Cindy Lopez: Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.

What does it really mean to trust your child, and how is that different from being permissive or naive? In this episode, we talk with CHC experts, Dr. Marjan Ebadi and Dr. Dylan Stewart about the psychology of trust, from early independence to adolescents understanding what’s realistic throughout a child’s development. We’ll talk about how parents can tell the difference between productive struggle and true distress, how to rebuild after setbacks, and how to resist the urge to hover while still keeping kids safe. Ultimately, trusting our children at every age builds the foundation for confidence, self-reliance, and stronger relationships throughout life.

So thankful that you both could join us today, Dr. Ebadi and Dr. Stewart. Before we get going on this topic about trusting your child, I’m wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about yourselves.

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: I’m Dr. Dylan Stewart. I’m one of the clinical psychologists on staff here at Children’s Health Council. I work primarily for the assessment team, so I’m often doing evaluations to learn about neurodiversity, things like autism, ADHD, and to understand what types of supports might be helpful for children and families to be able to access the types of treatment that are the most needed.

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: And I am Dr. Mardi Ebadi. I’m also a clinical psychologist and do evaluation for kids with ADHD, learning disability, and mood disorders, or just wanting to learn about their challenges and strengths and how to do better at school and home.

Cindy Lopez: Well, thank you so much both of you for joining us today, and I’m really excited about this topic because we really haven’t done anything like this before on the podcast. So, the idea of trusting your child and kind of what that means in terms of where to give them space and where to let go. So, before we jump into all the nitty gritty of our conversation today, let’s start with the foundation and what does it actually mean to trust your child from a psychological perspective?

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: Trust is a kind of a big concept, so maybe we could narrow it down here a little bit. So, I would probably describe trust as a psychological dynamic in many ways that exists between a caregiver and their child. So, in the big picture, I would say it means that parent and a child communicating to each other that I believe in you, I believe in your ideas and your abilities to follow through on what you’re saying. And, trusting children at various ages can look really different across cultures and settings. So, some cultures are much more centered around child autonomy. Some are much more involved with kind of closer parent participation and involvement during day-to-day needs. So, you know, the setting can have a really big difference on what trust looks like.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, I think trusting your child, I’m imagining that many of our listeners are parents and thinking about that, trust my child, how could I trust my child? Like, you know, I could see what’s going to happen. So, I think there is the idea of trust and also protecting your child. So, let’s talk a little bit about that, how is trusting your child different from permissiveness or simply hoping for the best or even what I just mentioned, which would be like, if I let go bad things are going to happen.

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: That is a very good question. The one big difference between trusting your child and a blind permissiveness is that we’re simply hoping for the best is essentially taking the parents out of the equation, right? So, when you’re trusting your kids, you’re still in the picture with your kids. However, it doesn’t mean you kind of leave them on their own and depending on your child’s developmental age or temperament and depending on how they can do certain skills, you’re going to continue to guide and monitor and be collaborative. So you’re still in the picture, and you’re not taking a step back to let them do whatever they want to do. And this one aspect is like when collaboration with your child is building trust. It helps them have long-lasting effects on your relationship. They can learn that parents trust them and then they can be there when help is needed, right? So, you’re kind of forming that bond and relationship that can continue through your developmental stage for your children. And when the parent interaction is one where they’re disconnected and only intervene when like bad things happen or things are going to go sideways, it’s going to be very confusing for your child to know when or how you’re going to fit into that picture. So, you’re always going to be present, depending on the developmental stage and the temperaments, and you’re kind of doing a dance of coming in and letting go, but making sure you’re monitoring the whole time.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah. What you just mentioned about that dance of coming in and letting go. I would bet that a lot of our listeners would agree with you on that. They just don’t really know what that looks like in practice. So, thinking about that, it seems like there is a balance between stepping in and stepping back and that dance, as you were saying. One of the biggest challenges that parents face is knowing when their child genuinely needs their help versus when they need space to figure things out themselves. So, how can parents distinguish between their child who’s struggling, like a productive kind of struggling, versus one who’s really genuinely overwhelmed?

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: Yeah, this is a situation I hear from parents very often in my clinical work that I’m doing. So, it’s probably helpful to start by saying, there’s a big difference between the parenting style that is hovering and micromanaging every aspect of safety. And then, being a parent that’s available to help when the situation calls for it. I usually encourage parents to think about a few aspects of like how closely they’re involved with their children and how much they can trust them. 

So, the questions I tend to ask them are what is your child learning when you solve their challenges for them? And then on the other side of that is, what is your child learning when they need to figure out the solution on their own? And in this dynamic, it’s important to remember that children and adults, for that matter, they learn by playing, by experimenting, by making mistakes. So, the more they’re able to engage with this type of learning process, the more they can feel ready to meet the new challenges that they run into.

So, for some kids, it is going to be a more gradual path, though, to enter into this type of experimenting or learning just might take more time for them. So, for the parents, the goal here is really to find the right level of exploration and independence that their child can participate in.

