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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents, Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
I'm excited to sit and talk with you and just have my tea and hopefully have a nice discussion.
So first of all, thank you for allowing me to choose this topic and the next episode.
I'm excited that you wanted to talk about these things.
Well I have for a long time, but I feel like we've sort of changed the
format of how we do things on the podcast and I don't know, I like this new format allows me to do a bit more digging into the topic beforehand.
And honestly, I was thinking as I was doing research on this topic, which for those of you listening is on resilience without trauma.
So how to build resilience in your children without having to traumatize them.
'Cause I think a lot of people think you have to basically chuck your child into the lake so they learn how to swim on their own.
But while I was looking into this and looking into the next topic, which you wouldn't think they're related
I am learning more and more as I'm doing these lit reviews that basically all things parenting are so interconnected and all so related.
I feel like I've been saying that forever.
Yeah.
I mean it's different though when you're actually reading the research and you're like oh I mean some background in case someone's like this is their first episode they're listening to.
I'm a registered psychotherapist, but Scott's an engineer.
So he d you don't have this background.
So you're reading this research for the first time is
very f interesting and different to you, right?
Because now you're not just hearing it from me, like you're actually reading the research for yourself.
Yeah, I'm reading the studies that were done and go on the next episode.
which is on helping children build a healthy trust for others as well as a healthy amount of skepticism.
I don't know, some of the studies that have been done, I'm like, these are very intriguing and
Some smart people are working on them.
Great.
So let's get started.
And I want to start by first defining what true resilience means.
So
I think it's a term that, I mean, I'm not on social media a ton and I don't get a ton of parenting content other than what you and I talk about and the research that I'm doing.
But in preparation for this
conversation, I wanted to understand what like the true definition of resilience is in kids.
Oh yes, scientifically it's a positive adaptation under adversity.
So
being able to bounce back after something adverse happens in life.
So could you unpack that definition a bit for us?
from your clinical experience?
And beyond just bouncing back, what does resilience actually look like in a child's daily behavior thoughts and interactions?
Beautiful.
Yeah, I think we hear a lot about raising resilient kids, but we don't actually know what that means.
Essentially, in my mind, what raising a resilient child means is that your child can handle hardships that naturally come up in their life.
We don't need to ever
put more hardships in a child's life because things will happen.
And when hardships do happen, they're able to eventually cope with it and then move forward.
When a child doesn't have resilience, and we often see that in a hardship happening and they get stuck
So I feel like the opposite of resilience is often stuckness and a child not being able to move forward and or they just don't feel they have the tools available to them to be able to move forward
So an example could be your child falls and scrapes their knee, right?
Resilient child probably cries about it, get a band-aid, they probably fix up their knee, they have a hug from their parent.
And now they can move forward with their day.
And they'll still continue to play in the same area where they scraped their knee.
Right?
They might be a little more careful.
They may have learned, oh, maybe I shouldn't run so fast on this area or whatever
but they'll go back and they'll do the activity again.
A child who gets stuck might now have the rest of their day or like hours ruined after falling and scraping their knee
They might not be able to move past their tears.
They might get stuck with the tears, might not be able to move past.
They might start to develop an anxiety around going and playing in that same area again and might not want to ever do that
So we see a difference in the way that they kind of bounce back after the adverse situation happens.
Does that explain your Yeah, yeah, I think that explains it.
And uh based on the research that I found.
I said a few key points.
It involves adapting successfully to challenges threatening development.
So that's like emotional, let's say they have issues with a friend at school or something like that.
They can positively work past that.
Yep.
Still being hurt and all that by it, but they have the coping tools in order to move past it and they have the support system in place to move past it.
Yeah.
What I did find was that all of the research suggests that
This was a little bit surprising.
Well I guess not surprising, but in the same sense a little bit surprising, that resilience is often linked to children having like
a warm structured upbringing.
So the authoritative parent style.
That's linked very heavily with a child being resilient and growing into an adult that's a resilient adult.
Yeah.
And it actually
hinders kids from building that resilience and being able to cope with even just normal stresses in life and
challenges they might have with friends and family and difficulty with their job or whatever.
Trauma, especially early in life, like those adverse childhood experiences, actually make it incredibly difficult for them to move past that.
Yes.
Which I guess on one hand makes sense and like you can see it in my family situation too.
I feel like I am a resilient person in spite of the trauma that I faced as a child, not because of it
That's an important distinction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was very interesting looking into like the key characteristics of resilient kids, like when they study and look at kids who tend to be more resilient and able to move past things easier and all that
The key characteristics include empathy, communication, problem-solving skills, goal orientation, and dedication to learning.
Which I would say I had some of those things, but maybe not all of them.
Right, and maybe some things were there to protect me.
Anyways, I just found it quite interesting because I feel like I'm a very resilient person.
Not without issue, of course.
And probably would have had fewer issues, maybe would have been even more resilient if I didn't have those traumas in life.
But it's in spite of that trauma, not because of it
Yeah.
I think that's really key.
It's like I hate the phrase what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
You're stealing my jumping ahead.
Well I hate that phrase because I feel like
People will say that to someone who's gone through trauma, right?
Like, oh look how strong you are because you went through this.
It's like, no, I'm strong in spite of that
And I don't need to be traumatized in order to develop resilience.
I think that's what you're trying to say.
And I think that's a really important message because a lot of times we think, like you said, we've got to just throw them into the deep end or we gotta just
force them to do the hard work.
Make them really struggle for it and then they will build that resilience because they'll sink or swim.
Yeah exactly.
They're sink or you're sort of forcing them to swim in the situation.
Right.
And so in your specific case
You learned to swim because you had all of these things going on in your life.
But I think what you're really trying to clarify is
You built resilience in spite of trauma, not because of it.
And we don't want to traumatize our kids or use like these harsh methods or throwing them into the pool and just hope they learn how to swim in order to teach resilience.
There's a way to teach it that
is actually very respectful to your child and involves you coaching them pretty much through it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Honestly, uh a lot of the research talked about, especially once kids were a little bit older and they started having like a coach for
let's say school sports or they had a coach for what like some extracurricular activity, there was positive interactions with those other trusted adults helped to build
even greater resilience.
Yeah.
So I just found that interesting because maybe for a time I thought the resilience that I had was because I was able to deal with all of those difficult things as a child.
But um the more I read into this, I found out that maybe I was just very, very lucky and built the resilience in spite of that trauma.
