Zibby interviews psychology professor Dr. Tovah Klein about her accessible, wise, and compassionate new guide, RAISING RESILIENCE: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty. Dr. Klein explains how the pandemic reignited a desire to help parents navigate uncertainty, whether daily stressors or large-scale crises. She shares practical strategies from her book, from self-talk for stressed parents to sharing difficult truths in age-appropriate ways. Resilience, she notes, is built over time through everyday experiences and the security provided by loving relationships. The conversation highlights how parenting is not about perfection but about adapting, connecting, and continuously learning.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Dr. Klein. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss raising resilience, how to help our children thrive in times of uncertainty. Thank you. 

Tovah: Thank you. 

Zibby: Okay, tell everybody about the book and how the pandemic really set off your curiosity and how you delved into material to get this book out. 

Tovah: Yeah, so it's something I had been thinking about for a long time to the point that I had written a proposal for a book on parenting during uncertainty because it became clear to me over many years of work that what I was doing all the time was helping parents face uncertainty.

Whether that was daily uncertainty, like the teacher doesn't show up at school or what side of the bed is my child going to wake up on, or big uncertainty, like we've just been flooded and we've got to get out or, you know, we're moving and what's it going to be like in the new place. So, and then big disasters.

And so I had already been conceptualizing this idea that when we support parents, What I'm doing in my everyday work or following disasters or trauma is helping parents navigate that so that they could be steady for their children. And I was kind of mulling it over and I'd never finished sort of this idea and then the pandemic hit.

And I thought very quickly, oh, this seems very uncertain. I don't think any of us know what's ahead. And I was running a program for children and suddenly we closed. And so I thought, well, I really need to get back to that idea of uncertainty and everything I know from beyond the continuum, from the daily uncertainties to the big uncertainties, to trauma and disaster, it's a continuum.

How do we support parents and really how do we support children so they can grow and thrive and succeed? Despite of or in facing whatever life is going to give them, because it's going to give them a lot of things, good, bad, and otherwise. 

Zibby: One of the most sort of reassuring to me, at least things that I got out of the book was that no matter how crazy the world gets or whatever's going on with you, your family or the world in general, the loving connection between a parent and a child is so protective that it can offset all of that sort of risk.

Tell me more about that. 

Tovah: Yeah. So you know that parent child relationship, which I feel like we don't even talk about enough in the general we do in research and in science, this what we call relationship, it's two people. It's a loving caregiver. It's usually a parent, but it could be a grandparent. It could be another caregiver.

Every child needs at least one to protect them from stress. from toxic stress, if that's in your life, and from big stress. What we call trauma because what the parent does in relation to the child is provide literally a protective layer, not to hide them from the bad things going on, but to interpret it to say, this is what it is.

Here's how we got to safety or. What can I do for myself to stay grounded through this tense time, whether that's, you know, the transition from summer to school, which is very unsettling for parents and children, um, to a parent is sick, maybe not deathly sick, but sick. And is in the hospital, you know, how do I steady myself so I can go back to my child and say, this is scary, but it's going to be okay.

That protective buffer we know from years of science is actually what mitigates the stress. So what does that mean in my book? There's a lot of reflecting on the parent's self. Who am I? What do I bring to being this parent? What do I bring to this relationship? Because the better we know ourselves, the more grounded we are in the moment Even if it's hard.

Even if it's hard. 

Zibby: And I like that you had some specific things, even during tantrums and what parents can do to sort of talk to themselves. Let me see if I did this, but even things like saying, okay, it's not going to be this way forever. Or like, yeah, difficult moment, but then it's going to pass. Oh, I thought I had dog eared it, but now I can't find a way to I wanted all those quotes, but I will.

Tovah: Yeah. I'm the adult here. I have to be the adult. 

Zibby: Maybe I'll just say. You have a section where you reassure parents by saying, like, this is the self talk you should be doing, like, here are things you could say while things feel out of control, tantrum, back to school chaos, whatever. So what are some of those things?

I know it was like, this, almost like a, this too shall pass. 

