Aliza Pressman: On Co-Regulating Our Worlds
Aliza Pressman is a development psychologist and Assistant Clinical Professor in the Division of Behavioral Health Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital where she is co-founding director of The Mount Sinai Parenting Center. Aliza is also the host of the hit podcast, Raising Good Humans, and the author of The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans.
I love Aliza for many reasons: Yes, we all want friends who are developmental psychologists on speed-dial, but she’s also different in the way she delivers advice. For one, she cuts right to the point, reminding and reaffirming that while yes, every family has its own complicating factors, the basic tenets of raising good humans are simple. You don’t need your own PhD in parenting to do the job, nor do you need a PhD to re-parent yourself, you need to focus on the elements she outlines in The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans: Relationship, Reflection, Regulation, Rules, and Repair. As she explains, through practice and normalizing imperfection, along the way you’ll discover the person you’re ultimately raising is yourself. By becoming more intentional people, we become better parents. By becoming better parents, we become better people.
In today’s conversation, we touch on these tenets while also exploring the particular social world we find ourselves in, one in which there seems to be an expectation that we can and should control the weather for our kids. Okay, let’s get to our conversation.
MORE FROM ALIZA PRESSMAN, PhD:
The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans
Aliza’s Website
Follow Aliza on Instagram
Aliza’s Newsletter
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
ELISE LOEHNEN: Well, you know you're one of my favorite people for all the reasons, one, you really make me laugh, but there's something just reassuring about you as a person. And I am not surprised that every parent I know has you on speed dial. How many times have you changed your number? That's what I really want to know. And how many times are you like, leave me alone? I don't want to know the intricacies of everyone's children's lives.
ALIZA PRESSMAN: No, I haven't gotten there yet. I haven't gotten there yet, but also I'm terrible on all, you know, phones and emails. So people have to really want to reach me because sometimes They have to send a second text, and then I respond. I'm not sick of it in any way. It's just like, was I looking the other way while opening my phone? It's more of an attention problem.
ELISE: Okay, well, that's a very helpful disclaimer, because I feel like if you're the sort of hyper responsive person, and then you're on the hook, you're on the hook to answer every parent's parenting woes. And that's a good place to talk about the book, because it's also an antidote. And you and I have talked about this at length. That we are swimming in a culture of over information, optimization, and this, I don't know, it seems prevailing that there's a way to do everything, that every problem needs a solution, that every moment has to be engineered for perfection, right? That there's, you know, an A B way to parent so that you can assure with certainty that your child is well adjusted and successful and solvent and sane and all of the things that we tend to care about. And, what I love about you is that you always bring it back to science that's, despite the complexity of our lives, Simple.
ALIZA: Really is true. Everything you just said, the science is simple. The complexity of our lives is not. And the last thing I think any parent needs is on top of the complexity of our lives complexity in their parenting when there's just only so much that we can control and what we can control, I think, go for it. But the rest is just an exercise in figuring out how to like manage the volume of sound and the volume of space.
ELISE: Yeah. And just the idea that we can't and should not shrink wrap our children or try to ensure sort of this suffering free experience, right? Which I think somehow has become this idea that you can optimize your way out of any hardship, any disappointment, any frustration, any pain, any loss.
ALIZA: I do think it's really sad that all of it's so well meaning that like the optimization doesn't come from a place of thinking that you're commodifying your kids or your parenting or anything. And it doesn't come from the sense that like you want better, stronger, faster for other reasons. But ultimately this thing that we're trying to do for the benefit of our kids does not benefit them and it doesn't benefit us. It just drives everybody crazy. And we know intuitively that if you don't learn that feelings aren't dangerous and that difficult challenges are not insurmountable in the smaller ways than when the big stuff inevitably comes, you're stuck in a real state of sometimes now insurmountable that didn't need to be that way and I don't want to say that as like a scare tactic. It's more just like a way to feel a little bit better about the times that are hard.
ELISE: Yeah. Yeah. And that this too shall pass, and these things are seen, and this is part of a collective human experience. And I mean, you sort of outline it early on, non negotiables, there aren't that many. Take care of the mental health of the primary caregiver. Do not engage in physical or emotional abuse. Do not neglect a child. Commit to habits of consistent sleep and movement. Establish clear rules that enable emotional and physical safety. Be sensitive, which we will define, which you go into in the book, yeah, to your child's needs, which are not the same thing as their wants. And the book obviously goes into a lot of the complexities that we encounter and we'll get into it in our conversation, but that's like just remember that right?