And I think what you built, yes, resilience.
But I don't know if I would even call what you built yourself like you are resilient now, but I think for a time you were in survival.
Like I have to get out of this trauma.
So you did everything you could do to get yourself out to me it was more survival.
Like you did everything you could do to get yourself out of the trauma
And then once you got yourself out of the trauma, you built safe relationships like with me and my family and, you know, other people in your life.
And then
through those safe relationships, you're kind of able to take down the survival instincts and start to like bring up the resilience.
But I feel for you and for many trauma survivors, it is more about
survival getting you out than truly being resilient.
Like you actually had no choice.
So you'd argue that that was not resilience what I had.
It was more just
I would argue it was more survival, like I have to work, I have to get out of the house, I have to do this.
Strongheaded survival mode that I went into
Yeah, because it's not like you were really coping with your feelings at the same time.
You just literally felt you had no choice but to get out of the situation.
And to me, that's different than resilience.
Okay, that's fair enough.
Yeah, so I think that's good to So I think let's not mistake the two, right?
Survival and resilience are two different things.
Yes.
And in general, adverse childhood experiences, like abuse and toxic household, whatever.
Like all yell that all the time.
Emotion Yeah, that's I would say kind of an emotional abuse of some kind.
that actually hinders a child's resilience.
It makes them trust themselves less to like move forward past some issue.
Yeah, because I think if you really look at kids, they have an internal wisdom, right?
They have
some instincts for themselves as to what's right or wrong.
But when you spend your childhood, if we consider a child who spends their whole childhood being yelled at, being told they're wrong, being told exactly what to do, and if you don't do this certain thing, then I'm gonna be mad at you 'cause you're being disobedient.
you lose your sense of wisdom.
You lose your sense of like trusting yourself and then you only rely on others.
And so it's pretty hard to be resilient when
You can't really listen to yourself because whenever you listened to yourself, you got yelled at.
And so now you're like afraid to listen to yourself.
And so you turn to others for all your advice and support.
Oh, do you think that they have that wisdom inherently or that's built through others modeling that and helping kind of be their internal voice a little bit?
Like let's say with our daughters, our oldest might struggle with something in her in her homework.
I'm like, oh
Yeah, I can see how you made this mistake.
Now let's try and move past that and I can show you that you actually know how to do it
Yeah.
So I'm kind of being her voice, her internal voice that she maybe doesn't even have yet at that point.
I think both.
So I think children are born with an innate sense of wisdom and the sense of being able to get their needs met, right?
Like a baby
is born knowing how to cry.
They know how to get their basic needs met for snuggles, for feeding, for diaper changes, all of those things.
Like so I do think that there is this innate sense of wisdom within children that they know how to get their needs met
And then I think as they get older, it's that how does a parent facilitate that continuing?
Because often as soon as they get to the toddler years they're being yelled at said to time out, you could go sit on the naughty chair, you know, whatever it is.
Well even if they're not having that, but it's just
But we're not coaching them through it, it's very easy to very quickly lose that innate sense of wisdom.
So I think it there's both.
Well, and we'll get back into this in a bit, but like even there's two extreme ends.
There's someone who's like very harsh, and then there's also the permissive
And then I think another kind of not variation of that, but another extreme end of that is like a helicopter parent that doesn't let their child kind of do anything.
Yeah.
Right?
Like they their child can't handle anything.
So we'll get to that after though.
So the research I looked at heavily emphasizes the idea of like the authoritative style of parenting or positive parenting or whatever you want to call it.
Like a warm structure for their child.
Yeah.
That's responsive.
And it emphasizes that as like the pivotal thing for creating resilience in kids.
So why is this approach so consistently linked to building resilience in your mind?
Because it is almost not every article that I read or research paper that I read specifically stated that.
But it said like a variation of the child had at least one very strong close connection that was warm and loving and kind to them and helped build a structure around
Every time I read that research, I've read it about a million times.
I literally get goosebumps.
Like I have goosebumps right now
That the children to succeed and to build resilience, they need one person who just doesn't even have to be a parent.
Like a lot of the research even said that.
Yeah.
It's like
It could be a foster parent or a big brother, big sister, like type mentor or something like that.
It just has to be one person that they can rely on and is consistent and warm and structured for them in life.
Right?
Like how amazing is that and how much hope can that give to parents too?
Because we hear from parents all the time, like I'm the only one doing this with my kids and my partner won't or nobody else does
That matters.
So I just want parents to know that if you are that one person, whether it's your child's life or another child's life, it matters so much.
It can totally change the trajectory of a child's life
And to your question, the why was your question, why do I think that that's the case?
Yeah, why do you think this is so consistently linked with building
resilience in this case.
Like you'll see in the next episode when we talk about trust.
Yeah.
I'm gonna say pretty much the exact same thing because it's different research, but it's all saying
Almost the same thing.
Like if that child has one trusted person in their life that yeah, anyways, we'll talk about that next, but it's huge.
So let's just define for a minute.
I mean, if you listen to the podcast, you know the parenting style that we're talking about, right?
In every single episode we talk about this.
a child that has a parent or a caregiver who focuses on relationship with them, right?
So they deeply see and know the child.
That's key.
That's the warmth.
So high levels of warmth, which is making sure you see your child, making sure you
They feel known by you and loved by you and you consistently show up for them so that they can learn to trust you.
And
You validate their feelings, you make sure that they know that you see them when they're having a hard time, all these things.
And the structure
So the structure piece is sometimes missed, but it's also critical for kids.
The structure is those routines that you build into your day.
It's the boundaries that you set with your children.
It's the expectations that you have within your home.
Sometimes it's even things like after dinner we all bring our dishes to the kitchen together, right?
Like sometimes it's little chores.
But it's that structure that you put inside the home that makes your child also feel safe and know what to expect.
And it makes sense that children
can develop resilience when they have warmth and they have structure.
There's lots of reasons why that makes sense.
But one of the reasons why it makes sense is your child is not going to be in a state of alarm all the time.
Right?
Like if if you don't have structure and you don't have warmth, you have a child who probably has their fight or flight or freeze system always going off, like their nervous system
And it's gonna be pretty hard to develop resilience when your body is not in a state of calm.
So I think that's a really important point.
If you're being yelled at all the time or you're growing up in an abusive home, your body's never in that state of calm where you can actually start to even access resilience.
The other thing is the child knows that they're not alone.
