Dr. Tovah Klein Of Barnard College On Raising Children Who Are Mentally & Emotionally Healthy

An Interview With Maria Angelova

Listen to your child. Children strive to be understood. When they feel heard, they can grow a strong sense of self and that their voice, ideas, and needs matter. They want us to know what is going on within them. But when we ask direct questions such as, How was your day? Tell me something good or bad; they often shut down. They can feel put on the spot, or not ready to talk at that time. Instead, being open to listening says to them the parent is available when they are ready to talk. They know they are not alone; that you are interested in what they have to tell you.

Our children are facing challenges that didn’t exist just a short while ago. They are growing up with social media, constantly being connected, and the hurried pace of life today, as well as the pandemic, and the often frightening news. In short, our children are facing unprecedented mental health challenges. Anxiety, depression, and even suicide are on the rise. As parents and educators, what can we do to raise children who are mentally healthy? In this interview series, we are talking to authors, parenting experts and mental health professionals who can share their expertise and advice on Raising Children Who Are Mentally Healthy. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr Tovah Klein.

Tovah Klein, Ph.D. works at the intersection of developmental and clinical psychology. She is a professor of psychology, does research on children’s development as well as parenting complexities, is the Director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development, and author of the bestselling book, How Toddlers Thrive. She aims to understand the individual path of every child and parent and support them to thrive regardless of their background, challenges, or life circumstances. She works with programs worldwide aimed at supporting children, parents, and women.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to hear a little about you. Inspire us with your backstory!

I was an observer. As a child, I watched, listened, and took in the world from the sidelines. I was always interested in children, even when I was just beyond being one myself. I thought children were often misjudged and not understood. I was social and an outsider, a funny combination. I stood to the side, and had close friends, but was never comfortable in a group. That is what it meant to be a watcher, to be the one looking in. I took up photography in fourth grade- I had a dark room in my basement; photos are another way to look at people, nature, or whatever is around you. Another way of seeing… and viewing the world.

People who knew me would say I was a great student, as I always excelled, but inside I was insecure especially when it came to reading or timed tests. I never let the insecurity show outwardly, I learned to hide it. Over time it became clear to me that what a child shows on the outside is only one part of who they are; so much is going on inside. To be understood, their inside and outside needs to be supported.

The other important backstory is I grew up in a family that was shadowed by the death at a young age of our mother’s baby sister, twelve years her junior (who would have been my aunt). My mom, the oldest child, was like a parent to that baby. Her death at age three left so much grief for her family at a time when there was no understanding of loss or trauma, and I was the first girl born about ten years after she died. So it is no surprise that the context of people’s lives, what they bring with them to being a parent, and also stress, trauma and death always fascinated me. I read every book I could get my hands on as a teenager that included death or troublesome family situations, from memoirs to fiction, but I did not understand why I was drawn to that. Other than these books, I was not a big reader.

In my clinical work, I was drawn to death and dying, working with families on these issues, as well as to childhood trauma. I started by volunteering in the inpatient pediatric unit of the Univ of Michigan Hospital when I was a college freshman and then pursued these areas when I studied clinical psychology. It took me time to draw this interest in sick and dying children back to my own life.

These different parts of my childhood naturally led me into psychology, embracing the joy and curiosity of children, the love I felt growing up, and also the hardships, people’s histories, and what we now call trauma. My work envelops all of that.

What are some lessons you would share with your younger self if you had the opportunity?

Oh, I wish I could go back and say, it’s okay that you feel different from other people- okay that you don’t follow the crowd. You don’t have to cover that up or hide it. You have so many strong qualities, the ones people see and the ones they don’t. Your kindness, caring, and perceptions about others are enough. Your ideas, even if they are not what others are thinking about, are valid. So relax a bit. You will be okay no matter what.

I’d also go back and say it is okay that you are bold; don’t take in the message that you cannot be bold because you are a female. No one should be making fun of you for having opinions or approaching experiences your own way. I learned to keep quiet, hide my ideas, or bring them out quietly. Back then, teachers, especially male teachers, would call me bold, sassy, assertive. And they were not saying it as a compliment. I took those messages in, and I wish I’d had a way not to.

None of us can experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful because of the support he/ she gave you to get where you are today? Can you share that story and why you are grateful for that person?

I have had amazing mentors throughout my life; one who was a pioneering woman in the field of abnormal child psychology who is now 102 years old, and I still see her. But I think it starts with my parents’ support. My mom was a strong force and a role model for me. She went back to school with three young children and earned her doctorate. She was a professor and taught night classes for many years, then began a research career, at a time when being a woman with a professional career and children was not the norm. She wanted to be out in the world and she was. My model was that I could have children and a career, I never thought otherwise because of her doing it.