ALIZA: Yeah, because sometimes whenever anybody gives absolutes in this gig of parenting, I'm like what are you talking about? There's so few that we are certain are really a big deal to adhere to. And all the other things are kind of up for grabs. It's kind of like not to get weird and biblical, but it's like there are the 10 commandments and then the surrounding Talmudic content that interprets all of the laws. And then the surrounding ones that interpret those, but the purpose of every one of those was to keep people from not defying the Ten Commandments, like you almost made more rules to avoid, like, when you break certain rules, you've got like all these gazillions now to go through before you'll hit the main 10, that would be real bad. That's what this feels like. There's just this pile of made up rules that are removing some of the validity of all this whole parenting field, because it's just not, that didn't make any sense by the way, unless you are like a Talmudic scholar or something.
ELISE: No, but I think people get it, what we are really good at as humans is taking Essential ideas that I think are pretty clear to most of us and then adding an incredible amount of complexity, context, conditionality. I don't know why. Like, actually, that's a good question for you. Do you know why we do that?
ALIZA: I think it gives us a sense of control. I think that the more vague and more freedom there is in anything, sometimes the more we feel like there's space to screw up. So, if you have really rigid direction, it gives everybody a better sense of how things are gonna go. The problem is... does it? Or is it just what you think it is? And you know, obviously there's a book and I do this as a job. There are some things that are helpful. It's just that there's so much that's not helpful that I just want to clear away. And if it's good for you to have like a lot of rules around a particular subject because you're like, look, I get all crazy when it comes to food. So I need very specific guidelines about feeding children so that I don't put my stuff on them. Okay. Then you are reflecting and knowing yourself and knowing what they're going to need in order to move through the world without some of the struggles you had. I get it, but they're more rare than they need to be. Those are like specific things that you are maybe personally coming to terms with. So you need a little more rigidity, but I don't want that to be the general feeling about what it takes to raise good humans.
ELISE: Yeah, or that there are these season specific or episodic, obviously more age specific ideas too that are really helpful, like the conversation that you just had with Jessica Yellen, for example, another one of our good friends, about how to raise children who are literate around the news and what does that look like, how appropriate is it for them to even engage with the New York Times and everything that's happening in the world. But that there's this overwhelm, right, where I think there's so much information that should be accessed for specific times. But it comes down on us as parents as like this canon that you need to commit to and memorize in order to be perfect in execution at every moment of the time, even though, as you point out, based on sort of the essential science of developmental psychology, there are five principles, right? And repair is one of them. It's messing up and making it right.
ALIZA: Yeah.
ELISE: And you can mess up a lot.
ALIZA: You can mess up a lot. It's like the most exciting part about it Is that in order to grow and have strong relationships you have to mess up in order to have repair. So you couldn't be perfect or you would undermine your parent you would undermine the very thing you're trying to do so well.
ELISE: I was just having this conversation with a psychologist who focuses on sort of family patterns, and obviously, you know, we've had conversations about my book on your podcast and my book is in some ways about the cultural programming that we all receive. When you think about, as a developmental psychologist who sees families and children of all ages, and I'm sure that it sort of varies based on age when family loses less prominence and culture takes over, because I also think like you can parent, but you're also parenting in a sea of other parents, a much bigger culture, right? So it's not like you're gonna save your child from TikTok, right? So how do you think about that in terms of also quieting the minds of parents, in terms of where our power is invariably limited?
ALIZA: I really like to remind people that we can only control ourselves and we can't control our kids and we certainly can't control the people around our kids. And if you spend all your time fixating on that, including your partner, you will be miserable and it will again undermine you. So I think the focus is on the person we can control, and that's it. That is all we can do. I do hope people get some relief in knowing that our parenting does actually matter and our values at home do actually matter and culture, of course, you know, more than anyone matters. But we don't need to throw our hands up and say, well, what are you going to do? There's a lot you can do because what happens inside your home and having very clear values and a mission statement or some kind of North Star that everybody in the household really agrees on and lives by, that gets in there. It's not going to be everything, but it gets in there. Even if it gets in there in a way where your kids grow up and say, I never want anything to do with that particular value system. It was totally different from what I believe in. The fact is it's in there and it's something they have to unlearn. That's why so baked in. So I think that there's some relief in knowing that culture is not going to take over everything, but it doesn't have a huge impact. You're not going to alleviate your daughters, for example, of the pressures of society and body image and all of that nonsense, but it's quite different when society's doing that and your mother is doing that to you and to herself.
ELISE: No, that makes a ton of sense. So it's almost like when culture and families unite to push the same values, and in some ways, maybe they should. And in some cases, they very much should not, that you can either counterbalance or, you know, it's like, I guess, navigating a ship, right? You have a little bit of control. Yeah.
