Raising Resilience by Tovah P. Klein, PhD (Book Excerpt)

“Knowing your child will also help you better understand your own responses and reactions to each of them. I urge you to be honest with yourself and not be ashamed of how you feel or react to your child in these moments, but to use this information to shift to a more positive connection, what we all want as parents. The better you are able to know and understand your child (which you won’t get right all the time), the more able you are to help them grow and gain the skills to handle life. It’s also important to keep in mind that regulation itself is an ongoing, dynamic growth process in which children as well as adults will continue to develop as they gain experience in life, interact with peers and other adults, and encounter changes and stressors in their environment. The good news is that you, the parent, have a unique opportunity to guide children in this process of emotion regulation so that emotions don’t have to get in the way, or at least not too often. When I meet with parents, I put my arms out wide in a circle to motion that early in life the parent is the one enveloping the young child, containing them in order to teach them how to regulate. Then, as the child matures and begins to gain skills for regulating themselves, the parent gradually opens their arms and guides the process from more of a distance, slowly stepping back. The goal here is to be in relationship with our children in grounded and anchoring ways throughout their lives. It is not a perfect or exact way of being, and your relationship style will be unique to you and your child. Ultimately, when children learn to regulate their emotional experiences, they also learn to handle their behaviors due to increased self-awareness and agency. As adults, we react-at times strongly and negatively-to our children’s heightened arousal states. Try not to be hard on yourself when you do, we are all human and emotions drive our connections. Intense negative emotions are rattling, and it can be challenging to respond in a steady way to a highly charged child or teenager, just as they need us to stay steady. This is our own challenge to find a way to do so; it takes reflection on why we react as we do, and practice. One technique I suggest to parents is using mantras to keep yourself grounded. They worked for me as I raised three children, each one temperamentally different from his brothers.These are phrases that quickly come to mind and remind you that “I am the adult,” and “I can handle this.” They help keep you grounded, may lighten up the situation for you (or even bring some humor to play) and that allows you to engage with your upset child in healthier, more steady ways that allow you to be their container, the one who can hold their very intense emotions. This not only helps you be the container to calm your child, it also provides your child a role model of how to treat people. Your child experiences your ability to stay (mostly) calm with them even at their most upset times and they learn to be this way with others too.”

Excerpted from Raising Resilience: How to Help Our Children Thrive in Times of Uncertainty by Tovah Klein. Copyright © 2024.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Child development expert and author of How Toddlers Thrive, Dr. Tovah Klein gives parents the confidence they need to help children and teens build resilience and flourish in an unpredictable world. Visit https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Resilience-Children-Thrive-Uncertainty-ebook/dp/B0C4LDND8D?ref_=ast_author_dp.