802. In this episode, Dr. Nanika Coor and psychologist Dr. Kahlila Robinson tackle the challenging topic of self-regulation for kids. They offer compassionate advice for parents on how to shift from seeing a child's emotional outburst as "misbehavior" to seeing it as a sign they're struggling, and discuss how to use repair moments to strengthen your relationship.
802. In this episode, Dr. Nanika Coor and psychologist Dr. Kahlila Robinson tackle the challenging topic of self-regulation for kids. They offer compassionate advice for parents on how to shift from seeing a child's emotional outburst as "misbehavior" to seeing it as a sign they're struggling, and discuss how to use repair moments to strengthen your relationship.
Find a full transcript here.
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[Computer-generated transcript]
Dr. Nanika Coor: Hi everyone. I'm excited to introduce you all to Dr. Kahlila Robinson, who's a psychologist in private practice in New York City. She has comprehensive training and experience in parental mental health, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, adoption, and relational trauma treatment for adults.
In addition to her clinical practice, she provides cognitive assessments to children and supervises child and adult psychology graduate students at City College here in New York. She's an advocate for the availability of high-quality mental health services for underserved and vulnerable populations.
And on top of all that, she's also the author of the Self-Regulation Workbook for Children Ages Five to Eight, which is what we're talking about today. Great to have you here. I'm so glad you were able to join us.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Coor. It's such an honor to be here and chatting with you.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Well, this is great. I'm really excited to have you here on Project Parenthood to talk to us about helping five to eight-year-olds with all of the big feelings that we know they can have. So before we jump into talking about self-regulation, can you tell us a little bit more about your practice and just the clients and the presenting issues that you deal with that give you the most joy, like what you most love doing in your practice?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, so I work with children in individual therapy. I work with families, so parents and kids together in the room, and I work with adults individually. I've always had a passion for working with parents. I think that it's such an amazing intersection psychologically—people in parenting, right?
You have your own childhood in the mix and how you were raised, and your own parents in mind and how that influences you. You have your adult self, developmentally, wherever you are in your development, right? You have your relationship with your child. If you have a partner, you have your relationship with your partner, and all that brings in the mix. So I love it because it's such a rich intersection; there's such depth and so many interesting things to learn about and reflect on and be with. So I find it really fascinating work.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yes, indeed. I love that. It's so true what you're saying. The parenting situation has so many relational dynamics and systems within it, right? And there are so many interesting aspects. Me too. Right? That is why I do the work I do as well. So great, I'm so glad to know a little bit more—a little snapshot of your practice and the things that you like inside of your practice.
And so let's start talking a little bit about regulation itself. Like, what is that? You know, when you're talking about regulation, right? Like I know that you and I kind of know what that is, but just for anybody who's listening who doesn't really know what we mean when we're talking about self-regulation or co-regulation, like what do we mean when we're using these terms?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Regulation is the various ways that we manage through and communicate our feelings when they're happening. And these are typically more kind of intensive feelings, you know, frustration, disappointment, sadness. It also could be excitement and anger, but we feel a charge on our system. We get activated. It affects our brains; it impacts our physical system. And how do we manage through those moments when we're trying to get our needs met or trying to accomplish something? That's when we need emotion regulation skills—things that help us soothe and calm ourselves in the moment. Things that help us to communicate how we're feeling to other people. Those are some of the emotion regulation skills that we need to move through the world and get things done. Some of it we develop naturally just through development and getting older and through maturity. Some of it we develop through learning how to do it, through skills, through relationships. So that's what we're talking about.
Dr. Nanika Coor: It's interesting, as you were talking, about all the different ways we learn those skills, right? If we learn those skills—sometimes we do learn them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes the relationships that we're in growing up teach them to us, or the classroom situations we're in may teach them to us.
And sometimes we actually have to be explicitly taught them, sometimes if we didn't get them in those ways. And I think that's where your workbook comes in so handy.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right. And sometimes we observe others and how they're not regulated, right? Or how they're struggling through something. And those are also ways that we learn—through those extremes as well, in terms of seeing somebody have a reaction that's big or intense and using that as an example for how you react yourself or as in contrast to how you want to react.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Absolutely. Absolutely. So now that we have a little bit of a feel for what regulation even is and what regulating emotions could look like and how it can help us, I work with lots of parents who sometimes can see a big emotion coming from a child often as misbehaving, right?