ALIZA: But I like that the most powerful environmental influence on children's development is their parents or primary caregivers. And I also know that that power is still not as big as people think it is. But I like it not because it's supposed to scare parents and say, like, wait, what? Like, I'm the most powerful environmental influence. To me, it says, even though there's so much you can't control, the very nature of your relationship with your child can move the needle when it comes to the big stuff, like toxic stress, and it can move it to tolerable. That alone, to me, is the most heartening, wonderful information. It's not meant to be translated into this other stuff that we can have control over. It's really about just these like five R's. It's so specifically not to make parents think, well, I have so much control. I better get it all perfectly.
ELISE: Right. Tell us the five R's.
ALIZA: Okay. If you must ask relationship, reflection, regulation, rules and repair.
ELISE: Well, and regulation to me, I mean, just thinking about where we were going in terms of helping your child ballast against the storm of the world or stay on some sort of course, that there's this instinct, right, of rather than learn how to regulate ourselves, rather than learn how to manage our emotions and do that level of hygiene, there is this instinct right now, it's probably eternal and how it always is, of like, no, let's change the weather. I do not like this programming. I do not like what's happening. So like, no more. No more weather. I want smooth sailing for myself and for my child. And that's not life.
ALIZA: And it's not even like anything any of us really would want to live in, it's a direction that needs to stop happening. I think that with regulation, the funny thing is that it's either I want to control the weather around my children, or I want to control my children, but regulation is very much a self thing for adults and a co regulation thing between you and other, especially you and a young person whose brain isn't fully able to self regulate. But if you're so focused on controlling all these outside things that you can't, like the weather, then you get to let yourself off the hook of getting into the much harder, but more possible work of self regulation and of figuring out your own stuff. And all of that has much bigger benefits to your kids, of course, than making the weather perfect around them, but it just is harder. Even though it shouldn't be so easy to change the weather, but it does appear that is what happens, right? From what snacks are in the classroom to what words are used to who's invited to what birthday party to who gets what trophy to bigger things that we are not talking about today, although we can.
ELISE: Yeah, I mean, I see it at my kid's school, et cetera. It's this like, I will control the syllabus. I will control the words that are used. I will, to the point of like, you can't control the, you might be able to, you might be able to do that at this...
ALIZA: in this tiny...
ELISE: alternative school. Yeah. But like, I don't know that that's going to work out for you as a process for helping your child navigate the world , which is full of people who are going to disagree with them, have completely different visions and versions, and this is the rub between like you don't want a fragile child, you do want the world to also evolve and become more inclusive and more loving and all of these things that we value, but it's not there. Right? It's not and I think what's so scary is that again, it's like all in the service of raising kids who are going to be more robust, but actually they're wilting under this idea that we should be making things just so. And you just said fragile, fragile families used to refer to, it was like a term in the research. It used to refer to families who were vulnerable because of socioeconomic, physical, and mental health differences, more likely poverty.
ALIZA: Now fragile is happening in every economic bracket in ways that are all about emotions, and it is really a frustrating thing to watch because it went from something that was in the control of the world. Poverty is not something you can do something about, what sort of status you were born into, even though I know we're in the United States and that is not a thing, but it is, is not something you could ever control. Whereas we absolutely could control how emotionally fragile we're setting our kids up to be. And I think what's confusing is all research, there's like no argument on this front that sensitive caregiving matters, but it somehow has gotten lost in translation to mean your kids shouldn't feel anything other than so cared for that they are not upset.
ELISE: Yes. Well, that it's the wider culture's responsibility to attend to or cater to your child's preferences and or sensitivities or proclivities. And there's a line, I get that there's a line between we, we need a anti racist society, we need an anti misogynistic society, we need a society that does not, that is not anti Semitic, etc. So putting all of those things in one part of this conversation...
ALIZA: we have work as a society...
ELISE: we have work as a society to do, and we're not there, we have to be able to create, not only kids that have to confront those inequities, but hopefully have the emotional durability and strength to change them, right? And to engage in these conversations and to be uncomfortable and to know who they are. And you certainly don't get any sense of that when the world isn't creating any opposition to who you are, if that makes sense. I mean maybe that's too metaphysical.
ALIZA: No, it's super clear. It's not too metaphysical, and I think it is like the big conundrum for parents. And I mean, I just am thinking of the silliest example right now, which is when my daughter. It was like her fourth birthday or fifth birthday and we did like a table at a really fun place in New York with lots of candy around and, I'm not going to say who, but let's say my friends were bringing their two kids and one of them was running late because his nap went over. And so the dad texted me and said, cause we were doing the cake and it was ending and said, could you pretend that it just started? So he doesn't have to be upset that he missed the cake and you can do it again. And I remember I just flagged it. I was just like, that is so upsetting because I know this dad loves his kids so much and is such an attentive, conscientious parent, and he's just getting in his own way because he wasn't able to imagine a world where he had to say to his child, this is going to be so disappointing, but you missed the cake. Let's go over there and bring a present and, you know, give a hug. I'm really sorry and see that his son was disappointed. And I know that's like a tiny example of when we're talking about these big ideas of the world being just so, but it was a tiny moment in parenting that actually is the kind of stuff that is more likely to come your way, like, those are the challenges. I mean, hopefully we don't have the bigger ones as often, but it's those tiny ones that we definitely don't need to make ourselves crazy fixing or calling someone else and saying, thanks. Everybody pretend there wasn't a party or whatever, but I know that's a really random example, but I remember at the time being like, that is so interesting and sort of tragic that this is what's happened in parenting. And he was so certain that he was in the right and he was doing right by his kid. And I totally understood, but I also was like, no, this is not going to support. This is not what sensitive caregiving is.
