Raising Resilient Kids with Dr. Kathy Koch – ETB #133

I’m excited to welcome Dr. Kathy Koch back to the podcast! Dr. Kathy has a new book about kids and resiliency. She’s back to talk with me today about this book titled Resilient Kids and to define and expand upon resiliency. This is about so much more than the trauma of living through a pandemic!

I recently saw a statistic from Max Lucado that something like 80% of young people are feeling stress, anxiety, and/or depression. The mental health crisis in our country is staggering! Dr. Kathy and Celebrate Kids are doing what they can to educate parents. She’s optimistic but realistic in the way that she teaches.

Kids and Resiliency

Dr. Kathy defines resiliency as “readily recovering from difficulties.” She says that it’s not about being bouncy and happy like Tigger about struggles, but bouncing forward or coming back to a right standing when something bad happens.

Here are some of the things Dr. Kathy and I touch on regarding resilient kids in this episode:

• Walking with your kids in their struggles
• How Mom should leave the room if prone to overprotect and intervene too quickly.
• How struggles made kids stronger just like they made you stronger
• How struggles help us trust in ourselves and others
• The problem of toxic positivity
• How learning something new is hard
• Working on self-talk – “What makes you think that’s true?”
• Using “I am…” statements
• Using examples and pictures and giving proof to show progress or back up claims
• Acknowledging your child’s feeling
• Using the word “yet”
• Telling your kids not to lie to themselves
• Letting your kids see you ask for help
• Raising the children you have and not the ones you wish you had
• Reframing thought patterns
• The differences between Big T Trauma vs Little t trauma

I hope you found Dr. Kathy’s conversation encouraging and equipping! If you like what she had to say in this episode, be sure to check out her books using the links in the resource section below.