Like they're doing something wrong, depending on their own upbringing and the ways that they were sort of socialized around emotionality. And in my practice, I really try to help parents see kids in a more positive light. So, you know, what kinds of things do you talk about in terms that help
parents go from seeing their kid in a misbehaving way to seeing them more as if this kid might be struggling or doing the best they can? What are some tips that this book gives for that kind of conundrum?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah. I mean, I think it's really hard because when, especially when your child is between the ages of five and eight, they've developed a lot of skills. They've matured; they've developed some level of independence. And they've been able to handle some things emotionally even better than they did when they were, you know, two, three, or four, certainly, right?
They're out in the world. They're on teams; they're in school, right? So I think in our minds, for a lot of us, we think, well, they can handle a lot more things now; why can't they just deal with this? And we have a bit of a skewed sense of what they can manage developmentally because they're still so young, right?
So reminders about development are really, really, really important. I think a lot of people know it by now, right? That the brain is not fully developed until our early to mid-twenties, right? And so, especially the frontal lobe—the part of our brain that helps us kind of anticipate consequences, keep rules in mind, organize, plan, name feelings, and help us with regulating feelings—is not fully developed until our twenties. Right. So keeping that as a reminder for yourself, there's actually nothing wrong with your child having a big emotion—having an intensive emotion—that's actually quite normal developmentally. That is one way to consider having a bit more patience and understanding and keeping their behavior in context. And also with that in mind, tied to that, almost just this mantra of like, they're not doing it on purpose. They're not trying to make you upset. I know you're a Ross Greene fan, right? Like that kids do well when they can—that whole concept that this is a developing skill, this is something they're working on.
This is something they're not naturally born able to do, and there's nothing wrong with that. And that's our role as parents—to kind of hold compassion for that, supporting them, coaching them, and helping them learn some skills when they're in the mindset to be able to learn.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah. I love that. I love that. So you're sort of talking about holding development in mind and behaving with compassion, with that development in mind, giving some context to where your child is developmentally, and giving some context to the big emotions they might be showing. That part of their brain that has those emotional brakes doesn't really fully develop until their early twenties.
And I might add that even beyond that, sometimes people have not yet developed that, and you know,
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Sometimes we do ask six-year-olds or seven-year-olds for a level of self-control that we may not even have ourselves.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: That's right, that's right. And then even just the idea of framing something as misbehavior, that's not even necessarily helpful. That doesn't really do much for you or for your child, right? It's like, okay, you can think of it that way, but then what? How does that actually help resolve the situation you're in?
So it's also just not effective to consider that framing, right? You might want to use something else.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah, something more helpful. It doesn't necessarily get you out of this pickle in the future or help anybody learn anything from this particular pickle just by saying, "You're being bad."
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I really love these points because, yes, I am a raw screen fan. I am a fan of thinking of all of us—children and parents—as doing the best that we can at any given moment.
But there is a lot to think about. There is a lot to keep in mind, right? Life is moving really fast. You talk in your book about caregiver reflection, right? And I know that parents are asking me this all the time, like how in the heat of the moment, when all of the things are hitting the fan and I'm about to lose it or my kid is losing it, how can I do more connecting and less reacting?
How can I do these reflections when things are really happening so quickly all around me? That happens. That comes up so often.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: It's actually real. I think it's a real challenge to do it in the moment when things are really activated and intense. I think the level of reflection that maybe we could ask for ourselves, ideally, is for self-reflection around just the physical state and the level of activation that you're in, right?
And really registering for yourself, "Okay, wait a minute. I'm getting really heated right now. I noticed my voice raising. I noticed myself wanting to kind of do some physical acting out even." Right? Just really starting to increase our level of self-monitoring in those moments is probably the best that we can do. Right? Just getting a quick check for ourselves. Because otherwise, yeah, we do get hijacked; we do get taken away from being able to slow down, notice things, and have some deeper reflection about the dynamic at play with your child. But if you can at least say, "Wait a minute, I
can just notice that I'm getting really frustrated or angry," and just take a beat to pay attention to that and know what your cues are, that's a way to then start to be able to pivot just a little bit, continuing to focus on yourself.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I love that. Focusing on yourself is such a great point because we automatically focus on the child's behavior and what we need to change about it, and it all feels like an emergency. Sometimes it is just better. I remember when my child, who is now nine, was in the toddler phase and threw a block at me one time and it hit me in the face.
