Beyond “Kids Are Resilient”, What Kids Actually Need to Cope
7/15/202636 min
Have you ever uttered the phrase, "Don't worry, kids are resilient"? It’s a line meant to comfort us as adults, but what if it’s actually giving us permission to skip over our kids' real struggles?
In this episode, I sit down with children's therapist and author Stacy Schaffer to dismantle the massive misconceptions around childhood coping and resilience. Stacy shares her own powerful story of navigating a traumatic childhood under the guise of being the "perfect, shiny" kid , and explains why our well-behaved children might actually be suffering in silence.
In this episode we cover:
- What "kids are resilient" really means, and why we overuse it
- The difference between true resilience and just shutting down
- Why the well behaved, easy kid might actually be a red flag worth paying attention to
- What perfectionism can be a sign of, and why it is not the goal
- The one thing research shows can change a kid's whole trajectory
- How to actually support your kid without fixing or minimizing what they feel
- Stacy's own story of being labeled resilient, and what she wishes had been different
Connect with Stacy Schaffer on Instagram @hoperestored, visit her site https://stacyschaffer.com/ and buy her new book: https://go.shopmy.us/p-69552166 (paid link)
Check out her new course: Staying Connected to Your Kids in a Digital World. www.stacyschaffer.com/workshop
00:00:00 - The Danger of the "Kids Are Resilient" Myth
00:02:16 - Meet Child Therapist Stacy Schaffer
00:04:24 - Why Adults Overuse the Word "Resiliency"
00:06:53 - Rescue Parenting vs. Building Real Resilience
00:08:39 - True Resilience: You Don't Have to Do It Alone
00:12:12 - Stacy's Personal Story: "Shiny" Coping vs. Safe Containers
00:14:38 - Destigmatizing Therapy & Embracing Imperfect Parenting
00:18:14 - Red Flags: Is Your "Good Kid" Coping in Isolation?
00:23:38 - The Power of Being Seen: Stop Fixing, Start Listening
00:29:26 - Restoring Hope for the Next Generation
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
This monday.com ad was created by a team of people and AI agents. The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense. Easy. Create your own AI agent today on monday.com I think that resiliency is not only the belief that you can make it through anything that, like, comes your way, um, but also the ability to know what to do- Mm ...
Stacy Schaeffer· Guest0:31
in hard situations and who to go to.
Mona Amin· Host0:33
Welcome back to the show. You are listening to The PedsDocTalk Podcast in our sixth year. Can you believe it? It's me, Dr. Mona, your online pediatrician, maybe your mom friend, maybe not. I hope I am, if you're listening to me [laughs] here for another honest conversation. So you may hear this phrase constantly, "Kids are so resilient," and to some degree, I believe this. I agree with it, but it has to be with support from a caregiver. The problem with the, "Kids are so resilient," you know, I'm putting that in quotes, is that sometimes resilience could be a child who's just learned not to ask for help or not to express their emotions, and that's when resiliency cannot be what we think. So these are not the same thing, and mixing the two up can cost a child their emotional health down the road. Real quick, how do I know that my own school-aged child,