Tovah: Yes, that's exactly what it is because in those moments, those heated moments, whether it's a three year old, whether it's a 14 year old, like zinging something at you that you're like, holy smokes, did my child just say this to me? And you want to like attack back.

What we need to do is say to ourselves, some version of I'm the adult here, and this is just a moment. This too shall pass. So when parents come to me across the ages, across time with something they're really caught up in and it can be really challenging and it can really hurt and parents can take it very personally.

Some of it is depersonalizing it and saying, wait, this is a child. Wait, I forgot. She's eight years old. That's a child. This is a two year old. They're not out to get me. So one of my favorite mantras when my children were young was just to get into my head, he's not out to get me. And then I would sort of laugh to myself, feel like, okay, I'm going to exhale.

My feet would be planted and I'd be like, you're upset. I've got this gave him a moment to have that tantrum, and I would be comment on what your child feels in spades. As we say, they feel our attention. They feel are calming down, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna go through life relaxed all the time.

It doesn't work that way. But it says Mommy or Daddy have their feet planted. They're okay. And they're going to help me. And that's what children need. They read us all the time. They feel us. They soak us in. 

Zibby: Um, I mean, so much of, I mean, this sounds obvious, so much of the parenting is your own relationship and what triggers you and all of that.

And now I look back to some of the times when my kids were really young and I could feel like almost like the blood rushing to my face. It was like so out of control. And even now with like tweens and teens, there are moments where. Like there's this, there's this fear that like they're going to diverge and never come back.

So they'll be rude. And then a few minutes later or something, and then they're just like, they're nice, wonderful, warm selves. And I was like, oh, phew, they came back as if like disappear. 

Tovah: Yeah. We tend to split off when something good is happening. It's all good. When something less good or negative is happening, it's all bad.

Rather than saying sometimes I'm nasty or miserable at home. I say that at home because most children, you get these great reports at school. I remember going to one of my kids, but we were having like a rough go at home. I went to high school and the principal came over to pull me aside to tell me what a great student in person, more importantly, person he was.

And I thought to myself. I need to let him struggle at home and show his true self at home. It's just like when he was a toddler, right? They've got to get the, like all that angst out and it's because they trust us, right? If you really trust your parents, you can be your good self and your rotten self at home.

And then, you know, you've got Steady secure base, you know, we always talk about secure base with younger children what people forget is that secure base although you're pulling more and more into the background as children get older. You're still there. They still check in they still need to know that they're loved even after a bad day a bad, you know Calculus test or a really rotten moment between you and them.

They still need to know like we've got this relationship and we can come back together. There's some people call it repair. Sometimes it's called reconnection. You know, we study this in the stress literature, those kind of breaks in a moment of time in a good, loving relationship, have the room to come back together, and you can see that actually strengthening the relationship.

Zibby: So for parents, I know you outlined five different buckets of things that we should know for parents who are thinking, okay, that's all well and good. Obviously I love my kids, but I still don't feel like my kid is that resilient. Like what can they do or what is, what are some of the most important things that maybe they hadn't thought of that they can actually sort of do when raising resilient kids?

Tovah: Yeah, so, you know, we think of resilience as like a thing, like a one dose. thing. And in fact, when my publishing editors were like, you know, let's call this raising resilience. I was like, Oh, I don't think so. That's a buzzword, but they were like, everything you're writing has to do with resilience. So I had to rethink it a bit and say, yeah, you're right.

Because what resilience is about is about this relationship and something that's being built every day. Yes, it shows itself during challenging moments or during hard, devastating moments, but it's being built all the time. So the first thing I'd say to parents is you've got to get to know yourself, and that's hard.

And I have lots of questions in the book, reflective questions, right, for that. Take a step back and exhale a little bit before you intervene. Or tell your child what to do in a heated moment is one, give children more of a chance to tell you what's going on or be upset. The second is children really need a narrative.

This is what parents do. We tell our child what's going on. So often parents think when bad things happen again, small bad or big bad, we should avoid it or we should cover it up. I don't want my eight year old to know that there's a war going on. You know, I don't want my teenager to know these things.

