goal is the strength of children no matter what. So I'm going to start there. I really think of resilience as. And this is what the science actually shows us. It's this ability to broadly handle life in its full colors. The good, the hard, the bad, the ugly. And what does that mean for the developing child? That means becoming flexible, which is very hard for children and for teenagers and for adults and for Tova, by the way.

Cara

Yes.

Vanessa

Literally and figuratively.

Tova Klein

And the ability to adapt and adjust. So as input comes and as the unexpected expected comes and as the unwanted comes, can you shift? And children, and then teenagers, and then our adults do this best when they're not alone and when they're given the message of you're not going to be alone in this, you're not alone in the world, there's a parent or a very close caregiver here to help you. And so it's that part of resilience that really has been of interest to me throughout my career. Again, like on the everyday. Yeah, it's hard to be a parent to the wildfires or other dislocations or abuse because people can get through it. It's a process.

Cara

Yeah. I mean Tova, we hear from parents all the time and my background is actually girls in sports. So using girls fundamental sports skills and social emotional learning to build girls self esteem. And we would be doing all these different exercises where girls had to try and fail and try again and they had to learn how to communicate with each other. And then we would sit down with the parents and the parents would be like, yes, but how do I build resilience in my kid? And I'M like, you just did, you just did. But it's like people think it's like an on, off switch. And can you talk about how it's like, we always talk about this with respect to talking to kids about sex and relationships in that it's a spiral, right. And it's increasingly, it gets higher and higher and more sophisticated and a more powerful presence. How is resilience similar or different to that?

Tova Klein

Yeah, so I think of it as, you know, we often think that resilience is like a dose, you know, as if there could be a pill, wouldn't it be great, just take this pill and now your child's resilient or that it's a trait. You know, often people are like, oh, she got my resilience, resilience, or he didn't get his father's and it's, that's just too simple. You know, maybe that would be good. But really what you're talking about is a full process. So I'm going to wander through life and I'm going to encounter easy things which actually are not always so rewarding. They might be joyful or fun, but get boring. And then I'm going to encounter hurdles. And, and this is what we can guarantee. Every child, teenager, young adult, encounters hurdles. And the question is, do you have the wherewithal to figure out, okay, I can face that hurdle, I have someone here to help me or I'm going to get through it somehow. And sometimes those are big hurdles and sometimes they're really, we might think they're smaller, but our 10 year old or 15 year old thinks they're really big. And you can think of it this way, you know, in the brain science, the neuroscientists talk about expectancies. So, you know, I mean, starting very young, you know, this is all the attachment literature, right? Babies learn patterns and what to expect and if it's good stuff, they get secure. Well, this goes on through life. You know, I figure out, can I count on my parent? Do I tell them that bad thing I did at school? Those are what we call expectancies. And when expectancies shift, like something happens that you didn't expect, can you handle it? And that's what we call resilience. It's not that you say, oh yay, that was so good that I got a C on the test that I thought I was going to ace. But it doesn't work that way. Parents, right? We all have children, those three of us on here and anyone listening, right? But can I get through it? Somehow, even if I hit rock bottom, even if I throw a fit, even if I say I'm not going to school tomorrow, do I have the ability to then come back up and in some way rebound with the help of others? And I keep putting that in there because we often think of resilience as an individual trait, as if that child or teenager as an island, and that's not true.

Vanessa

Okay, so just to put a finer point on it, though, how does it differ from grit? Or do you think those two are really synonymous? And then let's get into the sort of bigger community perspective of all this.

Tova Klein

Yeah. So, you know, when I think of grit, I think of that as a stick to it.

Vanessa

Like, you're gritty. I'm, like, using my elbow and, you know. Yeah, right.