And I think that's really important as well.
So the child knows that they always have their trusted caregiver to fall back on and that they can trust that
You, as their trusted caregiver, are never gonna put them in a situation that's dangerous or unsafe for them.
And so they're gonna be more willing to try new things because they know that they can rely on you to protect them
them even when they're trying something new that's hard.
And then the third piece that I think is important to note is that parents who use this style of parenting and are able to coach their children through hard things
can help build what you were talking about that internal voice that says I am capable.
I can actually try something that's difficult for me and I'm willing to do so because I know I won't have to try it by myself
I think that's great.
Now you were explaining more about like someone who's less warm.
I guess you're talking about authoritative parenting is high warmth, lots of reliable structure.
Yeah.
Or realistic structure.
And then you're also kind of talking about s people who are more harsh and maybe have a lot of structure.
But what about the parents who are incredibly loving?
and have no structure or incredibly loving but almost have too much structure.
Like there's a lot of variations, right?
So you have like really loving parents that almost hover over their kids to make sure they're not gonna get hurt or like they don't have to deal with this hard thing ever
Yeah.
We've talked about this on other episodes before, but we do see a lot of that because a lot of parents will say, well, I don't want them to have to go through the hardships that I went through, right?
And we're looking at the hardships that you went through as a child that your parents did to you, maybe to quote unquote build resilience, but you were alone in those struggles, right?
And you didn't have a parent to fall back on.
And so
you look at letting your child do anything hard and you're like, I just don't want them to have to do that.
I don't want them to have to deal with hard things because I don't want them to feel how I felt.
But we forget that we actually have such a different relationship at that point with those warm and loving parents with their child that they have that foundation to fall back on, and they're not gonna feel the same way that you felt because they have you.
And that's already totally different.
So what's the possible harm, the harm for the child if you as a parent are saying, I don't want them to struggle with that?
Like I love them so much that I don't want them to
Or scrape their knee or struggle with friendship issues at school or like have to work through a friendship issue on their own at school or take the bus or I don't know.
There's like all kinds of different things that parents will say
We don't want our child to have to deal with this.
And to those parents, I feel like it I understand it because it is such a difficult thing to sometimes balance of how much hard things do we let our child try and where is that line
And there's not really a clear answer.
It kind of is situational.
But I think the biggest risk that those parents face if you never let your children feel disappointment or feel frustration
They don't learn how to tolerate those emotions.
And those emotions are actually really important parts of life.
Everybody feels disappointed.
Everybody feels frustrated sometimes.
Everyone gets hurt sometimes by other people.
And the key is we want to let our children feel those emotions when they're young, to obviously not putting them in a situation with like an abusive friend or something, right?
But letting them live their life, knowing they can fall back on us and we're gonna help them and coach them through that situation
But if we never allow them to experience disappointment or frustration or hurt or hardship, they will never learn how to cope
with the natural day-to-day rhythms of those emotions that when they come up and eventually when they are in the world, you know, as they get older into the school age years and older into the teens.
they won't have the ability to cope and that will might actually feel really debilitating for a child to have never experienced disappointment and now they have to experience it for the first time.
So
By never letting our kids feel anything but happy and never letting them face any natural hardships, we're actually robbing them of the opportunity to learn how to cope with those emotions
So it is a balance, but I do want to encourage parents that it's okay for your kids to feel frustrated.
And it's actually important that they have you to help them coach them through those feelings.
Yeah, and I would say resilience is not just like emotional
Resilience, right?
It's like even physical resilience too, I think is an important aspect of that.
Yeah, both.
Both.
Personally, I think it's fine if our girls are playing outside.
And they scrape a knee.
We go help them out.
It's a minor thing, right?
Like I scrape my knee and my arm and whatever, all kinds of times when I was little.
And not that that's a reason to force them to scrape their knee, but it's just a part of play.
They learn like the rules of, oh, maybe I shouldn't run this fast or this way.
I should pick up my feet a little bit more so when I'm running or whatever.
Right, or like our daughter jumped off the couch the one time she was being silly, hurts her foot, and now knows, okay, I'm now I'm not gonna jump off the couch again because that I hurt my foot and I don't want and she
talks about it all the time.
Oh, I jump off couch.
I hurt my foot.
But she never learns that if she doesn't try it.
And there's just such a balance there.
I think it's really hard for parents to sometimes know where that line is, right?
Uh we saw even with our oldest, she has been like really practicing skipping a lot and was trying to do it down our driveway and then fell and scraped her knee pretty like
quite well.
But it hasn't stopped her from doing it.
And I think that's partially because she scraped her knee before.
She knows this is what happens.
Okay, what did I do wrong?
And like she has a bit of this problem solving mindset.
Like, okay, this was a problem and it didn't work.
I'm gonna do that a little bit differently next time.
I'm gonna be a little bit more careful or just watch out for the rope catching my foot as I'm
running down the driveway.
And I think that comes back to that warm structure parenting that we're talking about because if we as parents
don't yell at our kids for mistakes, let's say, right?
Like I I think a lot of times let's say you were a child and you fell and now it's an inconvenience to your parents because now you they have to get you a band-aid and
it's gonna take longer to get to church or whatever it is and they're yelling at you because you made a mistake, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to wanna go and try and do that thing again because now you know if I make a mistake doing this thing, I'm gonna get
yelled at by my parents.
I don't have that support from the I don't have that support.
So it's such a huge difference if your parents like, oh you made a mistake.
Okay, let's clean it up.
Let's fix it up.
What can we learn from it?
What might we do different next time
It makes a child want to continue to try to do new things.
So I think the way we respond to mistakes is huge in building resilience as well.
Mm-hmm.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan.
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Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
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Okay, let's move on.
You already said this common saying.
But I'm gonna say it anyway.
There's a common almost romanticized notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, which you said you hate.
But the research I reviewed argues quite forcefully that childhood trauma undermines rather than builds resilience, like we've been saying.
Can you explain the science behind why severe adversity, like adverse childhood experiences, is harmful and why
The idea that kids need trauma to become tough seems fundamentally flawed based on based on the research.
Just like a a personal note.
I'm just so sick of having to defend not traumatizing your kids.
And again, I think that's a certain subset of humans, right?
They think that
Again, this works.
I still hear it all the time.
It's just it's annoying to me that we still have to have this conversation.
Do you like how I respond to that?
Do you remember how I respond to that?