ELISE: Yeah, well, let's say more about that too because I mean you've said to me I think I asked you what lunch like about reparenting and you said "all parenting is reparenting" I mean you looked at me like I was a doofus like duh, I mean, it's true though, but so much of this is about our own discomfort, right?
ALIZA: Yeah.
ELISE: and is that born out of paths being cleared for us as children or an inability to be with our discomfort? Are we just sort of passing this on as an inheritance?
ALIZA: I mean, I think it's a number of things. One is the, that's why I think reflection is such an important part of these principles is like, what is it? We don't necessarily have the answer, but if you reflect, like, why can't I stomach the idea of my child feeling upset for missing this party? Was it because I didn't feel like anybody cared when I was upset, and so I'm overcompensating, or is it because everybody cared so much that I don't know that you can survive being that upset? So I don't know that it's one or the other, but it's definitely worth every time you notice that you're putting yourself and your history and your mishegas is, that a scientific word or what, that you're putting it into your choices? Like take a minute, take a breath and just reflect, what the hell do I mean by this? Okay. And you can like say, I'm going to unpack that later for now, I'm just dealing with my kid and what's going on for them, but we're in a constant process. And then the whole reparenting thing. The other part of it is what you didn't get does matter. And so, like, taking a moment to say to yourself, I don't like that nobody cared when I was sad or I didn't ever have the benefit of learning that feelings aren't dangerous because I was allowed to have only happy feelings. Like then you can repair yourself and say like, I'm so sorry that's not what you needed. Let me take care of you, but that's not on your kids. That's our work.
ELISE: How much, in your practice, do you see essentially parents trying to atone for the sins that they feel like were committed against them and their own childhood where they're sort of course correcting and potentially an extreme way or replicating exactly what they think worked in The creation of themselves?
ALIZA: Yeah. I mean, most of the time, the only other thing that happens is if I'm talking to two parents together...
ELISE: ooh.
ALIZA: And it's like a battle of which part of each person's childhood should be replicated and which person's was, you know, like clearly was not something that is acceptable, even though essentially, like, we all are on our own in a conversation, like someone's talking to me about their childhood and how they're want to parent and all that. They'll be reflective and they'll have the capacity to criticize and be curious about what might have been wrong, right or somewhere in between, but the minute you bring another person in, you defend your experience a little bit more because 1st of all, ultimately, what are you saying? If you're saying your parents. screwed up. You're criticizing yourself as being a screw up. So there's something that makes you say, well, they did something right. I'm not all that bad or the opposite if you're really self deprecating. But when you bring two people into it, you're bringing two histories and it's so much more complicated than just what do you think of your history? It's like, what do you think of your history in the context of someone watching you versus just by yourself and your thoughts?
ELISE: Yeah. Do you think, I am obviously a big fan of therapy and psychologists, such as yourself, and have benefited greatly from therapy, I think, but, I was just doing my mom's book club and one of her friends was like, I've never been in therapy and I think you've done a lot of therapy and I think that's very odd. Essentially, like reading between the lines, and it was like more of a generational thing of like, you guys are self obsessed and narcissistic. And I'm sure that there's something probably to that, but I think that there is this heightened self consciousness as you go into therapy and you start, you do look at your family system and you look at culture and, I think I'm someone who blamed too much on, was like trying to place everything in my family before realizing, Oh my God, so much of this is cultural. I would catch myself like blaming my mother and then being like, wait, okay. What? Actually, my mom was the opposite of what I, you know, my mom is the most honest person I've ever met. She is not the one who is limiting my tongue, but Do you think that the increasing self consciousness, because so many of us are therapized or familiar and we now are prejudging ourselves, do you think that that heightened self consciousness is making us Intolerable parents?