Tova Klein

It's more like a, you know, a perseverance kind of thing. And, you know, some people think of it as sort of like a tough love. You know, I can do this. I don't love that. I think more, you know, sort of in your typical human. There's times that you're going to have what we call grit, and there's times you're not. And that's also okay to say, like, this isn't working for me right now. Whereas resilience really is a matter of facing the bad stuff, and the bad stuff can be with peers, can be with, you know, a sports challenge, you know, your abilities, physical, you know, emotional, intellectual, you know, academic. And do you have the reserve to not fall apart so much? Because often we do fall apart. But then to get through that process of all the negative and get yourself back up in this, usually in the context of a relationship, at least for young people.

Cara

So, Tova, let's use your hurdle metaphor for a second. By the way, I never ran hurdles. I never ran track, period. But I'm gonna run with it. I'm taking a minute to.

Tova Klein

Well, life is about hurdles.

Cara

Pardon the pun. But we're gonna run with it. And I. I want to do that because it's a great visual as we explore the role that parents and other trusted adults can play in helping to build resilience. So let's say we've got a kid and they're, you know, running the hurdles, and they knock a hurdle over and they fall down. Like, that's the sort of. I'm sticking to the metaphor. What is the role of. What is the hope of. For what is the expectation of a. Or many trusted adults around that kid who's just stumbled and fallen? Yeah.

Tova Klein

So I think It's a couple of things. One is, can the adults give that kid time to see if they get back up? Right. Cause sometimes you may be really frustrated, but you get back up and you keep running it.

Cara

I love that. I love that. It's like our toddlers, when they would fall and everyone in the room would pause and be. Are they gonna burst into tears or are they just gonna get up and, like, continue to chase the dog? And I almost feel like in a weird way, we gave our toddlers more time than we give our older kids to see if they can get back up.

Tova Klein

I think so. I think if we don't have enough trust, that stumbling is part of life's process. It's part of learning. It's part of building what we call resilience. We panic as parents. Oh, my gosh, he's gonna be devastated. She's gonna be so upset. And maybe they are, and that's also part of life.

Vanessa

But we also think the consequences are so massive when they get older. Right. I mean, we have this completely misconstrued idea that every single hurdle that they hit and they stumble over is gonna fundamentally change the trajectory of the rest of their life in a way that when they were toddlers, we didn't dump that on them.

Cara

Yeah, yeah.

Tova Klein

And, you know, part of my work and the well comes from a number of different areas, but one is that I teach at Barnard College. These incredible students, Barnard and Columbia students, primarily Barnard students. They are not only intellectually driven people, but they're creative and they're thoughtful and they're passionate. They're everything. And yet, over a many year career, so, shall we say, I've seen too many students who really cannot handle not having things just go forward.

Cara

Right.

Tova Klein

I didn't get the class that I wanted. Okay. You didn't. You're my advisee. You didn't? No. I'm not pulling strings unless there's some very extenuating circumstance. You know the essay that I spent so long on, the professor gave me this feedback, like, whatever it is, I've seen too much of that. And out of really good humans who have not been given the chance to say, sometimes it's going to go really well and I'm going to be okay. Sometimes it's not going to go well and I'm going to still be okay. Even if this is not fun, it's not fun to do poorly.

Vanessa

Is it getting worse?

Tova Klein

That's always the big question. Right. I have been a professor a long time, so I don't know that it's gotten worse. Certainly the mental health data suggests it has. Anxiety is up, depression is up. Colleges like Barnard have expanded their mental health and wellness, which I think is a good movement. You know, more access to information on mind, body, more on nutrition, more. We just opened a fabulous gym at Barnard. If I had a female daughter applying to college, I'd say apply to Barnard for the gym. So this sense that all of this is connected, which is a response to really a mental health crisis, an awareness that just pressuring children is not a good idea. But I don't know that it's gotten worse because I've always seen it.

Cara

So, Tova, if they fall and we wait to see if they get up, then what?