If your child is becoming overly anxious, overwhelmed to the point that they can’t engage in that learning, they can’t access any of the strategies that they’ve worked on, then that’s the time to pause. You know, the goal isn’t to overwhelm your kid at all of these moments. Rather, you want to revisit and say what’s the appropriate level of challenge that they can engage with right now? Because that’s where the learning potential is going to be available to them.

Cindy Lopez: And I’m sure that it looks different with different kids. It looks different at different ages. And, as a parent or caregiver trying to figure out like, what is it for this child? Because they may have many children and feel like they’ve been successful with some of their children, but like, oh, this is new. This is a situation I haven’t seen before. So, wondering, especially thinking about different ages and developmentally what that looks like. What is realistic to expect at different ages?

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: So, for young children, we expect them to do most of their learning and growing up by experimenting, right. So, really young ones, they might be trying new things and learning through their sensory systems. So, they put things in their mouth, they smell, they drop things to see how it sounds like. And then at this stage children still need adults to do a lot of modeling and teaching and guiding them. So, there’s a lot more hands-on of like, okay, what are you putting in your mouth and how to like smell something. And we want them to be able to explore safely while letting them learn from their own sensory abilities. So, it’s more hands-on for this age.

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: Yeah. And you know, as kids grow and develop some of those same things will be true. And also their capabilities are going to get more and more as they start to learn new things and develop new skills. So, as that kind of preschool, early elementary age, we’re starting to see that they have all kinds of words to say. They’re walking, running, jumping, they have lots of their own opinions. And at that point, it is starting to kind of communicate some of your trust directly to them and saying that we want to help understand your perspective, understand what it is that you would like to do, and how can we work together to make that an option for you. You really want to be still modeling at this stage. You do want to be helping give them some choices so they can make a decision that’s going to help them develop those skills without putting them in harm’s way certainly, but really more than anything, you want to help them be able to say that they have some agency as part of this process, that they get to be involved in making the choices so that they can grow in the ways that they’re most excited about.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, I think that what you’re saying, Dr. Stewart, really makes sense in terms of choices and as a parent providing choices that you can live with the outcome either way. And being able to support your child and really giving them that appropriate autonomy given their age. 

So, we’ve talked a little bit about younger kids and as they get older, what happens in middle school and beyond?

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Yeah. So for a lot of kids in like late elementary and middle schools, as you said, we kind of expect to see much clearer opinions in ways that they believe events should happen, right? So, trusting your child in this stage, it requires a little bit more scaffolding. So, helping them identify a different perspective, or options, that they can explore. This might look like helping them think through the situation and then arriving at their own decision. 

So, if you want to use an example, like they’re having an issue with either a friend or a teacher. And then, so we don’t want to give them advice first, right? We don’t want to be like, this is what you do. And instead we want to do more like exploring with them, like, what do you think you could do? Or what’s your plan? So, kind of giving them the space to be able to express their own opinions and ideas. And then you want to support them through it. So, you might role play with them, you might ask follow up questions and then help them get to the outcome before they do the event. And that kind of helps them explore and learn about different perspectives or what they want to do and can be helpful, right, whereas if you give them advice, we kind of take that exploration and learning out.

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Cindy Lopez: So much of what we talk about on these Voices of Compassion episodes are, a theme that runs through all of them is this idea of being curious and listening and I think that’s what you’re talking about here. Like, ask some questions, be curious, ask more questions about what’s happening and what outcome do they wish they could have and really listen to them versus, as you noted, Dr. Ebadi, trying to give them advice. As they move into adolescence and young adulthood, like that’s when I think it probably becomes trickier for parents like that stepping in and letting go. Because at this point in adolescence and young adulthood, it’s probably more about letting go. What do you think?

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: It is. Absolutely. And this can be a tough moment for parents as well when they’re so used to that role of being a collaborator, providing examples and, you know, getting to participate in this process with them when all of a sudden it is much more about just giving that space in a way that they maybe haven’t done up at that point in their child’s life. And, I think what is important to keep in mind too is that adolescents and young adults usually have a very clear idea of what they think trust is. And so, if the parent’s idea of how we’re working together and collaborating isn’t maybe matching up with where they are in their developmental progress here, it can sometimes lead to those conflicts and it can be hard to come to those solutions. 

So, what is helpful in these moments I find is just providing some of that space for independence. And it doesn’t have to be for everything. It could be for small moments in their day, maybe choosing what they want to eat. Maybe making some decisions about what they want to wear to school, you know, those clothes, as long as it’s appropriate, but just making yourself available as a thought partner. I’m not saying that you have to take my advice or you have to do these things, but what are you running into? How can we strategize together and come up with some ideas? 

And then always just making yourself available to be that support at the other side too. They made a choice. They made a decision. It didn’t go the way they wanted to. Let’s talk about it. Is there something we can do to repair with the other people that were involved? How can we help you in the next steps of this process? But, for parents, you want to be that touchstone at this point of trusting your child. And, the more that that kind of dynamic can be set up, the more it’s going to help in the long-term with knowing that your relationship is changing at this stage of your life.