My Dad was my rock in life, he gave me stability and security. We had similar ways of seeing, being in, and enjoying the world. He gave me a strong message to be myself that helped to counter other societal messages. He believed that women and men were equal and conveyed to me I could pursue whatever I wanted. A story that illustrates his message happened in junior high school. My brothers and Dad and I went with friends to fossil hunt, in the shale beds in Ohio, where we grew up. We found trilobites- ancient marine animal fossils. I was very excited by it. I studied them and wanted to learn more.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, I am in a science class at school and the teacher says something unkind to me, and I say something pointed back that he clearly did not appreciate. It escalates to him saying, ‘You think you are so smart, come up here.’ I was nervous. It was in front of the class. He said close your eyes and placed something in my hand. He said, ‘tell us all what this is,’ (thinking he would humiliate me in front of the class). And I knew from my fossil weekend– it was a trilobite! The teacher backed off and did not pick on me again.

My Dad was so proud of that moment, that I marched to the front, even if I was worried, and I handled it. He would recall it, and say, remember when you knew exactly what that was?! The message I took from it was ‘you got this’. I felt secure that he was behind me. I needed that to oppose my inner insecurities.

So whatever decisions I made for graduate school, job, career shifts, being a parent, or life’s frustrations I could go to him for advice. And he listened and gave feedback that helped me see a path forward.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?

Yes, I am working on something very exciting, a second book. It is about raising children in uncertain times, and it will address the needs of children through teens across ages. How do we raise a decent human being in a time with so many unknowns? What children require to be grounded and healthy today is what children need throughout time, as there are always unknowns to life (isn’t that what being a parent is all about?) but how we deliver that is the question- in the context of changed times and newly felt pressures and anxieties. I began thinking about this book years back and then the pandemic hit, and I thought to myself, this will be a way to experience uncertainty at an extreme. So it was like a lab for the book I was envisioning. It combines my background in clinical psychology, stress, and trauma with my years of work in developmental psychology and parent-child attachment. The question is, Who is this child in front of me? How do I understand who my child is and what they need? And then, the universals that we know from research and years of experience across development. Being a parent and raising each child is nuanced. I aim to reach as many people as I can to help them move away from the idea that there is one way to raise children and to understand that raising children with kindness, love, and security is universal, every culture has a way of doing that, and that nuance and balance is needed to meet the child’s needs. I want every parent, educator, or professional working with children to be accepting and have the confidence needed to do well by children. Children count on us, the adults.

Ok, thank you. Let’s talk about raising emotionally and mentally healthy children. In the Western world, humans typically have their physical needs met. But what has led to the tremendous downgrade in emotional and mental health that we are seeing today, especially for children? What is lacking in the mental health arena? Why are so many of our children struggling today?

Children need their physical and emotional needs met first, that is a given. We are living in one of the most inequitable times ever when many children and families are under great financial and life stress where they worry about making rent or mortgage payments, losing jobs, and meeting all the family needs. That stress is not good for children.

Then, whether the family has these stressors or not, there is incredible pressure to succeed, coupled with, I believe, the fear for parents that their child won’t succeed enough (whatever enough is), or will somehow be left behind if they don’t have and attain the best of everything. This is especially true in communities of privilege where the striving for the best of everything gets intensified. We see this pressure, for example, around school performance and athletics. For people who can afford it– or who stretch their finances and prioritize this, even when it is not necessary for the child- there are hired tutors, after-school classes to boost their child’s academic performances, lessons of all kinds, and worries every time a child is not in what is thought to be the best school or the highest reading group. The focus on high performance and winning comes out of a competitive society. Children need places to feel safe, to feel others are there to help them, to learn to work together. These activities should be fun- whether that is playing a new sport or learning a new art technique. Instead, they are pushed to do their best, to do more, and that is too much with the wrong motivation I would argue.

We seem to have a view that children need more- more instructional hours, more homework, more teaching of athletic skills. And it is stretching children to an extreme while focusing them on a single goal. They need time to be children. All these pressures feed into anxiety, not feeling good enough, and counter the building of a strong and positive sense of confidence in oneself.

On the mental health side, we can help children see that learning is a process — you try, you stumble, teachers or adults help you, eventually, you get back up and try the next step. Learning is not all about success, it is about a winding pathway and if you help children understand that and take the pressure off, I bet anxiety comes down, and pleasure in learning goes up.

