#137 Raising Resilient Teens with Dr. Tovah Klein Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 00:48

In today’s episode, we’re exploring how to raise resilient teens. I’m excited to be joined by Dr. Tovah. Klein is psychology professor at Barnard College Columbia University, Director of the Center for toddler development and author of the upcoming raising resilience, how to help our children thrive in times of uncertainty. With over 30 years of experience and research and direct care with parents and children. Dr. Klein has a wealth of knowledge to share. And our conversation topic explains how resilience is built through the parent teen relationship. And the importance of buffering stress for your student will discuss the significance of validating feelings being present and modeling resilience by sharing our own struggles as adults. Dr. Klein also emphasizes the balance between gentle nurturing, and providing structure and limits, as well as recognizing when we might be over protecting our teens, instead of allowing them to face manageable challenges. Whether you’re looking to help your team manage stress or develop the skills to thrive in uncertain times. This episode is packed with practical advice and insights. I’m Lisa Mark Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity. If flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:15

Tell about Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me.

Dr. Tovah Klein 02:19

Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:22

Well, me too, when I heard the topic of your new book that comes out actually, I think it’s exactly a week from now, right? Right after Labor Day. And it is raising resilience out on September 3, I thought, Okay, this is why having parented we have five kids 22 to 33. Actually, when this comes out, 23 to 33. I know the importance of this like not only with the students that I’ve supported with college major and career coaching, but also our own kids who now are young adults and adults. And there’s a stark difference in the kids that are resilient and aren’t. And so I’ve like okay, my listeners have got to hear from your expertise. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got here because I know you’ve got a background also looking at even younger kids. So

Dr. Tovah Klein 03:20

I’ve spent my life the last several decades working with children and families, young children, and then middle children, and then teenagers who become young adults. Right. So now it’s the whole spectrum. I’m a professor at Barnard College, and I run something called the Center for toddler development. So I get to study that earliest beginning of relationships, and then look at relationships over time. And that’s really been my deep dive into what is this relationship? And why does it matter so much. And then at the same time, I have a set of work on trauma of large scale trauma. So children who in parents would witness 911 I did some work in Japan after the tsunami they’re more recently COVID parenting and COVID. So really thinking about what uh, what are stressors, like every single day, their stressors and what are these big traumatic experiences? And then I put that together to say, Okay, what is it that that parent does the parent child relationship to buffer children, not from immediate stress or immediate harm in big situations, but over time, so if something bad happens, we know that parents can be a buffer and that’s been the thrust of my question. What is that relationship doing and what matters in it so that children can be okay or what we call resilient being able to handle

Lisa Marker Robbins 04:53

life. I love that, you know, you bring up you brought up some big T trauma us, right? And there’s little T traumas, which some people will not during those teen years or while their teens are under their roof, they’re not going to go through any of the big T traumas is not going to be like a, a 911 or a tsunami or a COVID. Right. And so does this work also include looking at some of the, I hate to call them minor, but the little T traumas as well? And even like, What would some examples be of like, the little T traumas? Yeah,

Dr. Tovah Klein 05:32

so I think of it more as a continuum of stress, because stress is what we as humans are dealing with all the time. And the subtitle of the book is raising resilience, how to help our children thrive in times of uncertainty. And I got to that, because even before the pandemic, I was thinking about, Oh, wait, being a parent, at any age of the child, or teen or young adult, is really about dealing with uncertainty. So the child is who the child is, and they change developmentally. And the family context changes and the world changes. So you have all of that. So I was like, oh, yeah, a lot of the work I do is around uncertainty. We like control. Let’s face it. Yes, we as adults, as parents, we’d like control. But what we’re facing is uncertainty. And that’s really where this book came from. And then as I was thinking about it, the pandemic started. We didn’t call it that we just said, Corona, or COVID. And I thought, Oh, this thing is happening that’s really uncertain. So I’ve got to write this book, I had already done a proposal, but now it was more like, Okay, I think we’re about to all live through a lot of uncertainty who knew how uncertain it would be? And that’s what really drove me because I think what you’re asking about are, what are the stressors every single day, teens, young adults, they’re facing stressful situations. So that might be an exam that’s coming up, that might be preparing for a test, and then getting to school and finding out that the teacher who you really like is not there, and they say, Oh, this other person is going to proctor it. You know, that might be wanting to try out for band. And not sure if you want to or don’t want that might be being ghosted by a friend who you think is a good friend and not know how to what to do. So all of those pieces are stressors, and they happen every single day, I can’t find the shirt that I want to wear. And I’ve been thinking about this outfit. So I think what you’re calling little T trauma, I think of as like the stressors, smaller stressors, but it’s through helping our children or teens, with these every day, think of them as nuisance stressors, that we’re actually building a relationship, that then becomes the foundation for what we call resilience. You know, can my child handle life and whatever is going to come at them little or big.