Tova Klein

And then what? Okay, so some of them are going to get back up. You might be panicked as the adult or the coach might be upset. Some of them aren't right. That hurdle's going to knock them down. That's also not the end of the world, because sometimes a hurdle is just too much. Maybe they missed a few more earlier. Maybe they didn't get enough sleep. Who knows what the reason. And that's a time to be there for that person. They're devastated. You don't have to know why. We always wanna know why. I mean, I'm a psychologist, you guys. We all wanna know why. We're like, oh, let's figure out the reason. You don't always know why. And that's very hard as a parent,

Cara

especially when we need to know why. I want you to really hammer this home. Like, why doesn't it always matter?

Tova Klein

It doesn't always matter because if at this moment that child or teenager is upset, that's where you put the period. They're upset. And my job right now is to stand by them. That doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna get them out of it. You know, I've seen plenty of people be in a funk. We all have, that you can't get them out of. But let them know that is disappointing. That is a bummer. Like, this race meant the world to you, whether the parents thought it did or not, or the teachers, the coaches. But to really allow that child to be upset is hard for adults, it's so important because it's in that process of one day, maybe hours later, maybe days later, maybe months later, being able to look back and say, I thought that was a low point of my life. And you know what? I decided to train differently. I decided I didn't want to do hurdles. I wanted to do something else. I Decided whatever it is they learn from it, I was okay in the end, I got through it. And the more experiences they have of, I got through this and people didn't ridicule me. I didn't have my parents chewing me out. Like, you know, I've spent my whole life going to track meets with you. How dare you? That will cripple a child. It'll make them feel terrible. But. But for them to learn, it's gonna be really tough sometimes. And there are ways through this. That's the everyday stuff that builds what we call resilience. It comes in these fits and starts of our relationship. And that parent feedback I cannot stress enough is important. It doesn't have to be perfect. We're not perfect as parents.

Vanessa

The other piece, though is. And you know, maybe this is a little bit too cavalier, but. But no great story ever started and ended with zero conflict, zero hurdles, zero struggle. Like every laugh out loud, funny story of my life, of my kid's life, involves some sort of nod to resilience. And this is not to say that there aren't serious mental health implications that can occur. And sometimes you don't know which way it's going to go. And sometimes. Right. You know, it's not just to make this too light and airy, but every great movie, every great play, every great. There's something there to resilience. There's something beautiful, but there's also something wonderfully human and funny and warm and it's the journey.

Tova Klein

Yeah. And I think, you know, going along with that is that we don't have to manufacture hardship for our children. Right. You know, for parents thinking about this, you know, listening, it's not manufacturing hardship. It's that it happens if we let it happen. You know, if you don't. Going back to your metaphor, Vanessa, run in when they. When the hurdle falls down, but say, like, let's see how they handle this. We don't try to make them happy. We don't go to the teacher and say, I'd like to talk to you about what happened. Unless it's a pattern. Right. So children who are struggling all the time, or much of the time, children who really can't get up, you know, every time the hurdle, if we go back to that is knocked over, they're devastated and really sort of can't get back up. You see that over and over. Then you say, what's going on here? How do I help my child? But that's not usually the case.

Vanessa

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Cara

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Tova Klein

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Vanessa

Tova, you said earlier you had this this Great little moment of describing kids getting their resilience from their parent, which of course they don't get. They get the resilience from life. Right. Where does temperament fit in? And maybe you can actually define temperament to start and then sort of describe how that makes someone resilient in certain ways or. Or doesn't factor in at all.

Tova Klein

Yeah. So, you know, temperament is this quality, you know, it's a trait, it's partly inborn. So we know that there's a biological basis to temperament. Some children have more, let's say, outgoing, social tendencies, some are more introverted, but nobody's all of one thing. Right. So think of it as doses, more or less. That's within the child. And you know this because I have three children. And I'm always saying to parents, if there's more than one child, like literally that child is handed to you or comes into your life, they are who they are and then we mold them. And temperament is one of those pieces. It's sort of their reactivity, their way of approaching the world, particularly new situations.