I remember all the times I had spoken to other parents about how the first thing you do is just nothing. Just don't do anything.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Because you know what I mean? I just remember being like, "Don't just do nothing. Just do nothing."
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I was just repeating to myself, "Just do nothing." Like, what does it feel like?
You know, just trying to focus on myself. Like, "That really hurt. It makes sense that you're feeling angry. A block just hit your face."
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yes.
Dr. Nanika Coor: All of this is normal. All your feelings are valid. And at the same time, this is a three-year-old who doesn't know, who doesn't realize that that hurt me as much as it did.
They don't have the brakes yet; they don't have a fully formed prefrontal cortex. I had to tell myself all those things.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: And you're doing nothing on the outside, but really, inside your mind and inside of you, you're doing a lot. You're acknowledging what's going on and trying to remind yourself of the situation, right? There's a lot of work involved with doing nothing, right?
Dr. Nanika Coor: There's so much work with doing nothing. That's true. Doing nothing is a big job.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yes, yes. Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: In that particular moment, it's a huge job. It feels like a lot, but the pausing and just slowing down, just sort of like, "Let's just survey the internal situation first."
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: And if it's safe, right?
It wasn't like there was a barrage of blocks coming at me, you know? It was one block that came at me.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I think both of us were pretty stunned by it. So I don't think my kid was realizing, "Oh, that made contact with your face, and you look like you're in pain." I did not foresee any of those things happening, you
know?
It wasn't premeditated. It was just like, "I'm mad; I'm throwing things," and one of those things hit you.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah. I think that just the pausing, just slowing down and attending to yourself, asking, "What is going on with you?" I've also found sometimes that even saying my process out loud, like I can sometimes say, "I'm getting really angry," one of my favorites, "I'm running out of kind words.
I'm running out. I'm—"
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I would very much like to speak to you kindly, but I am all out.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Of kind words, so I need to take a break because I don't have any kind words in this moment.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yep, yep. The idea, like not adding fuel to the fire, not having a tantrum when they're having a—like all of that. All of those concepts of seeing what it's like to slow down just a little bit and giving yourself then an opportunity to continue to regulate yourself and focus on.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yes. Yes. This is just also helpful. These are just such common situations parents find themselves in. And again about that, that moving fast, you know, life is moving fast. Sometimes we are just trying to hold everyone together and trying to just get them through this daily routine—like just get to the next thing.
And so, the slowing down and pausing is helpful. But, like I said, in that situation, things were moving slow enough for me to attend to myself, but you know, sometimes it feels like such a rush. Like, you have more than one child. I only have the one. I know that it's a lot when there's more than one child, perhaps even a partner who is also talking to you or trying to get something from you.
There's a lot happening, and maybe little kids are having big feelings, and sometimes we are thinking we need to fix it—like, I need to fix this so that we can keep moving through our day. And sometimes we try to solve whatever is bothering them.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: And it's hard for us to not only sit with our own feelings but to sit with theirs.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: It's—
Dr. Nanika Coor: Right.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: For parents to tolerate disappointment and sadness and all types of feelings in kids, and I think that's a real area to dive into for parents because there can often be a lot of the past in those reactions when we're reacting to something in our child that's hard for us to tolerate.
It's really useful to be curious about that and to kind of understand a little bit more about where that comes from. There's a mom that I know who gets very, she notices that she gets an overly strong reaction triggered by her name being called over and over—Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. And she remembered that her mom was somebody who would yell across the room all the time, or always, you know, there was a big volume in her household. Hearing her name called over and over again, that kind of like shuddered down her spine. She'd hear her name called, and she really had to notice that connection. Right. Okay. This is something that really was hard for me as a kid that made me feel uncomfortable.
Now I'm an adult—this is my child. We're in a different situation—but I really had to kind of shift and check myself around like, why am I getting so upset about this thing that's fairly normal for my kid to do? So all of the pieces that are at play when you're upset and angry with your child—not necessarily in that moment because it's too hard to do—but being curious and using curiosity really as a skill to support yourself in trying to understand why you're reacting to what in the way that you are.