ALIZA: Sometimes I do think that it's like, I'm so boring in the, I really am a space betweener. And it's not as exciting to talk about, but in this case, it's the same thing. It's like a little bit of this awareness is life changing, but so much of it that you then end up, to your point, intolerable. You know there's people where you might eat organic and be careful and give your kids things that you know are not going to be poisonous. But then you see someone who's so extreme about it and you like want to shove Fritos and Coke in their mouth, Coca Cola. I feel like it's like that where when you take anything to such an extreme that you're hearing people talk about, like, well, if I say this, my child will be codependent or if I say that my child will be... it's like, okay, just be. But I think that speaks to more knowing yourself enough to know where your strengths and weaknesses are. And if you're the kind of person who's super self reflective, don't focus on that, focus on rules. You might be a better rules person, or like if you're really sensitive and loving and connected, you don't need to focus on relationship. You could go into some other parts.
ELISE: Got it. So your advice, too, within systems that you look at, do you feel like most parents need to attend to all of these five principles equally, or that some are really bad at repair, or some are really bad at their own regulation? Is that typically how it works?
ALIZA: That is typically how it works, like, if I just say to you, when you talk about parenting styles and the research that's divided into four parenting styles: permissive, authoritative, authoritarian, and neglectful. So we take neglectful off the table if we're having a parenting session, because you're probably not neglectful. It's a little self selecting. So now you're looking at permissive, authoritarian, authoritative, and those are measured on two dimensions: sensitivity of care and what was called demandingness in the research, but you could think of it as control or boundaries or limits or whatever. And if you're listening to that, you know, OK, a permissive parent. bends more on sensitivity and has a harder time with the demandingness.
And the reverse is true for authoritarian. And the balance is, you know, a little bit of both as authoritative, you know, I could tell you right now, I know I'm pretty good at sensitivity. I struggle more. I know where my struggle is. I'm not putting an effort into sensitivity of care because I might end up overdoing it all and misunderstanding it. I'm not gonna overthink something that I embody all the time. What I'm going to do is I'm gonna overthink the thing that is so hard for me, which is to see my kids' experience, the emotions that come along with my setting those boundaries. And so I'm going to just be like, that's where I'm going to pay attention.
And mostly when I talk to parents, even just looking at parenting style research, which obviously has a host of issues and whatever. But for the most part, it's a quick way of like, you just know, Oh, I bend more that way than that way. And once you know that you can focus on the thing that is a little bit harder for you. And trust that that other thing that comes more naturally is just happening and you don't need to worry about it.
ELISE: Okay, and then I know you get into this in the book, but when you're in a two parent system, I think that the research suggests that you and your partner need to be supportive of each other. But in my instance, you know, my husband's probably more authoritative, I'm soft. Can you sort of make up a whole system in two parts or does that mean that someone gets the raw end of the deal and I need to be more rules based in order to back Rob up?
ALIZA: Well, it really depends on what your hopes and dreams are because it's probably better for you and Rob and your relationship to be a little bit more on the same page or accept when you're not and let it go. But in terms of the kids, it's really just about, is it fair to Rob if you, if you get all the sensitivity and they come to you for everything and the relationship is more connected and he's like, thanks for nothing.
ELISE: That's what I get. I get the FFS, Elise, I told them no Robux. Why did you just give them Robux? That's what I get.
ALIZA: So I think that's one of those things where he could be a little bit more sensitive and attuned if he trusted that you will be a little bit more conscientious about, you know, sharing the limits. But it may be that that's just like, not comfortable for him. Just like it's not comfortable for you. And you'll each have your individual relationships and it'll be totally fine. I mean, kids really just need one, one...
ELISE: excellent. This is what I was hoping you would say.
ALIZA: 2 is awesome, but they really just need 1 sensitive, loving caregiver that sort of makes them feel seen and understood with appropriate boundaries that keep them safe. And then having extra is just bonus.
ELISE: Yeah. But what's so interesting is that the fact that you took, for example, neglectful off the table and as not applicable because being a somewhat neurotic person, I don't even know if neurotic is a useful scientific word anymore or not, I don't know where it stands...
ALIZA: it still stands.
ELISE: But I immediately go to, I'm a neglectful mother because I work too much, my head's always in a book, you know, so on and so forth. My children would tell you that I'm neglectful. But obviously I care deeply about these conversations. Okay, but is that also a tendency where we're all diagnosing ourselves as being terrible on every front?
ALIZA: Yes. And it's so upsetting because first of all, the fact that your kids would say you're neglectful means they know they're safe enough to joke around and say that you're neglectful. By the way, my daughter said this morning, because I've been working a lot lately, but a lot more than usual, she said, I feel like I have one of those moms who goes to the spa all day and doesn't really know her kids like you're working that much. And I was like, wait, what?
ELISE: What?
