Also shared as Issue #35 of Modern Mom Notes, my weekly newsletter for moms navigating the beautiful chaos of early parenthood. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every week.
There are questions we carry quietly as parents.
The ones that live in the in-between moments. The car ride home. The silence after lights out. The look on their face that asks something we do not quite know how to answer.
How do I show up for them when I am barely holding it together myself? How do I know if what they are feeling is normal? How do I talk about the scary things without making them scarier?
I have been holding these questions for a while. When I posted them across several parenting communities asking what other parents were wondering about, something remarkable happened. The responses came flooding in. Dozens of them, from moms and dads in the thick of it, all carrying some version of the same quiet weight.
That told me something important. We are not alone in not knowing. And we deserve real, thoughtful answers.
So I found exactly the right person to help us think through them.
Meet Dr. Katerina Levy
FEATURED EXPERT
Dr. Katerina Levy — Pediatric Psychologist & Author
Dr. Levy is a pediatric psychologist dedicated to helping children and families navigate the emotional challenges of medical illness. Her scholarly work focuses on bibliotherapy as a therapeutic tool. She is the author of two therapeutic storybooks, including The Healing Garden: A Story About Coping with Childhood Cancer.
🌐 drkaterinalevy.com | 📱 @drkaterinalevy | 📖 The Healing Garden on Amazon
The questions below came directly from parents in real parenting communities who wanted honest, grounded guidance. I am so grateful Dr. Katerina took the time to answer each one with such care and depth.
Q: When our children look to us for comfort during scary moments, how do we show up for them when we are barely holding it together ourselves?
Children co-regulate before they self-regulate. That means your nervous system serves as their guide. You do not need to always have the answers. You do not need to hold back every tear. What matters most to children is remaining a warm, steady presence, even if that presence is a little shaky around the edges.
Providing statements that name emotion alongside safety is important: "I feel sad about this too, and we are going to be okay together." In this way, you convey uncomfortable emotions in developmentally appropriate language.
Your presence, your honesty, and your willingness to sit with your child in hard moments matters far more than composure. When your child sees that you can feel something difficult and still function. Make dinner, still tuck them in, you are showing them something valuable. You are showing them that hard feelings are survivable. And this becomes the foundation from which they too can manage difficult moments.
Q: What does it actually look like to build emotional resilience in a young child day to day? Are there simple habits or rhythms that make a real difference?
Many parents assume resilience is something children either have or they do not. But it grows gradually, in the quiet repetition of everyday life, long before any crisis arrives.
The foundation of resilience is predictable connection: the same bedtime routine, the same after-school greeting, the same weekly rhythm. These are not just habits. They are a child's daily proof that the world is safe and you are reliable.
A few practices that genuinely help:
Name feelings out loud, including your own. "I felt frustrated today, so I took some deep breaths" teaches children that feelings have names, feelings are normal, and feelings are survivable.
Teach belly breathing during calm moments. Like in the car or at bedtime, so it is already familiar when distress arrives. Four counts in, hold four counts, exhale for six. Repeat three to five times.
Allow for some challenging moments with support. Every time a child works through frustration and comes out the other side, they collect evidence that they can handle hard things. That evidence is resilience.
Repair after rupture. Coming back after you have lost your patience and saying "I am sorry, I was overwhelmed earlier" teaches children how to restore relationships. This may be one of the most underrated things we can do.
Q: Where is the line between normal childhood shyness or worry, and anxiety that deserves closer attention?
Every child worries. In measured doses, worry is actually useful, it keeps children cautious around strangers and careful crossing the street. The key question is whether it has started to take over.
Consider whether the anxiety is:
- Shrinking their world: avoiding things they used to enjoy, refusing school, declining playdates
- Consuming a lot of time: long rituals before bed, repeated reassurance-seeking that never quite satisfies
- Expressed in physical symptoms: regular stomach aches or headaches with no medical cause, particularly before specific situations
- Dramatically disproportionate: expressions of fear that seem much larger than the actual situation warrants
A helpful rule of thumb: worry that passes and does not interfere with a child's life is normal. Worry that persists, is pervasive, and prevents engagement warrants a conversation with your pediatrician or a child mental health professional.