Dr. Nanika Coor: And that may help you identify what is getting kicked up for me in the situation—whether you can do that in the moment or at another time. And then also, what about when your child is just calling your name again and again? You've given the answer.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Like, you know, but I really do want that cookie.
And you already said—
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: No cookies until after dinner. And, but they're like, but what about now? What about now? What about now? What about now?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: I really love stopping and dropping down to my kids' level and really just being like, you know, I, again, give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I didn't get the full sense of like what the need is in the moment. Maybe there's something more I could understand that my child is not able to quite put into words, but I want to take a moment. So just really being like, wait a minute. We talked about this. We said no cookies tonight. Here I am. Tell me more. What's going on? Like, just giving a little, what's hard about this right now? Really, again, giving that curiosity to your child and the benefit of the doubt that maybe there's something that you're not quite picking up on in terms of what their needs are. They can't always put their needs into words.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yes.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Um, and then sometimes it's just bearing the disappointment they're experiencing.
Dr. Nanika Coor: So tell me more about that. Tell me, what do we do when we are just bearing the disappointment? When they just sort of need us to be there with them with this big feeling, and there's really nothing for us to fix or to solve or anything?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: One of the strategies that I use that I find really helpful, especially when losing patience, when my child is frustrated or overreacting to something is—well, maybe they're actually not upset about this thing. Maybe it's giving them an opportunity to actually release some pent-up feelings about something else.
Right. Almost the idea of something cathartic, like a cathartic cry that adults have, right? You stub your toe, but then you can let it out about, you know, the bad day you had at work or whatever. So that really helps me. I don't know if it's true or if it's not true for the kid in the moment.
'Cause I'm not sitting there asking, well, are you really upset about the cookie? Or are you upset about, you know, what happened at school that day? But it helps me in my own mind to imagine like they're having a good, healthy cry—like they're having a big reaction about this small thing, but I can keep compassion because it's true that they can't always articulate something that's bothering them, something that happened
the previous week at school or something like that. And again, the idea that it just kind of opens the floodgates for them and lets them release something that's kind of pent up inside. And I try to keep that in mind as a strategy for myself just to stay compassionate.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah. I love that idea. I try to think of it as like ringing yourself out like a cloth. Like I try to think about it like, well, they're not done ringing themselves out yet. They—
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: There's—
Dr. Nanika Coor: Still, there's still something in there they need to get out.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Nanika Coor: We, they may not be able to talk about it, or even not.
I, as you were talking just now, I was thinking like, I don't even know, like there are times that I'm upset and I just know I want to cry, but I can't necessarily put my finger on exactly what's bothering me. I just like gotta offload these big feelings.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. That's why when adults are sometimes surprised by how emotional they can get watching a show or a movie or a commercial, right? It's like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that emotion came out of me. And it just hit that tender spot inside and allowed you to release something that you didn't necessarily know you were holding onto.
And a lot of people feel lighter or better or more regulated after something like that.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yes, yes, yes. And so I think I like your suggestion, this idea of like, imagine that they're just not done yet.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Have more to get out, and maybe they can't put words to it. Like we so love to do in our society is make, if there's no words for it, then it just doesn't exist. You know?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: What I mean?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Maybe they just sometimes need a hug, right?
I mean, that's what my kid, if I don't know what to do, my kid will take hugs. So I will offer one, and sometimes I'll just, when I just don't know what else to do, I'll say, do you need a hug? And they'll be like, yes. And I'll be like, great. I got plenty of those.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Like—
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I—
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: If your child receives someone who is able to receive soothing, and you know, that's one of the things that supports them in continuing to wring things out and release them, then absolutely. Yeah. Do that. I mean, this also comes from working with adults with relational trauma. They remember times where their parents left them feeling kind of overwhelmingly alone, that they were told like, boys don't cry, or stop being angry, or you're getting too excited.