ALIZA: what are you even talking about? And then she laughed and I said, are you saying that I'm not showing up as much lately and working too much? Is that what's going on? And she said, yes, but I get that it's temporary and that yeah you do know me, but it was just like this weird thing where I said, what is this about the going to the spa all day? And she said, you know, those parents that don't really pay attention to their kids because they're just like too busy tending to themselves. And I just thought it was an interesting, weird comment, because even in that information, there's something that I must do that indicates that, you know, my way of caring matters more than some other parent. There's something in there that is, that I need to think about. I was thinking there was just a judgment in there that was interesting. But I also thought, which you said as well, is that we're good because she's safe to say, like, I don't like how this is going down and I'm okay saying it's temporary, but this is just the way it's going to be and we move on. So, of course, like when your kids can joke around and say that you're neglectful, it's because they know you're not. But more importantly to all of that is that benign neglect is quite different than neglect. Benign neglect Is probably good for everybody who's super conscientious to just give a whirl.
ELISE: That's the tenor under which I think I was raised. Obviously my parents were very involved and gave me amazing education and extracurricular activities and nature and but yeah, they were very, like, go outside. We will ring a bell when you can come back inside. You know, they weren't like intimately involved and they didn't want to like sit with me and watch me read. Let's be real. And this sort of goes to my point too about my oldest, Max, who is in the culture and because I recognize this in myself, right? Like we all want to be special. We all want to have some sort of life experience, particularly now that's distinguishing or to sort of point to the ways in which I would say definitely like Oh, and I wasn't privileged in this way, right? And I think about it with Max, or whatever story he's gonna tell about his own childhood and he will have stories, right? That there's such a need, it seems very human, it's not necessarily new to be like, these are the things that happen to me. These are what make me sort of interesting. I worry that it's getting more pronounced that there's nothing worse that you can be then standard issue? Quote unquote, normal, that it's boring and unremarkable. And is that happening? Or is that in my own imagination?
ALIZA: I do think that that's more happening with parents, is like, how are my kids remarkable? And I do think it is bleeding into how kids are interpreting themselves cause I've heard so many times, both from parents and kids, things like, I don't have a thing and I need one and they're like fourth graders or seventh graders and that breaks my heart and that I think has to be related to this sense of like exceptional and how do you stand out and what makes you excellent and you're right. There's nothing more offensive than just being unremarkable. Even though our kids have to feel like they're remarkable to us, they don't need to feel like they're the sun, moon and stars to the world that would actually be intolerable, but recognizing like they don't need to do something to be remarkable. Their existence is. They have worthiness from their existence, but I don't know that you get anybody to believe that when we're competing with the culture that we're competing with.
ELISE: Yeah. It's so intense. And meanwhile, I very much believe that every single person is uniquely gifted, and that we're all here for a reason, and it might not be apparent when we're in fourth grade, or twelfth grade, or when we're forty, but that there is an essential course. Like, we're all different. And so that idea breaks my heart and I do feel fortunate to be a kid from Montana. There weren't that many of us, or to be a Jew in Montana, there really weren't that many...
ALIZA: You had things to make it right. No, you're right.
ELISE: But it's hard, I think, when we're in a culture where it's like, yeah, as you said, what is my thing? And then there's so much for adults too and I was talking to a friend who was working on a project around purpose for kids and my pushback on that was like, Purpose is a very intimidating word. I don't know what my purpose is. And, you know, there's podcasts of that name. There's so much emphasis on this idea of some sort of single purpose. And I very much like a shift or a reframe to contribution because that feels...
ALIZA: I love that.
ELISE: like it shifts and moves and changes and you become more equipped over time, contribute in bigger ways and less equipped, maybe, energetically, but I think we have to somehow help our kids get away from this idea that they have to distinguish themselves in order to have any value.
ALIZA: I love that framing and yeah, it starts with these bananas ideas about how you make yourself appealing to the school and the teachers and the applications and all of that stuff. Preschool, I'm not even talking about college applications, but just there is this crazy, tell me why your child is exceptional. Tell me why you're exceptional. Tell me why you stand out. And I actually remember, I had an essay question for one of the preschools because I was in New York City at the time, which there are actual essay questions for going to preschool and one of them was, you know, tell us about your child and what distinguishes her. And I was thinking, she's a kid. What are you talking about? She's at the time, 18 months. And I'm thinking, I love this child. She's amazing. But one thing I know from listening to so many parents and having conversations is that when you talk to anybody who has a new child, especially like a toddler, who's just bursting with new words and new understandings of the world, everybody feels like that is like, Oh, my God, look at my kid doing this and making connections here. And I'm like, Oh, my It is remarkable. I love it. But it's happening to all of them.
ELISE: Yeah.
ALIZA: And I hear it so much, and I love supporting parents in the process of getting to know their incredible kids. And also, I can't believe that a seasoned preschool would be like, tell us how this child is doing, you know, is distinguished and exceptional because it's ridiculous. They're all incredible and exceptional. And also, with a certain limited range.