Vanessa

And I just want to say, as a pediatrician, you see it from minute one, it's unbelievable. You meet an infant and you know who they are in that temperamental sense. And it is so crystal clear. And I think parents have that experience in smaller numbers. But ask your pediatrician and they will say yes. Like, to a kid, I can pretty much nail it.

Cara

I got a picture from my 22 year old of his 19 year old brother who was sleeping in his bed with him. You might wonder why. It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans. So they ended up together at the end of the evening and he sent a picture of his, you know, his baby brother, his 19 year old brother. And it was literally as if it was a picture of him as an infant. Like his whole, his whole being, his whole face, the way his body was. And it was so crazy to see this huge body look. And he was at rest. Right. He wasn't sort of like responding to a new situation or, you know, on the sports field day. But it was this amazing thing like this. His essence was so still there. And to your point, Tova earlier, he was actually a very introverted kid for many, many years. And it was really only in puberty and his later teen years that his outgoingness emerged. I mean, he's still himself, but it was, there was a shift in it, the dosage, as you said, the ratio

Tova Klein

changed and they do shift. So temperament is not, say, destiny. Right. And it gets molded so that's this is what we know from the science is that, you know, this is like Jerome Kagan's classic work of children who what they call inhibited, which we call shy, but were high in the inhibition scale. You still wanted to put them in a supported way when they were young in social situations, even if your tendency was to think, oh, she's so terrified, there's situations, let me keep her out. What longitudinal years of data show us is that when you keep in a supportive way helping children be a little bit social with your health, they start to get less inhibited. But context matters, right? So that temperament piece is something I think that as parents we tend to worry about, particularly as children get older. You know, you have your risk takers. A lot of that is inborn. We know that, you know, you have your sort of hold back, observe, watch, and then become social child. So knowing your child can help, but it doesn't mean they're fragile. And I think this is where we have to be careful. Every human has the capacity to get through tough stuff. And so we sometimes as parents label our children like, oh, she's so sensitive, or he's just a little more vulnerable than other children. And we over protect, which is hard because I'm not a tough love person either. I don't feel like, you know, I just, you know, bucket up and get out there. But it has to be some balance and nuance. And as a parent, that's one of the kind of challenges, but maybe joys as well, of how can I figure out how quickly I move in at the hurdle so that he feels supported or how far back do I stand before I say, boy, that was rough.

Cara

It's so funny that you say that because the same kid was my kid who had trouble meeting people, looking them in the eye and shaking their hand when he first met people. And it took about two years to get him to do that. And there was a part of me that was like, I don't know, do I let it be right? Do I let his sort of natural instinct be? And ultimately I decided no, this is a value in the world, the world. It's important in the world to be able to shake someone's hand and look at it them in the eye. And he needed a long, long, gentle on ramp, but he did it. Now there are kids tova for him. I mean, when you think about neurodiverse kids, there are kids who, you know, it just may not be realistic. I don't know if you want to say a word about kind of how we modulate expectations around resilience for those kids.

Tova Klein

Yeah, I think it's a really important point that you bring that up. And I've done some of the interviews with people who are working in that more neurodivergent space. We have to know the child. I mean, if there is a child that it's so stressful for them to say hello, then I always encourage parents to say, you just say to your child, I'm gonna do it for you. And look, a majority of children one day will be able to. But if your child really can't, you have to say to yourself, is this what I wanna put my energy on or do I want to help them feel really okay in the world? Because resilience is heavily about am I seen for who I am and am I supported for who I am? Because if you think of that child or teenager, they're not going to help, ask for help. If they feel like they're going to be pushed too hard or shamed, ridiculed in any way. But if they feel like, yeah, my parent understands that situation is just too tough for me and they're going to stick by me, they'll ask for help and they'll slowly get pushed into the, say, the more social realm, or taking risks when they're ready to take risks. But that's us as the adults appreciating that every child moves at a different pace. And again, I'm going to stress, you don't have to get it perfect. Because I can imagine parents are thinking, oh, well, what if I get this wrong? We often get it wrong. We push our child too hard and they get enraged at us. That's a message. You need to back off and maybe say to your child, you know, I'm not going to push you so hard. That wasn't fair. Sorry about that.