And trust your gut. Parents so often know before anyone else that something has shifted. Something feels off is a valid reason to seek support.
Q: How do we talk to our children about frightening realities like illness, death, school safety drills in a way that is honest without being overwhelming?
Research demonstrates that honesty helps children cope. When children discover they were misled, it can lead to mistrust in adults. The goal is to offer truth, with age-appropriate language, followed by what is happening, what is safe, and what you will face together.
A few examples:
On illness: "Grandma is very sick. The doctors are working hard to help her. I am not sure what will happen, but she loves you so much, and we will be together through all of it."
On death: Use clear, simple language. Phrases like "passed away" or "went to sleep" can cause confusion or fear around bedtime. Instead: "Grandpa died. His body stopped working and he will not be with us anymore. It is okay to feel sad. We can cry together."
On safety drills: "It is practice, like a fire drill, so everyone knows what to do. Schools do this because they want you to be safe. Your job is to follow your teacher."
Q: For children facing serious medical challenges, how do parents help them carry the fear and uncertainty alongside the treatment?
In working with children who have medical illnesses, most parents are surprised to learn that children are often less afraid of procedures than they are of being kept in the dark. What children fear most is uncertainty.
The instinct to stay relentlessly upbeat is understandable, but research shows that children do better emotionally and physically when given honest, age-appropriate information and feel included in what is happening to them. Children who know what they are being treated for cope better, ask better questions, and make sense of what their body is going through. When they are not told, they fill the silence with something worse than the truth.
A few things that help: explain what will happen before it happens — surprises in medical settings are almost always more distressing than prepared-for realities. Give control where you can: "Do you want your medicine now or in five minutes?" gives a child something powerful. Watch for regression — clinginess and baby talk are normal stress responses. Meet them there without shame.
And to the parents asking: there are no perfect words. Your presence is more powerful than anything you could say.
Q: What role do screens and digital environments play in children's anxiety today?
Research does show a meaningful association between heavy social media use and anxiety, particularly in adolescent girls. Psychologist Jean Twenge's generational studies found that rates of anxiety and depression among teenagers rose sharply around 2012, closely tracking widespread smartphone adoption. Jonathan Haidt's work has further explored how phone-based childhood has had significant mental health consequences, especially for girls navigating social comparison and cyberbullying.
For younger children, screen time itself is less the issue than what it replaces. Is it crowding out sleep, movement, and face-to-face play? Those are the things that actually build social skills, problem-solving, and a healthy lifestyle.
For adolescents, social media amplifies what teenagers already feel acutely: the need to belong. Social dynamics that once ended at the school door now follow them into their bedrooms at midnight.
A few protective practices: keep devices out of bedrooms at night. Stay curious about your child's digital life. And model your own healthy relationship with screens. Children notice how often you use them, for what, and for how long.
Before You Go
Which of Dr. Katerina's answers landed most with you today?
For me it was the first one. The reminder that our children do not need our composure. They need our presence. Even a shaky, imperfect, doing-my-best presence.
I have been thinking about what it means to sit with my three-year-old in a hard moment without rushing to fix it or smooth it over. To let him see that feelings are survivable by watching me survive mine. That is not something I will get right every time. But it is something I want to keep coming back to. Slowly and intentionally one ordinary moment at a time.
A Note of Gratitude
Dr. Katerina, thank you. For your time, your thoughtfulness, and for answering these questions with such warmth and depth. The parents who submitted their questions did so because they genuinely want to show up better for their children. Your insight gives them the tools to do exactly that. 🤍
If this conversation resonated with you, I would encourage you to explore Dr. Katerina's book The Healing Garden: A Story About Coping with Childhood Cancer. Whether you know a child navigating a medical challenge or simply want a gentle, evidence-based tool for building emotional resilience in any child, this book was written with exactly that purpose in mind.
If you know a family who could use it, please consider passing it along. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for someone going through something hard is hand them the right story at the right time.
Read next: What Great Leaders and Present Parents Know About Stepping Back →
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Until next time,
Aradhana 🤍