Children (and parents) need downtime alongside less pressure. Time to be a family, to connect and enjoy each other, whether that is cooking meals together, going on a hike, playing board games, or having dance parties. The importance of being together in light and pleasurable ways brings on laughter and builds memories. We underestimate how special it is to hold a Friday movie night in the living room or go on a bike ride together.

There are pressures put onto parents as well- the worry that if all the neighbors are doing so much for their children, then to be a good parent, I must as well. Instead, I’d like to help parents exhale, go against the tide a bit, and relax. Taking pressure off parents will take it off children, which will be good for their overall emotional well-being.

How does technology play into the equation of mental and emotional well-being? What about social media?

Social media is a carefully curated space that portrays perfection. We have to be careful not to compare ourselves, especially as women and mothers, to these ideal curated spaces. It can undermine our well being, destroy our confidence. Do all you can to keep a perspective of what is real and what is not.

Children and teens are susceptible to comparison, to feeling ‘less than’ others and social media feeds into that in a not positive way. These platforms can be social spaces for good connection but they also can isolate, and be platforms for cyberbullying without anyone to jump in and intervene, and these are risk factors for mental health deterioration.

Obviously, this is a huge issue, and it seems to be growing. What are some small, practical tips, or tweaks, that parents and educators can easily implement to help their children who are struggling?

Social media is what children are growing up with- it is their world. And there are pluses to it as well as pitfalls we want to be aware of. What this means is we have to be aware of what they are doing with it, guide them, and take an interest in what they like. That is a way to connect to their world.

1. Ask them, what game are you playing? Or, Who do you interact with on that app? Be aware, especially for younger children or children new to social media, of what they are on.
2. Watch your own habits, when you are using your devices, are you distracted during times with your children and if so, mindfully put it away. If you need to be on your device, do you tell your child what you are doing so it is not an ‘empty box’ to them, they feel ignored when we are on our devices (and we are their role models for when and how to use devices). For example: I am going to text Daddy to find out where we should meet. Otherwise, we glance at the phone, type an email, look up a fact, and it all looks the same to our child. Narrate what you are doing.
3. This point is a longer conversation and based on the age of the child as well as the individual child (some are heavily attracted to devices and social media, others less so), but I will still introduce the concepts — it is incumbent upon us to set reasonable and clear limits around when devices can be used, for how long. And most children, even teens, need us to work with them to put them away. Rules/limits are the structures that are needed.

Children need to experience all emotions, positive or negative. Being upset, sad, angry, or frustrated makes sense if there is a reason it is tied to (even if the grown-ups don’t understand their reason). Emotions are tied to events or experiences. So be tuned into your child, does this emotion fit this incident or moment? What led to this reaction?

If the child is too often sitting in a negative emotion, for example, sad much of the time, angry a lot even when you don’t see an instigating reason, then that is a reason to be concerned.

Changes in a child can be a cue– not temporarily, as in everyone has a down day or two. But if your child is generally content and outgoing and now appears more sad, irritable, withdrawn, or quieter than usual, especially if the reason is unclear, that can be cause for concern in figuring out what is going on. Similarly, a suddenly more aggressive, weepy, or fragile child can be a sign of something going on.

These changes needn’t be cause for alarm, rather I see them as communication as in, something is going on with my child. Can I spend time with them to see what is going on? How can I pay more attention and figure out what they need?

Do you think we can do a better job of educating our children about their emotional and mental health? What would that look like?

Sure, we can always be proactive in helping children grow in their emotional understanding of themselves and others, especially on a daily basis. When emotional awareness and being attuned to emotional states is part of the everyday interactions with them, then they are building a reserve, a competence, that is needed when they are upset or facing a challenge or stressful situation. We do this by genuinely labeling emotional states, ‘that sounds so frustrating that you could not figure that out.’ ‘How proud you must feel about figuring that out.’

Similarly, avoiding shame around emotions is key. We should not be teasing a child who is in tears, or expresses negative reactions, and not be too hard on them when they mess up, in whatever way that every child does at various points. Shame can be toxic. We can talk about our own emotions without shame or fear- ‘I had a bad day today, it started when I realized I did not have my computer with me at work.’ This models and normalizes emotions including the harder more negative ones.

The main idea is to help children accept all emotions, even the ones that don’t feel good. We do this by asking ourselves, ‘Am I truly okay if my child is mad at me?’ ‘Can I handle the times my child is upset and not happy?’ and this is a reflective process for ourselves. Most of us strive for our children to be happy. In fact, children, teens, and people know how to get to happiness. What they need is for us to support them through the down times of sadness, anger, and other negative emotions.