Well, they do know either because they're in social media or they're in the world or they're hearing it from their friends or they're feeling it in the house, right? Secrets are not good. So it's a question of what does my child know and how can I frame this to let them know? Yeah, something bad happened.

I have this. example in there of my own son in middle school. And, you know, he says, mom, did something bad happen when there had been an attack in our city? And I said, yeah, what do you know? And he was like, no, tell me this. And I said, yes, something bad happened. He said, was anybody hurt? And I said, yes. And people were hurt, you know, but they caught the person.

No, it's going to get hurt and we're safe here. He was going trick or treating. And then he ran out the door with a smile on his face. And I think the important thing is that when he came home and they went through the candy and you know, Halloween was done, he was like, okay, now tell me what really happened.

Like he was ready for the details then. And I had to think, how do I tell an 11 year old in a way that's real and true and helps them feel safe? And that's always our job. What's the narrative? How do I fill in the pieces of information that they have? Because that's what helps them feel safe and face the world.

It's not hiding it from them, right? We all have a story. We all grew up in something. Some people who grew up in war, some people grow up in a pandemic. Some people grew up 9 11 and post 9 11, like whatever it is. That's your story. And the question is, can you understand it so that it doesn't continue to frighten you and it has a place in your life and you gain strength from it.

Zibby: Interesting. So you are like, for those who don't know, like the guru of, Of kids, like everyone, I mean, it's no surprise that Amy Schumer wrote the introduction and was like, I need you, like, you are, you are my guide. It's not just my kid. I'm like, totally not surprised. Why do you think this is? And don't be humble here.

Like, I obviously you have the knowledge, but many, many people, what, what do you think it is? And. You know, I'm sure you've reflected on it a little. 

Tovah: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. Yeah. I reflect a lot. It's why I wrote a book that says you really got to reflect on yourself. 

Zibby: Right. Right. Right. 

Tovah: You know, I I'm 30 years into a career that I still love.

I love children. I love working with parents. I'm going to take a guess that it's two things. One is I truly love what I do, right? There's a lot of joy, even in really tough moments with parents, with children. And I think that comes from very connected to the individual in front of me. And I think that genuineness comes through.

Then the other thing is, and dads often say this, they say, I mean, you don't preach. And I'm like, what do you mean? I don't preach. You don't just tell us what to do. And I'm like, I can't tell somebody what to do. There's so many factors in this. I can figure out with you what's going on, can figure As best we can, we're not always right, but as best we can, and I can help figure out ways to shift what you're doing so that we're better supporting your child.

But no, there's no such thing as a how to that works for every parent, every child. And if anything, it makes us feel terrible. Like I remember picking up parenting books. Which there weren't as many when my first child was born. He's an adult now and he wasn't sleeping and I was so sleep deprived and trying to get through a day and really feeling like I was losing my mind and picking up these books that were very blaming.

You know, if your child's not sleeping by six months, you're doing something wrong, you know, parent. And I thought I never want to blame a parent like that because we're all doing our best, even if our best is not good enough. And so I'll give you an example. A few years ago, I run a center for young children and parents, and There was a child when the mom would come in to pick him up.

It was usually the mom would come to pick him up. We do like a circle time. The teachers do this beautiful circle time. And he would run and sit on somebody else's lap and she would just sit and smile. So I chatted with her about it because I could see he really wanted her. He was like three years old.

So I said to her, listen, when you go in, I want you to just scoop him up. And she said, I think he's happier with other people. And I said, no, I know it seems that way. So scoop him up, put him on your lap and let's just see what happens. He melted. And from then on, she would go and scoop him up, sit him on her lap.

You know what happened? She tweaked it a little bit and it wasn't so much. I didn't say you're doing anything wrong. I just said, I think he needs something different. And she said at home, he became like a different child, cuddly wanting her. They were in a little standoff. He didn't know how to signal to her.

I need you. She took it as he likes other people more. We all have our moments of that. It's nothing wrong with us, but hopefully you have a support who goes, I think his message is different to you. And teenagers are the same way. We take them very personally. You know, we, we go like, Oh, she hates me. Well, maybe for 30 seconds or, you know, an hour, but they need us.