ELISE: Right. Right. Well, it's also, you know, I'm thinking back to sort of, when my kids were that age and I did this mom's group in West Los Angeles with this woman named Tandy, who was amazing. And it was so fascinating and you must have, I mean, like such a front row seat to the psychology of parents because just being with other moms. inherently was, was fascinating too. And this prevailing idea that I think that we all had that Tandi was like firmly disabusing at every opportunity, that we were responsible, that every input had some sort of output and that our actions would determine our child's development and I can't remember the prompt, I think a mom was talking about anxiety that her, you know, nine month old wasn't walking I don't... it was something hadn't happened, even though, like, you know, my kids didn't walk until they were 15 months. Thank God. But Tandy, you know, had obviously had been with this child as well, and like saw no reason to be concerned. And she was like, I promise you that, you know, John, whatever his name was, Johnny's gonna walk, and he's gonna talk, and he is also gonna drive. And like, she just sort of without mocking the mother, but was like, these things happen. And there are so many things, like with my kids, where I'm like, I'm gonna have faith that they're gonna grow out of this. And guess what? They did.
ALIZA: Talk about balanced approach because sure, you have to have an eye out for things that, you know, where you might need early intervention or something that really does matter. But for the majority of kids it all unfolds and our job is not going to change that.
ELISE: Yeah.
ALIZA: In a significant way, other than these five principles, which I mentioned, because that really is significant, but like, in general, in the mom groups that's a great example because I see them, I have them all the time and it is such a privilege, but there is something developmentally appropriate in the early years and with your 1st to want to figure out the formula.
ELISE: Yeah.
ALIZA: But I think there's also something developmentally appropriate about evolving into accepting that there is no formula and I used to divide mom groups up by like, if you had a first time mom, I would not put them with second time moms or like there were breastfeeding moms and not breast because I just didn't want anybody feeling uncomfortable, but mostly it was because there was such an assured sense that the rightness and I didn't want to deal with how that made other people feel. I obviously stopped that. That was sort of along the lines of my trying to control the weather.
But it was so interesting because in the, it was early in my career and it was like, I just want everybody to feel good, until I realized like we're mothers, we're not going to feel like you just need, we need support for those moments and to believe that someone else isn't worried. Like most of the time when people check in with me on how something's going with their kids, it's to know if they should be worried or not. And when I reassure them that there is no problem, then they can move on. But if my face is like panicked, cause there's a nine month old not walking and I think there's a problem that doesn't feel good. You know, but it's easier for me because I can make the certain calls because of my training and experience that someone else might not be able to make, but eventually we have to be able to make those calls ourselves or know when to ask someone.
ELISE: But to bring it full circle to the beginning of our conversation, I think that that's one of the pitfalls of our current culture and some of the conversation around parenting, which suggests that you need a script for every moment of your child's experience and that there's a problem and solution that is present in all areas, but it creates this idea of inadequacy or not being like fully armed and I think like a concurrent hyper vigilance, right? Like, clearly I'm missing something. Clearly there's like wisdom and science here that I'm missing. And so I'm not surprised that people are coming to you just to ask these questions, like, is my child normal?
ALIZA: A lot of people try scripts and it doesn't work and then they're like, now what? And my feeling about that is, yeah that's because what does work even mean? Like you're maybe are getting sold scripts, but you're not getting sold that it's going to guarantee any outcomes. And if you are, that's a lie. So, if a script makes you feel armed because you're like, I like to memorize scripts, go for it. I don't think they're very effective because after one or two times, you got to change your script.
ELISE: The gig is up.
ALIZA: the gig is up, but also they're all the same script. That's why this book spans across ages, even though you could focus on one age, but you're doing the same thing. So like, how many different ways can you validate a feeling, connect with your body, and then set a boundary? Like, it's all the same, whether it's an infant or a teenager. It's just changing it for your particular child and your temperament and how you explain it. But that is too simple for people. And it's scary.
ELISE: Yeah.
ALIZA: It's scary to say like, wait, that's it. But go break down all those scripts. And we could do a little exercise, we will not, but I bet we could pull a hundred scripts from everything from potty training to teen bullying to whatever. And when you break it down, I mean, I do in the book a lot of times, and I'm just repeating the same thing with different examples.
ELISE: You do offer the balance script, which is essentially it's like a self regulation exercise for yourself around breathing and assessing and locating and like very useful to place yourself as you're about to respond.