Like it really can stop people up emotionally from being able to accept and be with their authentic feelings, right? So what you do with your kid at this age can also set a bit of a template for them, you know, in terms of their development and how their relationship to their own feelings, you know, as they develop. So that's also really, really important. We want kids to be able to feel secure in being able to express whatever they're feeling and not have to pretend it's not there, or to shut it off prematurely in order to maintain a relationship with somebody.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, you know, I could literally jog about this for the rest of my life. I'm super interested in this conversation, but at the same time, I want to think about those times with you. You know, those times that like, we know all of these things, you know, we know we should have paused and taken a little, you know, internal check-in.
We know we should have maybe left some more space for those big feelings. We know we maybe should have used kinder words or a kinder tone, but we didn't. That's not what happened.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yep.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Not what happened at all. So what do we do when we do want to repair that relationship? And we do want
to make things better again and reset? Like, what do you talk about in the book that helps parents know what to do after they have maybe messed up as a parent?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Sure, sure. Yeah. I think the process that I recommended, my co-author, Sarah Gertz Ang, I should mention her; she also contributed to the book. The recommendations that we make is to first do a repair for yourself as a parent, right? Oftentimes there's a lot of shame, there's a lot of guilt.
You messed up, you feel bad about what you said or did, and people stay stuck there and they don't do anything else, right? It's like, oof, this feels awful. Let me distract myself. Let me do something else. Let me get away from this feeling. But that's an opportunity to really do a repair with yourself.
Meaning understand where it was coming from again, what was the context in which you acted out in that way? You know, I got frustrated with my daughter the other day and was overly frustrated over a little mistake that she made, and I really had to ask myself what was going on, and I think I had just taken on too much that day, right? When you talk about being busy and there's so much going on, like sometimes we're taking on too much and we're putting too high expectations on ourselves. We have 30 minutes to like put a load of laundry in, go to the grocery store, pick up a kid, and whatever else. You know what I mean?
And call somebody back. And it's like, is that a good plan? Like, could you—
Dr. Nanika Coor: I set myself up for success at all here?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right, right, right. Like, what's the—like, okay. Like a higher risk that you might end up getting really frustrated with your kid for doing something normal if you're putting too much on yourself, right? So like in this situation, I had to say, well, what led up to me getting overly frustrated? And it was like I was doing too much; like it was too much on me, and I think that I had less patience than I would have had otherwise, if I
had set up something a little differently. So first, kind of doing that repair for yourself as a parent, understanding where it was coming from. Remind yourself like, this is a really tough job. Parenting is really hard. I do it mostly well, most of the time, and it's really hard, and I'm doing it, you know, if it's your first kid, even if it's your second kid, I'm doing it for the first time.
There's no manual. Being a good enough parent means that you have compassion for yourself and you put things into context, right? So doing that repair for yourself matters first because that helps regulate you, right? It helps you kind of know more about where the behaviors were coming from and helps kind of regulate the guilt a bit. And then you really have to just take accountability and be the bigger person. And maybe it's a little uncomfortable, but you do want to be able to say, I'm sorry for acting in the way that I did, saying what I said. I didn't mean to take it out on you. It can be as brief as that. Offer your child a chance to express how they felt or how they're feeling, but or not, right? You can offer physical comfort, you know, if your child wants that, and also accept if your child is just not ready or open to that quite yet. Like, be okay with that as well. But using those words, I'm sorry for acting in the way that I did. Um, and it can be as straightforward as that.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah. I really, I really love that. I feel, I feel like it's really important. It teaches a lot of things. Like, what do you see as this repair moment? Moments like these give us endless opportunities for repair. What are kids taking away from that kind of interaction?
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. I think what's true is that we kind of forget, like for parents, kids are some of our most important attachment relationships, right? We have our partners, our spouses, we have our friends, we have our parents. Our kids are also really, really important attachment relationships. So I think it's a reflection for kids of that, right?
You're important enough to me that I'm going to slow down and talk to you and take accountability for this thing that I think caused you harm. Right? So it's a reminder of that. And I think when we talk about this concept of internal working models—a psychological term around how kids start to develop a sense of self and who they are—right?
When you say to a child, like, you're important enough to me to acknowledge that, even though it's a little kind of awkward, a kid can feel worthy of time and attention. I'm worthy of being apologized to. I'm worthy of being cared for. I can walk around the world with some dignity, like I have some sense of what I deserve, right?