Okay, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview: Can you share with our readers your “5 things parents can do to raise children who are emotionally and mentally healthy”?

I am writing an entire book that will have this at its center. After all, raising children to be kind, caring, decent human beings who can be independent, take care of their own needs, handle tough times, and care about others is what most parents aim for. We want both. Liking themselves, desiring to move forward and toward success, however, that is defined, and being there for others. That starts with a core of strong emotional and mental health.

1. Embrace your child for who they are. I start with this because it is key for children to be accepted for who they are if they are to grow to like and trust themselves, becoming independent over time, and looking out for others’ needs. This can be tricky because knowingly or not, we have ideas of who our child is or we think they should be. Ask yourself, am I okay with my child’s ways- whether that is as a boisterous, high-energy person, or an observer who looks on from the outside until they are more comfortable? They may be highly motivated and persistent or less so. They may excel at sports as you hoped they would or be poorly coordinated, adverse to doing sports, and prefer quiet, more creative pursuits, to name a few. Accepting that they are their own person is key, they need us to love them as that person (even if parts of them are hard for us to understand) and they grow to accept themselves. This is the basis of confidence in who they are.

2. Know your expectations and what you are conveying to them. This is connected to the first point. For most parents that will involve bringing expectations down somewhat, or at minimum to look at your expectations and be aware of what they are. We have expectations for what our children are capable of or ‘should’ be doing. That can be a heavyweight for a child who thinks, ‘Am I living up to what my parents want? Am I letting them down?’ This dynamic takes away from them growing into themselves, and who they are meant to become, including being comfortable trying out new things that they are not good at and might not do well at, because they are looking to please the adults. Instead, a feeling of, ‘I am loved and will be supported for who I am’ is a stronger base for them to grow on.

3. Listen to your child. Children strive to be understood. When they feel heard, they can grow a strong sense of self and that their voice, ideas, and needs matter. They want us to know what is going on within them. But when we ask direct questions such as, How was your day? Tell me something good or bad; they often shut down. They can feel put on the spot, or not ready to talk at that time. Instead, being open to listening says to them the parent is available when they are ready to talk. They know they are not alone; that you are interested in what they have to tell you. They often speak at quieter times with no direct eye contact or pressure. That can be lying down, lights low, before bedtime. That can be on a walk together, side by side, tossing a ball back and forth; or preparing a meal together. These are all relaxing moments, some of them with motion when the focus is not on ‘talk to me’, rather it is, ‘I am listening.’

4. Baby them. This may sound odd for older children and teens and more intuitive for younger children. Yet every child wants to know you love them from start to finish and that they are still your baby. Home is home, and they can come back to the safety of it. What I mean by this is a message of I will be there for you, even when you mess up, even when you feel blue or unsure, and even when you are mad at me for what I didn’t let you do. When we recall stories from their younger days or memories of a pleasant experience together, they are reassured that they are not alone in the world. You are there for them. No matter what. Even your college student wants to know this.

5. Share joy. No matter the age of your child, a toddler, a teen, or a young adult, having moments of shared joy and pleasure is part of what connects you to your child in the best ways. Yes, there is helping them through the tough moments, that matters a lot. But equally important is a sense of deep, uplifting connection at moments- laughter, fun, joy together. Play together, pillow fight, go for hikes, explore a new part of town together, and have adventures. They matter.

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources you recommend to our audience reading this interview?

I recognize that people live online these days and that there are many resources, whether in print, to listen to or watch. But I also caution parents to not get overly caught up in all the information out there. I find that it overwhelms and then undermines the confidence of many of us (myself included).

With that said, I can make a few book recommendations. There is a book I like called The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development, By Richard Weissbourd of Harvard University. It goes to the heart of what we want for our children.

For young children, Alicia Leiberman’s The Emotional Life of the Toddler. And for older ones, Lisa D’Amour’s Emotional Life of Teenagers.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would aim for two things– simplicity in children’s lives- less pressure, fewer scheduled activities, less rushing around, fewer toys, and fewer materials. This could lead to more connection to nature and more positive connections with parents, family members, and friends. A lighter, simpler life for all.

And if I could truly start a movement it would also include a violent free world where children could be themselves without fear. Play, curiosity, learning, and wonder would flourish without being tinged with fear. All in the midst of a simpler life.

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

tovahklein.com; @tovahklein

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher, and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness, and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.