Vanessa

And, you know, it strikes me that what it looks like to stand by a child looks different, not just across different kids, but frankly, for one kid over time.

Tova Klein

Yes.

Vanessa

Right. Because as you said earlier, let's take the hurdle analogy, being the parent who rushes out onto the track, grabs the child, scoops them up in their arms, straightens the hurdle. Right. Like, makes everything. You could argue that's a form of being there for him. You can also argue that's the opposite. And so what it looks like, I found as my kids got older and as my patients got older, I found that one of the most powerful things to do was to help them be able to articulate that redefinition of what it means for your parent to have your back, Right? So I think there's a lot of space here to build resilience. That looks different when they're toddlers and they're just starting grade school versus when they're older. Your job is to keep them safe and healthy. That's what having their back looks like. But is there any sort of secret moment where parents can recognize, boy, I've shifted into this new stage with my kid where being there for them looks different now?

Tova Klein

Yeah, I think that's the important question is what does it mean to raise a child? And I say this in my book, right? We all wanna raise children who want to come back even when they don't have to. Meaning they're out in the world, whether it's in college, in some job, and they say, hey, I'm coming home for the weekend or would you like to meet for dinner?

Cara

And then you promptly cancel everything you had planned.

Vanessa

Thousand percent,

Tova Klein

yes, I happen to be free.

Vanessa

Absolutely.

Tova Klein

I have a child who's always called me way too late. And when he was home he'd be like, do you have a minute? You know, to be like midnight? And I'm a late night person. But I'd be, I always go, oh yes, yes, of course.

Cara

I have so much energy. I'm not exhausting always.

Tova Klein

That's called being there because that's when he wanted to talk, you know. But that idea of being there, I think often happens in our realization after we've intuitively made the move of I'm not on top of them as much or I'm not checking in as much as I used to, or hey, she's walking to school on her own with her friends and not even making a big deal about it in the morning when that 10 year old was, you know, crying because she didn't want to do it and her friends wanted to, you know, whatever it is, you know, or the teenagers, right, they obsess over something, they drive you crazy and you're like, is this an emergency? Isn't. And all of a sudden you realize not only are they not doing it, I'm not worrying about it either. And that communicates respect to your child. And when children feel respected, even if we don't understand them, even if we don't understand what they're doing on their phone, that feeling of respect says to them, I can count on this parent and I will ask them for help when I need it. It's that back and forth push and pull. I call it in my book. I talk about a string. It starts in the early years with our very little ones. It goes all the way up. And what we forget get is that our teenagers also we give them a long string. They either ask for it or we give it to them. But eventually or occasionally they pull on that string like I need you. And that's the part I think often parents forget because we take things personally. We feel like that teenager is pushing me away. But being able to ask for help is part of resilience.

Vanessa

We'll be right back, but first, a word from our sponsors.

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Tova Klein

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Cara

How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink?

Tova Klein

Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits.

Cara

Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. So, Tova, we're recording this episode. It's February 2025.

Vanessa

Um, it's March.

Cara

Jesus Christ. It's March 2025.

Tova Klein

It's.

Cara

It's July 2023.

Vanessa

I mean, faster or more slowly.

Cara

I mean, I swear to God, half the time people are like, can you meet, you know, on this date? And I'm like, first tell me what year it is and what month it is. And then I can tell you it's March 2025. The folks in LA have just endured and thank God almost all of them have survived the wildfires. But their communities are devastated, their homes are devastated, their schools all of that. And yet life goes on. People live and even sometimes thrive or move towards thriving. What do we know about these unprecedented moments like the fires, like Covid, like 9 11. How do we understand resilience in those contexts?