No, I don't
I don't know how you respond.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but sometimes it puts you in a coma.
That's usually what I say to that saying.
Yeah.
Or that too.
As I feel like in your or in a lot of people's case, but in in your case, yeah, what didn't kill you in your childhood, all your abuse and trauma you went through.
Maybe it made you stronger, aka you were in survival mode for most of your life trying to get ahead
But then at a certain point you couldn't do that anymore and then you broke down and had like a year where you cried every single day.
Yep.
So and that's so many people we see in therapy now, right?
It's like
What didn't kill them in childhood, sure, it made them be in survival mode and do everything they possibly could so that they didn't have to feel those feelings anymore or so that they never had to feel sad or upset or angry, right?
They just distracted themselves their whole life
But at some point it does always come back up.
And at some point we have to deal with those feelings.
And so that is not, in my opinion, resilience.
That is survival mode
Until you can't handle survival mode anymore and eventually you break down.
Yeah, and the research was suggesting that childhood trauma is actually highly associated with lower resilience later in life, so as an adult.
Right.
It's it's like very closely correlated with having lower resilience later in life.
Because you can only spend so long in survival mode before it doesn't work for you anymore.
And so whether that's
You know, like you, I think your survival mode is like work, work, work, work, work, work, work, like stay busy, keep going, move ahead, get a good job, go to school, until eventually it was like, no, I have to actually feel all these feelings and this hurt
For a lot of people, survival mode looks like people pleasing, right?
And so it looks like spending your entire life trying to make sure everybody around you is always happy and everybody around you likes you and everybody around you thinks the best of you so that no one's ever angry, so you never have to
Feel that feeling that comes when someone yells at you.
But so many people who spend their whole life in people-pleasing mode get into adulthood.
Maybe they can do it with one kid, maybe two.
But at some point they crumble too.
Like we can't live our lives in that way.
So it's just not a long-term solution.
And I think in childhood, when you're the parent saying, well, they just need to do the hard thing or, you know, we just gotta throw them in the lake or whatever it is
you think you're doing your child a favor because in the moment they're struggling and then they make it through and you say, Yay, you did a good job But again, that's short term thinking.
We're not looking at the long term picture.
Is that quite accurate like an accurate way to say it though?
Because let's say our oldest, I'm sort of putting her, I'm making her do the hard thing by she's in karate, which she does love doing, but she's being pushed out of her comfort zone.
Because she's not a like a feisty individual.
She's not someone that would be willing to get in a ring and actually fight someone else, but she's sort of being forced to do it a little bit.
And
I mean, so I think maybe you should share the distinction that it's okay to throw your child in the lake if you're jumping in with them and helping them.
Yeah.
Right?
Or I'm
kind of coaching our oldest daughter along while she's in karate and in the ring and she knows like she's not gonna get hurt because she has the gloves and whatever, like all the foam stuff on.
Well and you're literally right there beside her every step of the way.
That's
So I think that's the the difference in what you're you're saying.
It's not like it's wrong to throw your child in the lake unless it's on they're doing it on their own.
Yeah, or the child totally doesn't feel ready to be thrown in the lake.
You know what I mean?
Like I think in the case of our daughter in karate, yeah, she's not the feisty nature and she does need your encouragement and support, but she is interested and wants to do it.
If she totally hated karate and was crying every single time she had to go and she did not want to do it and she was so clear with us, I would tell her, you don't have to do it.
Maybe we'll find something else that we can do.
You know what I mean?
Like I do think that there's a balance there too.
Yeah, yeah, right.
You can't be unreasonable either.
Yeah, you can't be unreasonable.
Or if a child's like I personally think it's very
brave like for example our middle daughter we went to the brand new playground she really wanted to go she climbed up and this slide is huge like honestly I'd be a little scared to go down it I can't believe they have that tall of a slide at a kid's playground
She climbs all the way to the very top of the slide, looks down, looks at me, I see her big eyes.
I'm not doing it, Mom.
And then I'm like, well, it's totally up to you.
If you want to go down the slide, I'm here and I'll catch you.
If you don't want to go down, that's totally fine too.
Whatever decision you make will be the right one.
And she decided after standing there looking at it for like five minutes, I'm not doing it
Climb back down and when she got back to the ground, I said, that was brave.
You listened to your body, you didn't feel ready to do it yet.
I think that was a really brave decision.
We'll try it again sometime.
And so that also helps build resilience to also acknowledge when you're not ready.
And I will continue to present, like we'll go back to that park.
We'll try it again.
We'll let her climb back up again.
And I know at some point she will go down that slide.
But I'm not gonna force her to do it.
Do you think some kids need a bit of a push to get out of their comfort?
I mean there's a reason we have comfort zones.
It's like that's what we feel safe in.
But sometimes I don't know, I feel like you maybe I'm completely wrong and I'm not now I'm not going on the case.
This is just your your personal opinion.
But sometimes I feel like people need a just a bit of a push to be like, no, you know what, you should try it.
Like you should just try it to see how you feel it is.
And then after you've tried it once
you can determine if this is the right thing for you or not.
And like maybe a really tall slide that is potentially for kids that are older than our middle daughter.
makes sense not to push her down there, right?
Like that doesn't make sense.
But I don't know, it's I keep going back to our oldest daughter wanting to learn how to water ski and knee board and all that stuff
She needed just a bit of a push to be like, just try it.
Like I'll be out there in the water with you.
Just just try it and just push for a little bit to just get out of that comfort zone so she can try something and then all of a sudden she does it
And she's so proud of herself.
She wouldn't have had that if I didn't just kind of push her gently by saying, hey, I personally think you need to try this because you're going to love it.
And I think that's where the tuning in with your child comes in.
Because you are so tuned in and your relationship with our daughter is so strong that you understood that she had that interest.
Like you could see she wanted to do it.
She's like kind of on the
You know, standing on the sidelines, she's watching the whole day, she's like really thinking about it.
And so you knew she was ready, maybe, for a little push to be like, I think you can do this.
So I think that's actually tuning in with your child and seeing I think she needs a little push and I know she wants to do it and she maybe on her own won't.
But you never forced her.
And I I think the difference is come on, just do it
I know you can do it.
All your cousins are doing it.
Like get on there.
Let's go.
From an angry or like a harsh tone that would have come across totally different.
Then she's doing it to make you happy.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Right?
And I think she did it because she wanted to and she really appreciated your pushing because otherwise she might have been a little too scared, but you were in the water, you helped her.
