Dr. Aviva Goldstein

If your child constantly asks for reassurance…

It might not be about what they’re worried about.

It might be about what they’ve learned they need in order to feel okay.

A lot of reassurance feels like good parenting.

And it is — until it quietly becomes the child’s main way of regulating themselves.

“I feel unsure” → “Someone tell me I’m okay” → temporary relief → repeat.

Instead of feeding that loop, we can start responding in a different way:

“I can tell this feels uncertain, and that makes a lot of sense.”

Not certainty.

Not fixing.

Without immediately solving it.

Because the goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty from a child’s life.

It’s to help them discover they can stay steady inside it.

Last class. 🤍

What I’ve enjoyed most about this group isn’t what they’ve wanted to learn from me—it’s been witnessing what they’ve been willing to learn about themselves.

The questions after class. The thoughtful conversations. The willingness to be curious, reflective, and open to growth. So many raw, honest moments.

And what a year to spend in Israel. Alongside everything they came here to learn, they’ve also had to navigate uncertainty, fear, resilience, community, and responsibility. So much of what they’ve been taught about Jewish Peoplehood throughout their lives stopped being an idea and became something they experienced.

Thank you for letting me be part of your year. I’m grateful for your trust, your thoughtfulness, and your willingness to engage deeply with the world and with yourselves.
May you continue asking good questions wherever life takes you next. #עםישראל

One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that parents (and teachers) think regulation means a child is calm, cheerful, and cooperative all the time.

But regulation isn’t the absence of emotion.

It’s the ability to experience emotions without becoming completely consumed by them.

A regulated child might still cry, protest, need a hug, ask for space, feel angry, or need help getting through a hard moment.

The question isn’t:

“Are they upset?”

The question is:

“What happens when they’re upset?”

Can they recover?

Can they accept support?

Can they express what they’re feeling?

Can they return to themselves after the hard stuff passes?

That’s regulation.

And it’s a skill that develops over time, through practice, support, and zillions of everyday moments.

The goal isn’t to never be upset. That’s impossible.

The goal is knowing what to do when you are.

Something I see often in Israeli children right now (and their parents) is the coexistence of remarkable adaptation alongside lingering nervous system stress.

Many children really are functioning well. That matters and should not be minimized.

At the same time, children do not need to be falling apart in order to be affected.

Stress often appears indirectly:
through irritability, control, shutdown, clinginess, exhaustion, perfectionism, or emotional intensity around seemingly small moments.

Parents sometimes worry:
“If my child seems mostly okay, should I still be paying attention?”

Usually the answer is yes — gently, calmly, without catastrophizing. Paying attention does not mean panicking.

Children benefit enormously from adults who can hold both truths at once:

“You are coping.”
and
“I know this is still a lot.”
🇮🇱

Parents are often told to watch out for “manipulation.”

And yes — children (and adults!) sometimes push limits, seek control, negotiate, avoid discomfort, or test what happens when they react strongly.

That is part of being human.

But many emotional explosions are not carefully planned strategies.

They are moments when a child no longer has good access to perspective, flexibility, frustration tolerance, or impulse control.

From the outside, the behavior may look excessive, dramatic, demanding, or irrational.

From the inside, the child often feels overwhelmed, cornered, powerless, embarrassed, disappointed, or emotionally flooded by the situation.

This does not mean parents should remove limits or accept unacceptable behavior.

It means that understanding the emotional driver underneath a behavior usually leads to more effective responses than viewing every escalation through the lens of manipulation.