Tova Klein

So these are really community level disasters. And we can learn, I think, across traumatic situations. It's not that people can't survive terrible situations, it's how. And what do they need? That's what we can think about. When we think about resilience, it's not just residing in the individual, it's residing in the relationship between the individual. If they're children, teenagers are still children. People forget sometimes, right? And who's supporting them? Parents, relatives, schools. And as you get into these more collective community disasters, or Covid, which was world community, how much support are people getting to get through it? So think about it. People survive wars, horrible natural disasters, you know, earthquakes, devastating community violence. It's not that people won't be touched by it for life. But the question is, are they gonna be scarred for life or is this an opportunity for growth? And when I think about resilience, what I really think about is how is that child supported? How much truth are they told? Right. Secrets don't help anybody at all. Right. But it's how much information are they given at their age level. You know, a 10 year old needs to know something different than a 16 year old. Plus, the older the child, the more access they have to information. So all of that is really important to think about. What's their life story gonna be? And that's actually one of the threads that got me to writing about this, is that I've always been interested in life stories, particularly people who have had traumatic experiences, which is a lot of people. So whether that's individual or collective traumas, and so it becomes part of your story, you know, maybe this is somebody who survived war. Now you have those of us who survived the pandemic, some with more stress than others, the wildfires, like, all of that. But one of the things that we know is that you can have good things coming out of bad situations. And it's not that we wish for bad situations. I didn't want anyone to lose their home in la, but the reality is people did. And when I was in Japan after their 2011 tsunami, I don't know if you remember this, it devastated. I mean to say that, I mean, a wave came in and wiped out entire communities. And I was there two years later, and one of the most amazing things was everything was still destroyed, but they had quickly Built these temporary dwellings and everywhere I went, children were filled with joy. And I was like, how does this work? Because the adults have to support the children to then have joy. And it was once again a reminder that when people are supported. And so for the children of the age group that you're talking about, right, your elementary, middle school, high school, it's giving them a place to process. It's giving them a place to be upset and thankful because children will often be more thankful than we realize.

Vanessa

Does resilience ever come from something good?

Tova Klein

That's a great question. So, yes, because if you think of resilience being built in the everyday relationship with parents, that grounding of I have somebody who loves me, who cares about me, is going to work hard to see me for who I am, even if they don't always get me. That's the grounding that we call, you know, sort of the base for resilience. And if, if it's not a parent, because it's not always many listeners who are adults are going to be like, I didn't have that parent, but it may be a teacher who was like, I see you, I know you, you know, I, I have respect for who you are. Could be a clergy person, could be another relative, but there's usually an adult that gives that foundation so that when we face the tough stuff, and the tough stuff again doesn't have to be as horrible as 9, 11 or the wildfires, it can really be, my friends are being mean to me. And that's a place to build that kind of muscle of doesn't feel good. Can I get through this?

Cara

So you were saying that in order to get through it, they need a place to process. They need, you know, the safety of an adult showing up. What else do they need in order to kind of move from the initial trauma, the loss, all of that into cause the other thing is sometimes kids, you're like, wait, you seem fine. Like, aren't you supposed to still be upset? Or like, why are you laughing right now? I am totally devastated. So how do we figure out their sort of like moving between moods even in these moments of great challenge?

Tova Klein

So, you know, I often think about, as adults, healthy adults, we tend to see the big picture, right? So we're like thinking outward. All the later sequel A, all the worries, all the long term children and teenagers in particular are living in the now, right? And a teenager is going to be more volatile. Up, down, up, down, up, down, they go to the grimmest place of negative and then they bounce back to the Happiest place. And if you think about the sort of the human condition, that's what it is. It's actually okay to embody all of it, even when something horrible has happened. It's like, you could be at a funeral and somebody goes, can we make a really nice dinner? You're like, yeah, that's actually pretty healthy. And somebody else's, you know, how could you even think about dinner when this person has just died? It's like, well, we gotta eat eventually, so.