When somebody mistreats me or harms me, the kind of association is, well, I deserve for that to be acknowledged, as opposed to that can just be dismissed. It's okay for me to have this kind of mistreatment in this relationship, right? That's supposed to be about care and love and safety, right? So that's a huge part of it, right? It's about building up a sense of self who feels dignified and able to walk around the world, able to say, no, I don't like the way you treated me, and I don't deserve that.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah, I think that's really important. Your sense of self-worth.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Is you learn something about who you are and how much you mean to another person. And also, as you were talking, I was thinking about the relationship that, like, when a relationship is important to you, you're modeling something, right?
You're modeling that when a relationship is important to you and you've made a mistake, you acknowledge that mistake, and that helps the relationship. Like, the relationship means enough to you to take care of it.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: And when a relationship means enough to you, you will care for that relationship and the person in it, but you also benefit from that relationship being cared for as well.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Totally. You know, as in our language, the kind of patterns of rupture and repair, right? When there's a rupture, there's something that's off-sync between parent and child where there's some hurt feelings, and then you repair it. It can often strengthen the relationship. You can learn a lot more about yourself.
You can learn more about your kid. You can learn more about the dynamic between you. It's an area to deepen connection and understanding of each other.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Absolutely. It's really, really hard. It's interesting. I find that some parents haven't done it before, and there is a lot of shame, as you're talking about, that may get in the way of a parent taking accountability for doing something—harmful, inadvertently harmful, on purpose, harmful, whatever.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right.
Dr. Nanika Coor: And you know, one of the things that I have found so interesting in my own parenting life is just how forgiving my child is. I'm always like, wow, you are so kind.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Right. Right, right, right. We don't want to take advantage of that. Right. If a kid is flexible and open to receiving repair, that's wonderful. And like, if you notice yourself doing that often—wow, here I go, having to repair again—that's really a time to step back and say, what's happening with me?
What's going on with me? And again, do this kind of zooming-out reflection of what's making you feel more frustrated, having less patience, or losing some tolerance for your child's behaviors in some way. So check yourself if you're doing it too often and having to apologize. It's great to apologize.
It's great to repair, and if it's happening every other day, that's a cue to kind of slow down and see what other support you might be able to get.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah, absolutely. It's like a signal that you may need more care for your internal self.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah, I think that's really important. I love this. I mean, I'm so excited you've written this book. Parents need it so much. Again, it is called The Self-Regulation Workbook for—oh, you've got it right.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Children ages five through eight. There's a section that's just for their own kind of reflection and learning about concepts. There's a section that's for parents and kids that's interactive that they can do together. One of the sections that I like the most is a section where we interviewed five- to eight-year-old kids on experiences they had when they were upset and how they ended up calming themselves down. Because I think in the kind of theme of modeling, kids can gain a lot from seeing how other kids talk about their feelings. So that's one of my favorite sections in it.
Dr. Nanika Coor: I'm so glad! The Self-Regulation Workbook for Children Ages Five to Eight. Kahlila Robinson co-authored this book, and I also just want to let you know that, when I was going through the book and reading it, I really love those self-reflection pieces—the ways in which the parent can sort of look inward.
You know, obviously that's my whole practice is around that. And just how much of a difference it makes for a parent to just slow down and check inside. So many parents will come to me for the answer, you know, the parenting answer, but so many of those answers are really inside of us.
I'm just so amazed by that all the time.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Absolutely.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yeah. I love that your book makes a lot of space for that.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not always about a strategy, you know, a
mindset shift, or just holding some space for deeper curiosity about yourself.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Absolutely. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thanks for talking about your book. And, uh, before we go, let the listeners know how they can find you if they want to work with you, and how they can follow your work if they want to do that.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Sure, I have a website. My website is KahlilaRobinsonPhD.com. I'm on Instagram, Kahlila Robinson, PhD. You can reach me through my website; there's a link to contact me there if you're interested in learning more about my practice.
Dr. Nanika Coor: Yay. I'm so glad we did this, and I'd love to have you back to talk about various other family psychology topics.
Dr. Kahlila Robinson: Thank you, Nanika. Thank you so...
Dr. Nanika Coor: Absolutely. Thanks a lot for being here and sharing your expertise with us.