Lisa Marker Robbins 08:09

It’s, you know, I recently was sharing with our followers on social about one of the things I’m seeing particularly, it’s more about the young adults that come to me for the career coaching, then maybe even the teens because they don’t have this experience yet. But they start to get into that first job after high school, whether they’re direct in a career, or they were college and then career. And there’s these unmet expectations of ease, and fun. And oh, this is the past, and that we as adults need to really not only share our wins and what we love about life and when things are going well. But maybe not if we’re in the messy middle of something really big, but those every day like I had a bad day like my my boss was kind of a jerk to me, or I had to work extra hours. That meant I couldn’t even me as a 55 year old woman couldn’t meet my friends or whatever. And so that we share about this to normalize stress and unmet expectations because the world we don’t get to control I agree with you that control is a big one. So I think that starts to fit in with this idea of like the role of a parent as a buffer, but I want to hear, you know, minds just more anecdotal evidence. You’re the researcher. You’re the one doing this every day, like when you say our role as parents, whether it’s a teen, or even you and I have adult children. So it we don’t stop being parents once they’re in their 20s. What does it mean to be a buffer? So can you define that?

Dr. Tovah Klein 09:55

Yeah, that’s actually a great question because this is Perhaps the most essential role parents play, maybe without realizing it, because so much of what we do as a parent, I don’t think we’re stopping and thinking about redoing it in what we call relationship, right? It’s the tuning in to what our child or teen young adult needs. When we don’t really know how to help them. It’s pulling back and saying, Hmm, what’s going on? Is there something about me or something about my child. But what I see that buffering role as and what the the, the neuroscience, I’m not a neuroscientist, but I work with neuroscientists, what the neuroscience shows us is that stress causes arousal, right? So our arousal, think of it as a antenna, but our emotional arousal goes up in all through child rearing long before their teens. And after their teens, as you’re saying young adults are still their parents. As that arousal goes up, the parent is tuning in, to say, I’m here, you’re going to be okay. Depending on how big their arousal is, the child may need some help. Or they just go I’m here as a sounding board. Yeah, that does sound rough. Your friend did that today, I’d be mad to where all of that back and forth, says to the child, you have somebody here for you who can be trusted, and you’re not alone in this. And that helps over time, children, and I’m saying children, meaning teens, young adults, our children, learn to manage that stress. Because if you think you’re alone, every time something goes wrong, or doesn’t feel good or doesn’t feel right, it’s very frightening. And if you have anxiety, even little a anxiety, that’s going to skyrocket if you feel like oh my gosh, I’m alone in this, and I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t know how to face that professor in college. But if you feel like I got somebody I can go to. Or I’ve internalized that that parent is there for me. And I feel like, hey, I can do this, then you’re going to be willing to face willing and able to face more challenging situations, you’re not going to avoid them. You might not like it all the time, but you’re not gonna avoid them. Yeah, we’re

Lisa Marker Robbins 12:27

not gonna like I mean, we don’t like it at our age. And so to think like, we’ve got skills from navigating life, that make it easier, but we don’t welcome or want those solutions. It makes me think of what you just shared. So Ned Johnson was a previous podcast guests, like in our first year, we’re in our third year now. And he is co author of a book the self driven child, and he just starts with like, validate, you don’t even have to agree with what they’re feeling. Or you might, in your mind be like dismissing it like a first world problem or, you know, whatever. But to first validate. And that’s what I heard you doing is it’s about validation. First. I think of a there’s a nonprofit board for parenting that I served on years ago, a few years ago, not that many. And they always talk about connection before correction. It’s more about, you know, they’re more about how to correct and in raise in that way, but about the connection. So all I’m hearing is like relationship connection, validating not letting them think that they’re alone.