Cara

Spoken like a true Upper West Sider, Toba.

Vanessa

Yeah, a teenager.

Tova Klein

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think that's a teenager. Like, I can only dwell in the negative so long. I need to get back to. You know, we respect that in young children. We somehow think like, oh, that's. Oh, of course we have to get their routines back. But you know what? Adults need their routines back. And certainly teenagers, they're like, enough already. I don't want to hear about the houses that burned. I don't want to hear about, you know, the earthquake in my relative's country or whatever it is. But it's actually healthy to say now I'm going to have fun. And. But we forget that when bad things happen. And then we. We think, what's wrong with this teenager? That all they want to do is have a good time. Because you can't dwell in the negative all the time. Right? We call that depression, by the way.

Vanessa

I was going to say it doesn't flex the resilience muscle anymore. Right. It doesn't make you grittier. It doesn't make you stronger.

Tova Klein

In the long run, you need to be a kind of up, down, living in all of it. You know, you might get back to the place or a reminder of this bad thing that happened in your sobbing. And then you walk away from it and you connect to a friend and you're feeling joy again. That's okay. You're allowed to do that. Tova.

Cara

I want to explore the reflection part of things because some of us on this podcast might be really eager to have reflective conversations with their teens and young adults about difficult experiences which they came out the other side and, you know, are doing great and thriving. And one of us may want to be in conversation with that kid, teen, young adult about what happened. And yet there's like. And this is not just one of my children, but possibly all four of my children. There's, like, real pushback, right? And I'm like, okay, it's me. I know you're all surprised. It's me. But, like, I'm desperate to be like.

Tova Klein

But look, look at how.

Cara

Look at where you've come and look at how far and look at what you've learned and look at how strong you've become. Right. And it's like, it's as if it's the last conversation they want to have. And it's the biggest, most important conversation I want to have. And how do we bridge that? How do we help them understand their growth and resilience while not forcing them to explore, have conversations they're not interested in having?

Tova Klein

Yeah. You know, I often think that just because a child or teenager is not verbally telling us what we want to hear doesn't mean they're not absorbing what we are. Like wishing and hoping and, you know, praying. I hope they know that they made it through this tough thing or they've been in this situation before and they got through because we're so verbal. I mean, you wouldn't do a podcast if you weren't a talker.

Cara

Right? We can't shut up. I mean, that's really.

Tova Klein

Yeah. Well, there you go. But children aren't like that, and teenagers for sure are not like that. And they're not on our schedule. So I think we've all had that experience where the teenager comes to us saying about mine, who's. It's always late at night and he knows I'm a late night person. Or it's like a quiet moment, you know, you're in the car or you're going for a walk or something where they start talking, but it's not on our schedule. And so when it's, you know, one of these moments again of stepping back and trusting. Does she know that she's been in this situation before and got through it? Or maybe you drop some little thing like, I was thinking, that friend did that before and you were really frustrated. And then. And then your teenager's like, shut up. And then you don't. You try everything in your being to not take that personally. And you. Right. But then they come back to you at some random time when you're not expecting it, and they're like, remember you said that my friend had done that to me before? And you're right. Or they say, you know, I was remembering that my friend did that to me before because now they own it.

Cara

The latter is the story.

Vanessa

Let's just be really clear.

Tova Klein

Yeah. And you have to take it as a compliment. Like, I dropped this hint. It's this part of us not taking it personally that's so hard when we have teenagers because they look like us at times, they sound like us, and we forget. That is a child going through a huge brain shakeup. Huge. Right. They say the reorganization of the brain in the toddler years and in the teen years. Well, it's not a reorganization again, in the toddler years, it's like, I'm moving forward, but it is rapid. And then teenage years, you get this literal shifts in the brain again, which we didn't know about really till the last decade, and we actually know very little about it. But the neuroscience is telling us more and more. So if you think about that, and we then back off and say, you know what? I know enough, even if I'm not in science, that she's going through a lot or he's going through a lot of changes, I have to trust my child. I think it goes back to us giving them the space, giving them the trust and saying, I'm here. I was thinking that maybe this happened to you before. No, it never happened. I hate you. You're stupid. And then you go, okay, I'm here if you need me. And then waiting for them to come to us, which I'm not always very good at. And I would suspect other people I'm talking to may not always, but it's really getting to know ourselves. It's getting to know ourselves.