And she did water ski and that was pretty cool.
But that's very different than you being like, just do it.
Come on.
All your cousins are doing it.
Let's go.
Like, don't be a baby.
Get in the water.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
I can understand the difference there.
I think, based on our conversation, I don't want parents to think that they should never push their child to do something.
Yeah.
But yeah, I get what you're saying.
Like I did it from a position of warmth.
And like I I believe in you.
I know you can do this.
I'll be right there with you.
That's very different to me.
And tuned in.
Like
I understand you also want to do this.
With the slide, like just for example, something that I'll always say to parents, especially with their hesitant kids, is time.
So giving them like time to figure it out, don't like rush them, and opportunity.
So I think in in terms of what you're saying of like forcing your kids or not, you always present them with the opportunity.
Like I present her with the opportunity to go down the big slide.
I thought it was brave that she even climbed up it.
It wasn't even stairs.
It was some like rope ladder thing.
Honestly, I was like, uh
And even for me as a mom, I'm like, ooh, I don't know if I want you to go down the slide.
This is really tall.
But I I looked confident.
I said, good job, honey, and like watched her go all the way up it
But then to help her learn that she's capable, we'll go back to that park.
I'll give her another opportunity.
We'll keep going.
And eventually one day she will look at that slide and be like, I'm gonna go down.
Yeah
And then that will be brave too, and that will be showing her that she is capable of trying hard things.
So I think that's another way to do it is just
keep providing the opportunity over and over, even if they say no the first few times.
Give them a chance to do it on their own time.
Okay.
That's fair enough.
Okay, so
If trauma isn't the answer, what is?
The research highlights several evidence-based ways to foster resilience positively.
Yeah
So let's talk about what actively teaching coping and self-regulation skills as suggested by the evidence.
So let's talk about that.
And then what does
explicit instruction in these skills look like in practice for parents or educators or other caregivers?
I mean in terms of self-regulation, coping, we know that kids learn how to cope and self-regulate through watching us
Right.
And I said this on Instagram, what, yesterday maybe?
A lot of people seem to resonate with that, but I said a child can only be as calm as the most dysregulated adult in the house or something like that.
And so basically what I mean is like if you're dysregulated, your child will be as calm as you.
And I think that is very true when it comes to building resilience as well.
And I think for a lot of parents, that comes out in anxiety and learning how to cope with their own, and this is me, by the way, uh and how learning how to cope with their own anxiety so that they can be the calm.
for their child and help them build resilience or their own anxiety or their own anger.
Like sometimes when kids have big meltdowns or feelings or they don't want to do something, we can feel really frustrated with them and angry
And like, come on, you should just know how to do this or you should just do this.
So I think a lot of helping our kids build resilience actually comes from tuning in with our own emotions when our kid is going through something hard.
How do we feel about it?
Can we actually be the leader that they need?
Yeah.
And then like I said with the slide, I'm
standing on the ground in my head, like, wow, that's really high and you're really little and that's like I don't know about this rope ladder.
I'm feeling a little unsure, but I'm still having this air of confidence.
Like, you go, honey, I know you can do this.
But meanwhile, in my head I'm like
Holy, I don't feel good about this at all.
So sometimes it is just like appearing calm and allowing them to try the hard thing as long as you know they're safe.
And I knew she was safe.
Like I knew she would be okay
So finding your own internal calm so you can lend it to your child because there's nothing like being a kid, doing something hard
looking at your parent and they're giving you a thumbs up, right?
Like the confidence that gives you is everything.
It's funny 'cause we I keep going back to karate with her oldest because I am in karate with her.
Yeah.
And she historically
has lost every single sparring match that she's had.
So every time she gets in the ring, she loses.
But then recently I just gave her a bit of
coaching, instructions on what to do.
And all of a sudden she started winning every single one.
And afterwards she looked at me with a big smile on her face and she's like
Yeah.
And we're both giving the thumbs up to each other after she's done it.
Right, like is there anything more powerful than looking back and being like that?
Even
Even for me, like it when I would get nervous before going to do a presentation or something like that, and all I get from you, my trusted person, is a text like you've got this, I know you're gonna be okay.
Right.
Like there's something about that that just lends calm and just like exudes, I know you can do this, I know you're capable of doing hard things.
And then our children are more likely to do it.
But if they don't get that from you
If all they get from you is anxiety or anger or like rushing, they're not gonna feel as confident to do something tough.
And so I do think a lot of it comes from navigating our own reaction.
Yeah, that makes sense
And the research that I found explicitly talks about teaching coping strategies.
So that's not just emotional regulation, but it talks about cognitive coping.
So like
dealing with challenging problems that they're facing and like not being able to let's say do something in their homework.
Just reframing that for them.
Also general problem solving skills.
So they're in a situation
Okay, how do we solve this problem?
What do you think we should do?
Like that kind of stuff.
And that's proven to help build resilience, along with what it said was
Teaching these skills, and I think you've said something similar to this, is sort of like when children have to do fire drills at school.
You do it when it's low stakes.
There's not actually a fire happening.
And you're just showing them what to do in the situation if there ever is a fire.
So what I was finding, and I know you've said this too, but
These skills should be practiced in those low-stakes situations, so when they're able to actually take it in, so that they become a part of the child's internal toolkit for actually dealing with those real challenges.
My line is teach when teachable.
Yeah.
And I always say to parents, kids are not teachable when their fight or flight response is activated.
Like in that moment when your child's like stressed out and they're freaking out
All they need is your calm.
That's like really all you can do and validate their feeling and be there to support them.
But when they are calm, that's when you can teach them
coping tools and you can teach them problem solving tools.
And honestly, one thing that I think has really helped our kids and a lot of kids I've worked with is telling them stories of times when they have done hard things in the past or when we've done hard things
So I mean, you know, running a business, I feel like every day there's something hard that we have to deal with or there's something new or a problem that we have to solve.
And so often when I'm putting our oldest to bed, I'll just tell her about, oh, you know what, I actually had to do this tricky thing today or I had to have this hard conversation or
I had to figure out how to solve this issue and I want to model to her how that's done from an early age.
And then when I see our kids figure out something hard, like our three-year-old this morning
has like a strong will to her at three.
She wanted to get dressed.
She didn't want to wear her PJs anymore.
The problem was Scott and I were doing something else with the other thing.
So our three year old marches upstairs and I watched the whole thing.
