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