Robyn Fivush
speaker
93 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Robyn Fivush’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
I think both when we're constructing stories, helping children understand their own experiences, or when we're talking with children about our experiences, the way that we talk about our emotions and how we reacted in the moment and how we dealt with that emotional reaction helps children understand appropriate emotional regulation. That's a very abstract sentence.
Let me give you a sense of what I mean by that. One of the really important things about reminiscing about the child's own emotional experiences is, you know, the child throws a tantrum in the supermarket. And that's the worst time to try and sit down and have, you know, a calm conversation with them. You just want to get out of the situation.
But then later, when the child calms down, it's important to sit down and say, let's talk about what happened. You know, why were you so upset? And not to say, that was bad, you were wrong, but what happened? You know, why were you upset? Okay, I understand why that upset you, but maybe being that upset was not the best way to get what they wanted.
And to help them figure out how to recognize their emotions and resolve them and regulate them.
I could not have said that better. When parents tell stories about their own childhood, they're, of course, not talking about their child's emotional reaction. But often those stories are told in moments where the kids are struggling with something. So the parent's story becomes, well, okay, let me tell you how I dealt with something like that in my life and the lesson I took from it.
Maybe that will help you think about your life. They're worldviews. Stories are little models of the world.
So some parents, some families are very elaborative or collaborative. So I'll give you an example. It's a very simple example. This is actually one of my favorite conversations. It was between a mother and her eight-year-old child. And they had gone to Callaway Gardens, which is a recreational, beautiful garden near here. They'd been on a long bike trip.
And the child, I'll call her Rebecca, was riding on the handlebars of the mother's bike. And the mother was a bit of a daredevil, and Rebecca was a little scared because her mother was kind of going a little wild. And her mother is saying, you know, oh, it's so much fun, you know, rushing down those cobblestones. And Rebecca was saying... Yeah, I was, you know, I was a little scared.
And the mother, they both laugh. So they're not laughing at Rebecca. They're laughing together. The mother says, yeah, you were a little scared. I was, maybe I shouldn't have done that. And then, you know, what else do you remember about it? And Rebecca says, oh, I was getting so tired. And, you know, I wanted to be home. And the mother, like, confirms, like, yes, it was a long day.
But they're laughing and they're having a good time. And at the end, the mother says, we have a good time together, don't we? And Rebecca says, yes, we do. So they had different perspectives on that event. Rebecca may not have had as much fun as her mother. But they kind of come to an agreement that they enjoy being together and that they accept each other for who they are.
They don't have the same memory.
Absolutely. And we see that even in the larger families when it's a whole family together. And this is also really particularly important. I mean, obviously, it's important to talk about the fun times, the positive events, laughing, creating those bonds. But it's also important to talk about the challenging experiences. Like I mentioned having a temper tantrum.
If you never talk about it, the child never learns what to do with that emotion the next time it happens. We asked families to talk about challenging experiences. Many of them talked about an illness or death, death of a grandparent or a beloved family pet.
And the families that were more collaborative, who really shared the emotional experience, you know, I know that you were really sad about that. I was sad, too. I remember, you know, that you were crying when Susie came over to hug you. And that kind of shared emotional resonance really helps us deal with grief and mourning and difficult experiences more.
So rather than being – asking open-ended questions, you ask close-ended questions. Did you have fun rather than how did you feel? And that there's no opportunity for the child to do more than say yes or no. Or even saying something like, you remember your grandmother's cookies, don't you? Yeah. You know, maybe that's not always important to the child.
Maybe she wants to talk about the ornaments that were on the Christmas tree. So it's not really giving the child an opportunity to recall their perspective on the event or what they remember. And when the child doesn't remember, the parent will simply repeat the question. You know, who drove down to Florida with us? Who was in the front seat? Don't you remember? Who was in the front seat with us?
The child just doesn't remember. So it's almost as if the elaborative collaborative style is their goals are different. Their goals are to create a shared story in the moment that creates a resonance and a shared history and helps us to bond and understand each other. The more non-elaborative or repetitive parents, it's about getting the facts right.
I remember there was a mother with her four-year-old son who was a dinosaur fanatic. And they were talking about going to a natural history museum. And she was asking about seeing the T-Rex. And he was like, no, no. There was no T-Rex. And she's like, yes, there was. There was a T-Rex there. Don't you remember?
And she goes on and says, you know, and then we saw, you know, the exhibit on this dinosaur and that dinosaur. And he's like, yeah, there was a brontosaurus and da-da-da-da. And he lists them. But there was no T-Rex. And she's saying, I know there was a T-Rex. And then he says, no. And he names another museum. And she says, oh. That's right. But it was almost as if there was a T-Rex there.
So she, you know, it's not a collaboration of kind of, oh, maybe there wasn't, you know, maybe my memory could not be accurate or maybe the way you're remembering it is different or, you know, there's kind of an assumption that I remember it correctly and you don't. And it's my job to make sure you remember it correctly.
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