Dr. Tovah Klein 13:32

It’s so important at all ages, but in these teen years moving into that young adult, there’s a lot of unsteadiness, because the beauty of connecting toddlers to teens, and that the fact that I get to work across the spectrum, I work with families with young children. I’m a professor of teenagers into young adults, where it’s a bridge, what I think is something very beautiful, which is there, whether they’re two or they’re 22. They’re at these, these sort of inflection points of identity, who am I? Right, and so that relationship with the parent or parents, and in some cases with other trusted adults, is really what grounds your teenager, your college student, your person entering the working world, whether they’re doing that at 18, or 22, or 25 is that they have this sense of I can handle this. I’m not alone. And that comes through this relationship, this primary relationship with parents and so we often think in the teen years, our role is to pull back completely, obviously well, as a parent over time you keep stepping back gradually. But the man Message to the teenager as I’m here. You can come to me if you want to. And I’ll listen. And I’ll do my best to be non judgmental, which can be very hard as a parents. Yes, it can. But they need that they need us to say, Hmm, that does sound hard. Before we jump into the, oh my gosh, why did you possibly do that? It really has to be, as you’re saying that connection, which says, I’m not going to judge you. And that leaves the child, you know, at 1520, open to saying, I’m gonna go back and blurt out what just happened, or I’m going to cry in front of them, I’m going to be vulnerable, I’m going to take the risk to be vulnerable, because I trust that this person I’m in relationship with is here for me to say,

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:51

you know, it makes me think of like, when we were raising our kids. So going back a little bit like when they were younger, there was that term helicopter parents, right. And then as our kids started to get a little bit older than it was bulldozer parents, and now there’s, there’s a movement that I only recently became aware of, because I recently became a grandmother and our kids are talking about it. But this idea of gentle parenting, which actually seems to be the on the opposite end of the continuum, from the bulldozer, in what I understand, is there a style of those that has been either beneficial, most beneficial or even harmful to building resiliency in teens.

Dr. Tovah Klein 16:44

So you, as you know, being in this field, these terms come out, because they’re describing a set of behaviors. Yeah. And I think the confusion becomes this idea that that’s a real substantiated something, as opposed to their descriptors that help us understand people understand parents, I worry that they get used judgmentally too often. But nonetheless, they do describe a set of behaviors. So gentle parenting, I’m always saying to parents of any age, you know, gentle is a good word. That’s about kindness, compassion. And we certainly know from research that in attachment, not what we call attachment, parenting, that was probably the first term but to a set of behaviors, interestingly, long ago, right. But in attachment, work, attachment research, what we know is that being tuned in, and nurturing meaning taking care of a child’s needs, whether that’s a crying baby, who you’re comforting, or a teenager, who you’re helping settle down, when they’re really upset. That kind of connection matters. The word gentle is such a beautiful word, I think that got picked up like, oh, wouldn’t it be great if the world was gentle, but it’s not an actual, let’s say, constellation, at least not in the research world, or the science world, or the psychology world. And I come from the psychology world. But what I would say about gentle parenting, and what’s been put out there, that I’m often quoted on this is that, of course, it’s good to be gentle with humans, we need kindness. But children also need structure. And they need limits. And they’re looking to the adults to be in charge, not harsh, not rigid, but to say, sometimes, I got this, and that’s not going to happen right now. You know, whether that’s jumping on the couch with a five year old, or a teenager who’s really lost it, and you say, You know what, take some time for yourself. And I’m going to be here when you’re ready. But that behavior that those words right now aren’t working, that’s a limit. And that’s a healthy limit. And relationships need that. So what’s the way to build resilience? And always say about resilience? You know, it’s one of these, again, sort of undefined things. And here I am talking about it. I actually didn’t want to frame the whole book around resilience. And when my editors were like, your whole book is about resilience. We want you to just reframe it that way. I was like, but that’s a buzzword, and then I realized, Oh, but I could contribute to this because resilience is a dynamic that happens between the parent and child. And then over time comes to reside in the child but it’s not a static. How much of this do you have? Sometimes you’re going to be able to bounce back you’re going to be able to get through those hard emotions. And sometimes you’re not. And you’re gonna cry on somebody’s shoulder for a long time, that doesn’t mean you’re not resilient. Well,

Lisa Marker Robbins 20:08

that brings me to the question, though. How Are there signs that you would caution a parent of a teen to look for that would be maybe indicators that their child is lacking some resilience even now, as a teenager that could, you know, little kids little problems, bigger kids big problems, I not that every big, you know, adult problem is a big problem. But stakes get higher as they get older in many arenas. And so is there something that, like, I know, it’s not going to be a checklist, but in my brain is like, Oh, we could have like a little quiz or a checklist. And I could apply it to each one of my kids, because all of them are different. And they would be signs of like, oh, I should be, I should start building some awareness here that we really need to start working on some skills so that we have a more resilient Child to to, to ride the waves of life. Yeah, why should we be young? Again, I’m