Vanessa

I also think there's this element of our reflection of the experience and is limited. It's a corner of their lived experience, especially when it's happening outside of our house. And it's with their friends who we think we know, but we know the parent facing side of their friends. Right. So I think sometimes where it has fallen on deaf ears in my house has been when my summation. And like, I'm trying to pat them on the back about how fabulous, you know, you really did this great thing. And I just want to reflect on this. And they're like, mom, you actually have no idea what went down. And if you only knew. And that's always an interesting thread to pick up later. Later. But it's an amazing thing because it helps us reflect and build our own kind of. Not build our own resilience, but like, it sort of scaffolds around the resilience we're building because it's not all about us either.

Cara

And if we think about the kids who are not our children. Right. I've coached thousands of girls, Tova. I don't even know how many children and college students you've educated. Kari, you saw countless kids in the office. Right. Those kids are so happy to hear us when we tell them, oh, my God, you've come so far. Think about what you couldn't do three months ago and what you can do now. Or I am so proud of the way you handled it in a way that our kids don't want to hear it from us. But God willing, they have adults who play that role for them who are not us. And I think that's where kids having many trusted adults, or at least another trusted adult besides us, comes in and helps with that affirmation and helps with that self reflection in a way that they can't engage with it necessarily when it comes from a. From a parent.

Tova Klein

Yeah. Because the stakes are very different with a parent. The parent is the place that they're gonna be if there's trust. If there's trust in the relationship with the parent, they're gonna be their full self. I wanna show you how miserable I am, how hard life is, even if I've got a good life. And it's the place that they can fall apart.

Cara

Yeah.

Tova Klein

But not be judged. Yeah. Whereas school, you know, whether it's college, high school, it's somebody grading them, it's a coach giving feedback. They both have to learn to take the feedback. It's hard to take constructive. You know, we always say, oh, it's constructive criticism. Like, well, who likes to be criticized? I don't. I mean, let's face it, right? But if we can allow them at home to be their full selves, including the rottenness, and we say, you had a bad day. Like, take a break. I get it. You had a bad day. Then they can actually go out in the world and take some of that feedback. And it's so much about the reflection of ourselves. I mean, I say, that's half my book. I call it the you factor. Is, can we reflect on ourselves to say, what is it in me that's getting me to react like this to my child? That makes us more open to our children because we have no choice but to be open to our children. Like, they're not us. They're not a reflection of us, even though we think they are. Everything a child teenager does that's good. We think, aren't we great parents? And every negative, we're like, oh, my gosh, where did I go wrong? And I say, it's not always about us. That's a separate human. And that's really hard when they're teenagers.

Cara

Tova, this is such a joy and a pleasure. Thank you for everything. Everything you have done, all the work and the research and the teaching and educating you have done for I won't say how many years, but many a long time. Many, many years. And we hope you will come back on the podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you.

Tova Klein

Well, it's a pleasure to meet both of you on the podcast, even though I've read all your stuff, listen to you.

Cara

Thank you so much for listening. You can email us with questions, feedback or episode requests@podcastawkward.com if you want to

Vanessa

learn more about what we do to make this whole stage of life less awkward for everyone involved. Our parent membership, our school health ed curriculum, our keynote talks, and more are

Cara

all@lessawkward.com and if you want products that make puberty so much more comfortable, visit myumla.com.

Tova Klein

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Cara

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Tova Klein

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