And so I think it's that, you know, both a warmth, but also my willingness to get in there and say, I know you're doing your best, even if it's not great right now. And I know your child needs you no matter what. And then the other thing is, I have a lot of humor that comes out in these moments because being a parent is humbling and funny if it's done in a respectful way.

And so I think that comes through as well. I hope it comes through. And I love people. I really do. 

Zibby: Yeah. Well, being able to say, my child is not out to get me. I mean, that's right. 

Tovah: I have one child, and if he's listening, he knows who he is, that I had to use that over and over, like, he's not out to get me, he's not out to get me.

And then I would laugh in my head, go back to this, whatever age child, and be like, I'm here. You know, you have to do that. You have to be humble or it doesn't work.

Zibby: I feel like that's such a good example you gave because we want to give our kids space, but then like, I think that's one of the trickiest things to know.

And obviously it's, you know, for each parent it's different, but just, you know, I don't want to be a hovering parent, but I don't want to be too just, you know, I mean, it's But it's just remembering that everyone, like, I need a hug sometime. Right. We all need hugs. 

Tovah: Yeah. Yeah. It's nuance. It's very much nuance.

And if it's, I mean, I tell this to parents all the time. I speak to professionals about this, what we know, whether it's from science, from years of experience, the two together is really what my book is. It's yes. It's science. Yes. It's my own studies, but it's also equally important years of experience is that you're not going to get it always right and you shouldn't. I mean, I talk in the book about DW Winnicott. I had the pleasure of going back and rereading him. It's really not about perfection for reasons that we don't even think about, which is let's just say you could be perfect, which is impossible.

It, Winnicott wrote about infants. If that was the infant's model, they would go out in the world as they grew up and completely fall flat on their face. Because nothing's perfect in the world. The world's just the opposite. It's mishap, mishap, mistakes, trial and tribulation. If it's in a loving, basically loving relationship, then children are very forgiving, thankfully for all of us.

They're very forgiving. If it's a harsh, disconnected relationship all the time, that's a different story. But if you can say to yourself, I'm probably good enough, and I'm working to be a little bit better each day, and there's love, you're okay, but we need a lot of support as parents, friendship, if you have a partner who supports you, you need to turn to your community in some way, because none of us can do it alone, it's why parent groups are so successful, often when I run those, you know, parents become friends, or they meet other people, but sometimes they say to me, Wow, I thought I was really struggling, but actually somebody's struggling far more than me.

So that context can help. I'm not alone. This is how it works. We all need that. We need to be humbled. 

Zibby: What if there's someone listening who's like, Oh, shoot, I haven't been doing things right. Or, you know, is it too late ever? 

Tovah: You know, this is what I tell my college students. I teach Barnard and Columbia college students, which is another reason I'm always energetic.

I've got like this whole continuum of people up through teen late teenagers, young adults is that it's never too late, or I wouldn't have gone into psychology. There was like a, well, you're done, you know, 15, you're finished. There would be no hope in the world. Let's face it. So there's always room to say, how do I shift what I'm doing or how do I go back to my child?

Let's say they're 12. And you say, you know, I've been really hard on you. And even if in your head, you're thinking I've been hard on you my whole life, because we tend to do that with our first borns. We're a little harder on them, little higher expectations. You go back to your child and you say, you know, I've been really hard on you.

And I've been thinking about it's really not. It's not fair. It's not right. And so I'm going to give you a little more room to try these things out, or whatever it is, or you just shift what you're doing. I'm going to be less hard. I'm going to move back a little bit. I'm going to, you know, be a little more distant, not in an unloving way, but in a way that allows my child to try things and come to me when they need me.

There's always room to shift practice, but there's always room to repair. Sometimes it's much harder for people who are listening, who have a lot of wounds that That they may have caused their child inadvertently. None of us go out and plan to hurt our children ever. I worked with parents who were abusers early, early in my career.

And I was like, wow, for the most part, most parents don't want to be doing this. That was an eye opener to me. So that's why there's support programs. That's why there's what we call interventions. You know, you don't give up on somebody cause they're addicted to drugs. You say, is there a way that I can help this person?