Dr. Tovah Klein 21:15

gonna shift that slightly. Yeah, please do begins with the parents. Great. It always begins with us, you have five children, I have three children that’s like it always begins with us. And actually, this is a big part of my book that I should mention, I have something in there called the U factor, to talk about what we as parents bring to being a parent, what we bring from our past, what we bring to this our expectations, you know, our sort of our own wounds and our pluses, the good things from our childhood, the not so good, the things that we’re missing. So, to your question, probably the most important piece is when a parent is worrying, hey, my team doesn’t seem to be able to handle hurdles in their way. Adversity. It’s not a tough love. Because often I think people think, just push, push, push. It’s really how do I connect to my child? And what’s my role in this? Because I find that when teenagers or young adults are often are really stumbling, and what’s the warning sign, the warning sign is, I can’t do this, I can’t do anything. I’m not okay. But I’ll never get through that. And then they literally show you that they’re not going to get up and do it. It’s not, I’ll never get through this. They need help managing that sort of voice in their head. And then they face the challenge, the big test, the stepping out, and their first job, whatever it is. It’s really to say to yourself as a parents, Where do I stand here? And am I working so hard to free this child of hurdles and obstacles that I’m actually not helping them face that? Because let’s face it, we love our children, what’s harder than watching them struggle? Right? And so often it is about the parents saying, Hmm, I am too trying so hard to make them feel okay. That I’m actually not saying, Hey, I’m here. If you need me, and I know this is hard, I trust you can do it. That’s what the teenager young adult really needs us to say. And we do that partly by not glossing over the bad in our life. So our own struggles, and again, not overly revealing, I would say there’s adult information. Yeah. And there’s child or teen information does that stay in the adult world right now. But as our children get older, we can share even more with them. You know, either it’s something from the past, you know, I had a boss who was really difficult. And this is how I learned to deal with that situation. Or, gosh, I got to work today or I got where I was going, and I realized I had forgotten the things I need it. I couldn’t find my keys, the frustrations of daily life. You know, this meeting got canceled that I had prepared for week four, I was so frustrated with it. You know, those pieces of life are actually what helped us strengthen our children to show I’m not always on top of it. I make mistakes. I have frustrations, it. Here’s how I handled it even when we don’t handle it as well as we want to. I actually is honest. Yeah.

Lisa Marker Robbins 24:44

Well, I was having a conversation with one of my executive coaching adult clients yesterday, and just about our attitude of when things that are unplanned, or out of our control. The traffic made us late or was somebody That was having a bit of a short fuse about things, right? And just this attitude of like, it’s okay, things are happening for me, not to me being a bit of a mantra to go, like, you know, well, what if that kept me out of the car accident, right? Or what if I knew, you know, whether you’re you believe in God or the universe, or whatever your spirituality and religion is, if you believe in any kind of higher power, like, that’s for me, because maybe I’m gonna be more receptive to a message, or it’ll be a you know, like, if you and I wouldn’t have been able to jump on as planned, well, maybe there was gonna be something that made it better later, right? So

Dr. Tovah Klein 25:44

it’s partly you’re talking about, like a mindset and the attitude, you know, we call it cognitive flexibility, right, that ability to shift gears when it doesn’t go your way, you know, what’s sort of your backup plan? Or, as you’re saying, you know, if, if you were on this call, and I didn’t come on, would it be because the link didn’t work? Wait, do I have her phone number? Can I call her? Oh, I messed up the day, you know, whatever it is, how do you then say, Hmm, that’s not working? What can I do differently? Or where can I see the silver lining in this, as you’re saying, and I really see resiliency is being built often in silver linings. So I truly see throughout life, you know, teenagers come with their first 15 years, or the first 20 years, is that in hard times, in uncertain times, it’s actually an opportunity to strengthen. So, you know, sometimes, people are often asking me to use this broken bone analogy, because I use this, because it happened to me, I had a broken arm years ago, and like a really freak accident. And I had some surgery, and one of the things the surgeon told me was when the bone was displaced, broken and displaced, right, they said as that calcifies it’s going to calcify around it, you’re gonna have a bump there. So he’s very proud of this has happened when I was a young adult, and that’s going to be a stronger part of your bone. So when people break an arm twice, they don’t break it in the same spot, basically, because you’ve strengthened that piece. But that comes out of the adversity mean, breaking an arm is very painful. breaking a bone is very painful. I don’t wish that on anyone, including myself, but it happened. And the surgery happened. And then I’ve got this stronger part. And I, you know, I’m, like I said, I’ve always been proud of this sort of bump on my arm. So if you think about how that happens in life, and happens, because there’s lots of mishaps, some little some big, we don’t wish for the big ones, but the little ones you do want to wish for because it’s messing up on your first day at the job. Not in a big way, not in an irresponsible way. And, and being corrected, and being a little bit mortified. And then getting through that and an over that and coming back the next day with the like, Okay, now I’m a little steadier, and I realized I have to try a little harder. That’s the learning lesson. And then you do and you know, months into the job, you realize, Wow, that was a really bad first day. And I never want to repeat that, hopefully, but look at what I learned from it. So you can think of them as mistakes or mishaps. It’s where do we go after that? And how do we build on that and not avoid it? Now as