I didn't think she s knew I was watching her, whips out all the clothes, underwear, pants, socks, everything she wants to wear for the day, figures out how to undo her onesie pajamas, gets in the clothes
And problem solves like she was so proud of herself when she came downstairs fully dressed with no help.
She was beaming
That was very cute.
And now that's a story that we can tell her of a time where she resolved her own issue.
So keep in mind those stories and keep telling your child these stories of times they did hard things, because that will build their internal
confidence and their internal voice that like I am capable.
I can do hard things.
Yeah, I think that's interesting.
And again, all this kind of goes back to that secure relationship that they have with you.
And
you are secure in that relationship so then you tell them those stories and you just gently push them because you know that they're capable of doing it and they'll be so proud of themselves.
I found one thing quite interesting
So there was this study and the author of the study said those supportive relationships are resilience's first responder.
So they know
That there's no situation in life that's going to be so tough that they're going to have to deal with it completely on their own.
So they have that base level of safety always.
And that
In turn, it allows their minds to open up to, I'm gonna try that little bit more challenging thing that I'm used to because I know that that supportive relationship
will be there.
So I have that first responder just in case there's an emergency and I need that support.
So I I found that quite like an interesting little
description that resilience is first responder.
I love that.
And and how beautiful is that to visualize that that's how resilience is built.
Not because we're forcing them, not because we're just like throwing them in the deep end and wishing for the best, right?
Because
they trust that we will always keep them safe and we will always be there to support them, then they are willing to try something new.
And because we provide them with the opportunity to do those hard things, then maybe the first time they don't do it, the second time they don't do it, the third time
They go down the slide.
Yep.
Right?
And we have to keep providing the opportunities, tuning in with our child, trying to figure out how we can push them.
But it's never done in a harsh way.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I'm realizing more and more that this that resilience is based on that internal feeling of safety.
Whether we can describe it that way or not, like in in our own heads
Like maybe they're not gonna be capable of maybe understanding that they feel that safety, but they just inherently feel it.
And there therefore it opens them up to so much more.
Yeah.
And and I I want to note something and I think this kind of goes back to our original talk of like, let's say your childhood, like it was it survival or was it resilience?
I think sometimes parents think they are making their kids resilient by forcing them to do stuff that they're not ready for or that's not age appropriate.
or that overrides a child's need for rest.
And so I do think we want to be mindful of that too.
Like I think you're not pushing them so hard that
Yeah, like I I'm just thinking of like a child who's sick and let's say they've already signed up for soccer practice and the child's saying, I'm sick, I just want to stay home tonight and the parents like, Nope.
You've signed up for soccer, so you're gonna go.
You ha you have to get over it.
You have to feel good, you have to go to soccer practice.
You know, I think there's a balance there where yes, we wanna help our kids develop resilience and teach them they can cope with hard things
And we also want to make sure that they still know how to rest, how to play, how to have downtime in their homes.
Like I do think a balance needs to be made there.
Why are you laughing?
Oh, I just keep thinking.
Just like, oh there's this balance here and balance there.
Life is just challenging.
I just think it would be very challenging for parents to always know what the balance is.
What yeah
I know that's why we I provide all the options and then I always say to parents, and then you get to choose how that looks in your home, right?
Yeah.
Because
I can't tell you and Scott can't tell you what the balance looks like in your home.
Yeah.
You're gonna have to figure that one out.
It's I don't know, I find that very uh it is
It's both maybe frustrating that there's no one clear answer and also I mean I guess the one clear answer is that relationship.
And how that relationship unfolds or is created is sort of different for everyone.
Unlike the sick kid on the couch, again, if you're really tuned in with your child and you look at them.
You can tell this is a child who's truly sick and needs to be home and just rest tonight.
And soccer practice can wait or whatever it is can wait.
Or you might see your child and be like, you know what, I think let's go, but let's just take it easy.
And if you're not feeling good
And you tell me that while we're there, we'll just go home.
You know, so that it's all about tuning in.
And if you have that relationship there, that's the factor that's the most important.
That makes sense.
Alright, let's discuss uh self-efficacy and autonomy, which is like a child's belief that they can handle
challenges themselves or that they can handle challenges, not necessarily themselves.
Which again research consistently links to resilience.
So being able to handle
challenges is linked to resilience.
How do we foster that like I can do this feeling and appropriate autonomy without pushing children into overwhelming situations, like you're saying, pushing them too far too soon.
And can you share examples of manageable situation or challenges that will help build this feeling?
There's a lot there.
So let's start with
How do we foster that I can do this feeling so the child feels like I can handle this?
I know that I'm capable of trying this.
Or it might be hard, but I'm gonna try it anyway and I can do this.
And like an appropriate autonomy without pushing children into overwhelming situations.
Yeah, I feel like we've covered that quite a bit, right?
So I think it's things like
storytelling, telling them times when they've done hard things before, they can do it again, tuning in with them.
Like is there a desire, a want in them?
Like this water skiing thing.
There was a desire in her to want to do it, right?
And you could see that.
And that wasn't her first exposure to water skiing, right?
Like she's watched that years and years of watching people do that every summer.
And now she wants to do it, right?
So you can see that the opportunity is right for maybe a little bit of pushing in that in that scenario.
I think we want to tune in with is this age appropriate for our child?
And does this keep in mind their other core needs of rest and playing and stuff like that as well?
And I think in order to build that I can do this voice
Not only do we have to say those things to our kids, right?
Because our words end up becoming their internal voice, we also need to model it to them too.
We need to model ourselves doing something that's tricky or that's new for us and show our kids how we deal with that.
Because if they never see their parent trying something new or being resilient or doing the hard thing, like I think even more than our words, they model our behavior.
And so seeing us
walk the walk, I think, is really important.
And then even taking like the small opportunities, like the little things they do, like this morning our toddler getting dressed by herself.
or our daughter going on the school bus even though she doesn't a hundred percent want to go on, but she knows like she can handle it.
And then we tell her the story, you know, you went on the bus
this morning.
That was tricky.
I know you didn't super want to do it, but you did it and you colored and you played with your stuffies.
Like, wow, that was really tough.
And you did it.
Good job.
So just being mindful of noticing when they do the hard things, even if they're small
I think can help them build that voice that they are capable of.
Yeah, I think that's all very similar to what I found in the research.
that their belief in their ability is strongly linked to having greater resilience.