You know, whether that's your spouse or your child. So. Relationships can repair even when it's really hard. And sometimes that means therapy or intensive therapy. Sometimes that means hospitalization in extremes, but it doesn't mean you can't change. And I want to say to every parent listening, I promise you, Children are forgiving, but we have to shift ourselves first because it has to be genuine.

Zibby: I love that. Okay, three quick tips for parents with back to school stress of their own, with the craziness of life, with how busy everything is, new routines for kids, new teachers, new this, everything up in the air. What are some, what are three things parents can do aside from make sure to listen to the kids?

Take care of yourself and is there anything or any fun game or just like quick tip sheet. 

Tovah: Yeah, quick tip. I think the first one is exhale, right? Well, we race, race, race through something. We are so aroused and so freaked out that our children suck that in. So it really is about self first. It's gonna always be about self first.

Two is if you're transitioning, let's say you went on vacation those last two weeks and now you're coming home. We tend to split it off, right? Vacation was so fun. Oh, now we're back to home. Remind your Children. This was really fun. We're going to also do some fun things at home, even though we got to go back to school.

So maybe you have like a backwards dinner, you know, the week before school, or you make some great dessert. I'm always food oriented was probably isn't great. You know, you plan a fun Saturday activity to remind children that We're still connected and having fun at home because we tend to split that off.

And then I would say the, the third, if you want three tips is when you go back to those routines because children of every age, and by the way, adults thrive on routine, meaning I know what comes next. So when you go back to those routines, you can do sort of a slide in. You don't have to show up at home after this wonderful vacation, say, okay, we're back to 8pm bedtime.

Even if you cut it close and school is starting in a day or two, you can still say, yeah, we're back. We're going to go to bed a little later these three days. And by next week, we'll be on more of a schedule. So be lighter on yourself so that you can ease into the routines. It doesn't feel so rigid to the children or to you.

And then embrace as the parents, the beauty of being back in the school routines. I think parents get a little depressed too. Oh, I'm back at work five days a week. Whereas I had flexibility in the summer. Oh, I got to get it out the door in the morning. None of us like that. Right. So to be lighter on yourself and realize there's actually some good in this.

There's some good in having my children at school all day and me at home or at work. 

Zibby: Love it. And just on the writing side, do you have advice for aspiring authors now that you've written your, your second book here? 

Tovah: That's such a good question. I found my second book so much harder to write than my first one, even though I was like deeply in it, like this is me.

And I have a fabulous co writer, you know, who's on the book, Billy Fitzpatrick, who's got a master's in cognitive science. So it was fun. But what's my advice? Be light on yourself. I was so hard on myself. Like, I'll never, I was doing the kind of thinking we don't want our children to do. I'll never get this right.

I'll, I'll never. And fortunately I had Billy to sound things off. She would say, yeah, yeah, Tova, here's what we're going to do. Here's the layout. I'd say, oh, okay. I can write that part. So I think you have to take these things one step at a time. Like you have the big idea. And the overall, but you have to break it down and you have to embrace whatever you've written today, even if it's one paragraph, that's good because we tend to go to everything that's not working.

And then if you can, and I find this very hard, find the space time wise and place wise to have some writing time. That's free of everything else. I learned this program like on the computer where you can get it to like, turn everything off and then sort of buzz you after an hour. Like I had to do things like that to say, just focus because focus is so important.

It's hard. And then you get this beautiful book. 

Zibby: Yes. And then here you have it right in your habit. 

Tovah: Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: Raising resilient authors. 

Tovah: That kind of feels great. Yeah. I'm thinking about that for my next one. Something about adults. You know? 

Zibby: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We could all use that. Yeah, for sure. Okay, Dr. Klein, thank you so much for coming on today.

Really appreciate it. Congratulations on your book. And thank you for so many friends, kids and family. So many people have been through your program who have turned out so well. So thank you for that. 

Tovah: Thank you. Thank you. So nice to see you. 

Zibby: Nice to see you too.