Lisa Marker Robbins 28:45

as long as as long as there’s a lesson learned that gets carried forward, I’m always telling the, the teens and adults I’m working with, it’s not a failure, you know, sometimes, in in in my work with college major and career coaching, it’s like they start down a path of exploring a career that looks like it could be a good fit. And maybe they discover something that says no, you know, that’s probably a hard no for them, whether it’s they don’t have a certain aptitude or there’s something uncomfortable about it. And sometimes they’ll come back to me and they’ll be very downtrodden. Like, I was a total failure. I put all this time into that internship, I ended up hating the job. And I’m like, No, that’s a win. That’s like you have a lesson from that that you carry forward. And I love that broken bone analogy. So as we’re wrapping up, are there any final like tips or pieces of advice for our readers? Besides they should preorder your book? It’s available already on all the places including Amazon, which we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Yeah.

Dr. Tovah Klein 29:53

One of the pieces I want to say that I think is so important is that parents be forgiving of themselves. because it is in this relationship that our teens learn how to succeed, however you want to define success and resilience is part of that success. But we can be so hard on ourselves. That’s the you factor I mentioned before. Yeah. So as a parent, if you can step back and say, I’ve also made mistakes, and I’m going to continue to and that’s okay, we actually give a gift to our children, which says, you’re going to make mistakes too. And you’re going to get back up with me by your side, or me a phone call away, or me in a distant city, but what you should know is that you’re going to be okay, and that comes from the parent or the parent child relationship. I think that really is an important message.

Lisa Marker Robbins 30:49

I agree. It sounds like this book when I you know, first looked into it was about our teens, but it sounds like it’s just as much for us as parents and it’s all about us. It’s about us, so well. Great. Well, thank you. If people any places where they can follow you or stay in touch me you’re a professor and a researcher. I don’t know that you’re like thin clients, but do you guess your social

Dr. Tovah Klein 31:18

right, I’m active on social I’m on Instagram Tovah Klein to VAHKL ein, and I have a website Toba klein.com And I’m also somewhat on on Facebook and certainly on LinkedIn. And I do at all like you I see parents I do research. Yeah, I do. I see parents one on one. I also run parent groups, but more for elementary middle school age. So

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:47

thick. Well, it’s been a pleasure to have you on tava. We will put all the links in the show notes. But the book is out September 3 pre order order after it comes out whenever you’re listening, raising resilience by Dr. Tovah Klein. Thanks, Toba.

Dr. Tovah Klein 32:04

Thank you.

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:11

Thank you to Dr. Tovah Klein for sharing her profound insights on raising resilient teens. As we wrap up, I encourage you to check out Dr. Klein’s upcoming book raising resilience how to help our children thrive in times of uncertainty is a fantastic resource. Additionally, I have an exercise for you. Take some time as a parent to make a list of invisible ways. Ways You don’t even think about where you might be doing too much for your child. Identifying these areas can help you provide them with opportunities to build their own resilience. Remember, as Tovah shared parents, this is really about you. I’m sure you know others who want to be intentional about raising resilient teens. do them a favor and share this episode. And don’t forget to rate and review the podcast to help us reach more families with valuable insights and support. Thank you for listening to the College and Career Clarity podcast, where we help your family move from overwhelmed, confused to motivated, clear and confident that your teens future. I’m Lisa Mark Robbins and until next time, keep striving for clarity and confidence in your team’s journey.