So being able to, after being told all these stories and being just gently pushed into situations that are slightly out of their comfort zone, they start to build
That mindset of they can do it and it's often fostered through age-appropriate responsibilities.
experiencing mastery or success through effort, so like being able to f do that challenging math problem they just couldn't figure out how to do.
Right.
And how good does it feel once you figure it out, right?
And then that finally the praising the effort.
So showing that like, hey, I noticed that you really pushed through this.
And it was really tricky, but you e ended up being able to do it.
Or even if they didn't do it, but they kept trying.
Like our our daughter when she was trying to ski, she was not able to actually get up.
Last year.
But she just kept trying and she kept trying and her arms hurt.
But she just kept doing it because she was so determined and they had to finally tell her, okay, we need to let someone else try now.
But she just like kept pushing and that in itself
Yeah, I may I was so proud of her for continuing on.
This is a big thing that I have actually it's been a long time since I talked about this on Instagram, but
Praising the process over the outcome.
So instead of saying to your child, You're so smart, saying, I see how hard you worked on that math problem and you figured it out even though it was hard.
Instead of saying to them, You're the best soccer player on the whole team
Wow, did I ever notice how hard you were trying to play tonight?
You were watching everyone on the field.
You noticed when the ball was coming to you, and you shot that shot.
and I saw how big of a smile you had on your face.
Right?
It's it's the way we praise our children and the small change to like notice the process more than the outcome that is going to make your child want to do the process over and over.
But if all we ever focus on is you're so smart, well then the moment that they're not smart, all of a sudden I don't want to do it anymore or it's too hard or my identity is all within being smart, right?
So focusing on the process versus the outcome is huge.
Yeah, and you're not just saying like
You can never say you're so smart.
Of course.
But it's more that you are trying to praise the fact that like they tried so hard and that is what ended up
with the positive result in the end.
Or maybe not even a positive result, but it just helps them grow into that I can do this mindset.
They're gonna want to try again if we're noticing the process versus if all we notice is the outcome and then for three soccer games in a row you didn't score any goals and all I've ever done is praise you on scoring goals
then it's gonna be discouraging and I'm gonna feel less likely to wanna continue to engage in that process again.
Yeah.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions or pitfalls you see parents
fall into when trying to raise resilient kids.
And I don't know if they're like if parents are intentionally trying to raise resilient kids or not.
Maybe on social media they are.
I don't know.
And
perhaps unintentionally doing things that might hinder resilience instead.
So what like maybe you've seen stuff in therapy.
Yeah, yeah.
I I feel like we've kind of talked about both ends, right?
So I think the one thing that parents do to foster resilience ends up becoming fostering survival mode.
which is just being too harsh on their kids, pushing them to do things that they're not ready to do yet.
And it's more of forcing them than I'm providing you an opportunity and encouraging you.
It's like, no, you have to do this thing.
Often we're trying to build resilience and it ends up in yelling.
It ends up in a parental frustration
And sometimes it's a lot more about the parents' goals for their kid and what the parent wants to see their child achieve versus this is actually appropriate and good for my kid, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you seen that in Yes.
Okay.
Yes, definitely.
It's like sports is a big one.
Like a parent has a goal of their child becoming this incredible hockey player
Right.
They maybe want to relive their hockey dreams that they never had.
The child doesn't really care about that, but the parent really cares about that.
So now the child's in hockey every th three days a week or whatever it is.
And
they're being forced and if they don't score the goal then they get yelled at and all of a sudden they become the best player on the team.
Well, was that really what's best for the child or did they become the best player on the team because they didn't want to be yelled at by their dad
Right.
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
And that's quite common.
I mean there's a lot of suggestions that Max Verstappen, and for those of you who don't listen, he's
one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.
He's currently racing, and there's people who suggest that he was very much forced into it.
Like he seems to enjoy it also, but he was very much
forced heavily to just practice for hours in the rain when it was fro like he was frozen in the Netherlands and was practicing and all that.
Like he was a kid
being forced to do these things to get better.
So then parents see that and they're like, Oh I better force my kid.
Yeah.
And I just always ask parents like is that really
the end goal, you know, like so few people actually get to that position at the end of the day and how many parents force their kids to the point of a rupture in the relationship.
that's feelings of perfectionism, low self-worth, like how many athletes struggle with their mental health, end up struggling with addiction, right?
Like there's a cost to forcing your child to be the greatest all the time.
And I think we can make our kids great.
But there's two different ways of doing it.
One is through that warm structured relationship that we've been talking about, and one is through putting our own goals on our child and then saying, I need you to fulfill something deep within me that was never fulfilled
Anyway, that's a whole other episode maybe.
But my rebuttal to that would be I would hazard a guess that someone like Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton
Like some of the greatest racing drivers of all time would not be in the position that they're in if they weren't forced
into it a bit.
Totally.
But is that worth whatever?
Like I don't know.
Maybe it's worth it to them now?
Well yeah, it do I don't know.
It depends because
I mean I'm sure a lot of parents see like those two are worth maybe hundreds of millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of euros each and they can do whatever they want in life.
So then they see, oh well, I created a successful child and that's
Yeah, and then people look up to them and be like, I want that.
Yeah.
But then how many parents push their kids way harder than they ever need to be pushed so that they can be the next max for stopping, but they aren't.
You know what I mean?
And now we've just like kind of traumatized their kid for their whole childhood.
For what?
I don't know.
I I struggle with that.
Honestly, when I watch sports or I see like the greatest people of all time, I honestly just see them and I'm like, are they okay
Yeah, well of course you do.
Uh that's so that's how I view it.
And I don't know, for me, even like let's say right now, I know
I could hire a publicist.
I could do all these things.
I could go on and do way more talks.
Like we have the platform for it.
I could do a million things and be that person.
But it's like
To me, that's not where my values are.
I would rather be home with my kids every night and and have time with them and bring them to school in the morning and and y you know, like
Maybe that's not all it's cracked up to be, is what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Like I don't know if that's my goal for my kids is to like be the best F1 driver
Like, you know, just to go with that.
Um I I know.
We might have to agree to disagree on that one.
Yeah, I don't know.
That that's me.
I I No, I know.
I see what you're saying.
I'm I'm mostly being uh I know you actually agree with me in in your in your heart.
Yeah.
Of course we all want our kids to s
succeed and I want our kids to succeed too.
Yeah, it's not all about becoming a the best like a billionaire or something like that.