ALIZA: Totally. And then, but then you can do the same thing, whether you have a two year old or a 12 year old or a 22 year old. So it's not like you need this unique and individual thing for each interaction. I would like for this parenting world to be more like, okay, I'm going to become fluent in this particularly simple, but effective scientific way. And then I'm going to honor my own values, figure those out because that's none of my business or anybody else's and my Elisa, we're all gonna have we're all gonna define what a good human is differently we're all gonna define what our values are differently and that is not science that is just you do you but it should be like more like a practice and a fluency in just these simple practices, and then they just translate and there is no outcome that is going to be guaranteed. You know, we could do the best.
ELISE: Yeah. No, I think it's so essential. I mean, it is why I love your book because it's a resource where regardless of what you're contending with, whether it's sleep issues or screen time or bullying, you know, there's a chapter, there's a section, there are resources, there are Q& As, but it's not something that you have to necessarily metabolize as some master grand plan. It's like a core set of skills or principles that, hopefully, I would imagine will be very reassuring to anyone who reads them. And I appreciate that, you know, on the podcast, obviously, you go into in depth conversations about all sorts of things. But that complexity isn't what you're selling.
ALIZA: Look, I think it's interesting. I'm a developmental psychologist. Like, I could spend 6 months just talking about theory of mind or like how children develop morality, like I obviously find that interesting. So I will have that researcher on the podcast and deep dive, but it doesn't mean if you don't find it interesting and you're just like, ah, this is too much, you don't need to worry about it. It's definitely like, you have to know what gets you excited and motivated and what makes you feel like oh my god get me out of here and so I only want people for the like the podcast is a great example like I love bringing wonderful researchers on and having deep conversations about things but that doesn't mean that everything I'm talking about is going to translate to you dealing in your day to day with your child or as a parent or as a person. It's more just is this really interesting for you and how I like to see the world I think it's really interesting and also like just in general developmental research is meant for exactly what the researcher was looking at and not a broader world. So like a lot of times there are studies that are just not relevant to you and then they get out there and people are like, no, you're supposed to chew your food and then feed it to your baby. Because there was a study that said that that made them digest it better. But like the study was done on another continent, in a culture that didn't have knives, like who knows, but we take it out of context and then apply it to our everyday and minutiae.
ELISE: Yeah. Well, it's a bigger cultural trend that drives towards not only complexity, but this idea that the optimization and if you had all the access to the information, then you would live until you're 150 and everything would be easy and you could engineer certainty and control. And so I appreciate people like you who are regrounding it in, well, that's just not really true. And these are the things that we know. And the rest of it is life. And that's the fun part.
ALIZA: And that's, that is the fun part. Like I do worry that we don't have space for just like the curious unfolding of the humans that are just so delightful in front of us.
ELISE: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, let it happen. Let it happen. It's more fun that way. It's a little scary.
ALIZA: It's just real scary. It is. It's more of a little scary. It's like, oh...
ELISE: it's terrifying.
ALIZA: By the way, I am a very nervous Nelly as a person. I'm just like, really, by the way, I don't even know where that phrase came from. I probably should check that out, speaking of words, but I understand the neurotic that you're talking about, like I get it so much, but what I will say if this makes anybody feel better is I am one of those people and developmental science is a relief to me. It's like having all the information when I had my babies actually helped me not because I knew what to do, but because I knew that I didn't have to do as much as everybody thought I needed to do.
ELISE: Yeah.
ALIZA: Like good enough is not a lie.
ELISE: No, good enough is not a lie. And good enough is achievable. As you say, like, I can't remember the statistic, but that it's not even 75%. It's like, if you can get it right, like 20 percent of the time, I can't remember, it's a staggering number.
ALIZA: It's that the Edtronics research on repair showed that the connection between parent and child, that like dance that we all think is so beautiful happens about 33 percent of the time and the rest of the time we're doing rupture and repair work. So like we could do 33 percent connection. We could do that.
ELISE: That's, yeah, it's like not even a D. We can definitely, we can achieve that. We can do it. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
I love Aliza Pressman. She’s just wise and clarifying and someone who cuts to it, in a way that I think that as we were discussing, we live in a culture where sometimes creating complexity pays, and the book, The Five Principles of Parenting, essentially revolves around those five R’s and along with this idea of balance, which is teaching the reader, theoretically the parent, how to co-regulate by regulating yourself first. And it’s reassuring, you will find on every page something that affirms what you already feel and know to be true but that you might be questioning and you can read it straight through as I did, but you can also duck in and out and you encounter challenges on your parenting journey. I mean she get’s into everything from sleep to discipline to conflict to friends and siblings, screen time, sex, gender, and sexuality, on and on—it’s all here. I obviously don’t do a lot of parenting on Pulling the Thread, in part because I recognize that not every listener is a parent, but also because I have a bit of an allergy to this idea of optimization and complexity is this space when it already feels like a lot, but Raising Good Humans—the podcast—and now her book is something that I value. I’ll see you next time.