Yeah, exactly.
My goal for them isn't to become the next Jeff Bezos, you know
My goal for them is to do well, be able to cope with life, have healthy relationships throughout their life, to enjoy whatever job they end up getting into, and to have a like a really high sense of self-worth
That would be more important to me.
Yep.
I mean that makes sense coming from you.
I get that.
You guys can let me know.
But I agree.
I do actually agree, as much as I'm making fun of you.
Yeah.
Okay, finally, what gives you the most hope when working with children and families?
And if a parent is listening right now.
What could they change or what one thing could they change today to foster genuine resilience?
It always comes back down to relationship
And I I would say to change or to do more of Well f the first question is what gives you the most hope?
Oh, what gives me the most hope when working with children and families?
Oh I have so much hope right now.
Like I just feel like
the work that I am doing and the other therapists that are practice is just it feels really hopeful.
Like a lot of the parents coming in are having big struggles with their kids, especially school age kids, you know.
But there's so much hope because parents are like seeking support and they want
to do so well for their kids.
Even doing that talk last night, you know, you have glass night thirty-five, last week I talked to fifty-five parents, like
And you look at them and they just want support and they want to do what's best for their kids.
And I just feel like your child feels that.
So whether or not you do everything right, there's so much hope.
Like you care.
And I just say to parents, like
What would it have meant for you, for your parents to show up to a workshop like this or listen to a podcast like this and implement the tools like it?
I don't, I feel very hopeful right now.
Just because parents they are showing up, they're doing the work and and I think that's like we talked about at the beginning, the one person who loves you unconditionally, looks at you with a twinkle in their eye and delights in you, right?
Yep.
So I think it's beautiful
So you're seeing a lot of that.
Yeah.
That's good.
I think that makes sense.
Yeah.
And I mean even with nurtured first followers and DMs and emails and stuff that we receive.
It's all hopeful to me.
A lot of it is most of it
Even if you feel stuck, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, 'cause I think the other thing too is I think a lot of parents think that they have to be perfect.
But based on what I was reading for this and for the next episode, consistency is more important than perfection.
But consistency doesn't mean you have to get it every single time.
It's just most of the time.
Yeah.
And you have to be trying and actively trying to be consistent in the way you show up for your kids.
It's all about tuning in.
Like one time you force them to go to soccer when they're sick and then they get to soccer and you see their sick eyes and they have a fever and you're like, oh boy, okay.
Yeah.
This is my own stuff
my own parents would have forced me to go and you know what I should have kept them home.
You just apologize and you do different next time.
And that's all part of tuning in with your kids.
Yeah.
And if parents listening could change just one thing today to foster genuine resilience, what should it be?
I'll just give you something really simple is noticing the process like we were talking about.
Obviously relationship
Of course.
But like a really simple thing is just start to notice the process.
Start to notice when your child's trying something hard.
Tell them that you see it.
Give them that thumbs up, right?
Like
You got it.
Look how tr look how hard you're trying.
Whether it's something simple like they're trying to learn how to put their own pants on for the first time to something more complicated, like they had to have a really hard discussion with a friend because the friend was being mean to them, right?
notice the process so much more than the outcome.
And I think you'll find your child wanting to engage in that process more and more.
I think that's great.
Thank you for allowing me to choose today's episode.
I very much enjoyed learning more about this and I mean talking to you about it.
Yeah, this is a fun a fun topic and You wouldn't let me talk about it.
Well we've had this on the topic.
Scott kept trying to talk about the research with me.
I'm like, I don't want to hear it.
Wait till the podcast episode starts.
Oh.
Uh
I mean Scott's turning into quite the nerd these days reading all these research.
Oh, you already were, but I feel like your your f your focus is uh Yeah.
So
Shifting a little bit.
But it's been really fun and and make sure you let us know if you're liking this new format to the episodes where Scott's like doing a little bit more research ahead of time because
I think it's been fun to like bring in the data to support for those skeptic parents, right?
To support everything I'm saying.
It's kind of fun for me that I'm always like right on point to the data that you have.
It's actually quite impressive because
I will give people a bit of a background into how I do this.
I don't involve Jess in the process at all, except for the fact that we have weekly meetings with our team on
Like what are the topics we want to cover and which episodes specifically or which topic specifically do we want to actually do research on and
But after that, Jess has no context for what we're actually going to talk about in the episode.
Yeah, and I just show up.
Yeah.
So far, I will say what you have been saying.
Is very similar or exactly the same as what the research says.
So that's actually that.
Oh I'm sure you could have, but
Would I have believed that?
I don't know.
Yeah, and I do think it's helpful because we have a lot of skeptical parents that do listen to the episodes and then sometimes they're like, well
Where's the research to back it up?
And now literally Scott's like doing the research to make sure that you know that everything we're saying is backed.
I've actually had someone reach out and ask directly for
Like citation.
I mean we have it.
Yeah, we have it.
We'll we'll literally send that to you if if you want.
I mean depending on how many emails we get, I guess.
But we'll try.
We do try and respond to your emails, but sometimes there are a lot, so if we don't, please know that we do read them.
Um but we we are trying to respond to as many as we can.
But it is kind of funny because I almost feel like sometimes when you have the research, it's like
Are you testing me?
But honestly, I never feel nervous because I feel super confident in this material because literally my entire career has been built on reading this research and staying up to date.
So Well, I'm a I'm a little bit testing you.
Yeah.
To be honest.
For myself and for
people listening to.
But I think what I'm realizing is the more that I am learning about this, the more I see the patterns that exist.
in all of the different research that exists out there.
Yeah.
And like all of the reliable articles I'm finding are saying relatively similar things, but just in a slightly different
Yeah, often with the same terminology, but sometimes with like slightly different terminology.
So I can see how you you can start linking all of the ideas together.
Once you have the framework, that relationship is the core of every single thing and kids need warmth and they need structure, we just apply that to every single topic.
And I mean that's what we do on this podcast, right?
we apply that to body safety, we apply that to screens, we apply that to resilience.
And I think the more people listen, it just becomes the second nature of, well, clearly, okay, the answer is nurture, like warmth and structure, boundaries
And when we have those two things, it applies to everything.
So hopefully it simplifies things for people too to know it's like not so complicated
Yeah.
This style of parenting, right?
It's actually not that complicated.
It's actually very simple that doesn't make it easy.
Thank you all for listening again and see you next week.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
Episode.
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