Cindy Lopez: I like that idea of being in that touchstone. I think it’s a nice picture for our listeners to think about. You’re kind of staying in place and you are letting your child know, like they can keep coming back to you. 

So, as we think about times that do require some intervention, like the difference between struggle and distress, and trusting the process versus preventing harm, what does that look like?

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: So, it’s very helpful to learn and know if your child’s struggling because they haven’t learned the skill, so they don’t know how to do it in the first place. Or they’re frustrated because of how long it’s taking them to do it. So, you want to monitor and see how often that happens, why they happen, and if the reaction matches the outcome or the stress response.

Some warning signs that is getting more into distress and struggling part is do you see a lot of excessive anxiety that is more than normal perfectionism that happened; regressive behavior, like any young kids been potty trained, you might see toilet accidents; or having a hard time sleeping alone; refusing to go to school. So, those are things that are impacting their other domains like school and everyday life. So, you may have to move across the spectrum of how to help, depending on a situation, right? So, you might teach them the skills. You might provide guidance and modeling or do scaffolding. So, in a way you’re like a coach at the sporting events. So, you’re on the sideline, right? You never see in the sporting events the coach jumping in and scoring the goal, right? You see them kind of making comments on the side or working or observing what went wrong and then they retrain them if they need to.

And you just have to do the same dance depending on the situation. And like depending on your child’s developmental level, and their specific abilities, you might do more or less depending on what they need at the time. And then we want to make sure for younger or like preteens, usually I tell parents to always think one step ahead. So, even though you’re observing, just think about like one step ahead and where is that going to leave? And is it going to cause harm. Because like we said earlier, you don’t want to jump in when it went really bad, right? You kind of want to always monitor and help them get there.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah, really appreciate that and that metaphor of the coach where they don’t jump in and score the goal, right. What practical strategies might you suggest for building trust?

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: The first thing I always recommend to parents is to talk to your kids about this directly is to ask them what they might feel comfortable to do. What kinds of things do they feel ready to take on? There’s this beautiful kind of approach. It’s sort of connected to the Let Grow Project that Lenore Skenazy and Peter Gray and Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, have really started to share with more people around the country and just helping to have conversations with kids and say, “What types of tasks do you feel ready to do? Can you be in charge of getting yourself ready for school in the morning? Can you bike all the way to school on your own? Can you ride the subway to school on your own?” You know, different questions and kind of goals that kids might feel ready to do, but parents may still be hanging onto some of the stress that goes along with that. So, when you bring in the child’s voice, it gives them a lot more ability to collaborate, participate, so they can grow here.

The second piece is you really want to be communicating clear messages to your child about what they can do to stay safe in these situations. It’s a real big difference between saying, “Be careful, be careful, don’t get hurt!” all the time. And instead saying, “Why don’t you try to do this to help you stay a little bit safer?” And, you know, that can really make a big difference to kids. It’s kind of outlining how they can stay safe instead of trying to warn them about all of the infinite potential dangers that exist out there. And of course for children we want to be really mindful, especially for younger kids with the types of words that we’re using. Being really clear and concise in our safety messages that we should send to children really helps. You know, a young child isn’t going to get a list of 15, 75 things that might be dangerous in the walk from the front door to the car, but if you say, “Can you please stay on the path because the grass is wet, I don’t want you to slip,” that’s going to make it a lot easier for kids to understand what they can do to stay safe in those moments. So, using really clear language that your kids’ developmental age will be able to understand.

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: And as you said earlier, Cindy, too, like parents can be very anxious about trusting their child, right? So, and it’s okay to be anxious, but we also want children to explore without taking on their parents’ stress because as you said, like if you look stressed, your kid might be like, I’m not trying this because my mom looks like she’s terrified around me trying this. So, we want to make sure that you have the support that you also need, right? So, finding the community of parents that you can rely on or help manage your emotional reactions or finding your village that could be like asking your family members or getting professional help if it’s needed, depending on what you need. 

And then you also want to always start small. So, kind of like helping your child. The other thing we always want to make sure is the goal for parents and children is to build competence before they can build confidence, right? So, we want to make sure they know the skillset then you might, like I said, do either scaffolding or teaching in a small way, and then kind of do the dance back and forth to help them be independent, depending on where they are developmentally. And if, for instance, some kids will bike to school or go to school by themselves. So, if that’s what they want to do, we want to make sure they know how to ride their bike safely – they know how to navigate the signals. Can they actually go there? You might like do the bike ride together the first time and then let them do it after. So, it’s kind of, that’s the whole dance of teaching, monitoring and then letting go when you feel like they’re independent enough.

Cindy Lopez: I really like the idea of building competence before you build confidence. And, inevitably though, like they’re not going go out there and do it perfectly the first time, whatever that looks like. So, especially after mistakes are made, what does that look like between parent and child?

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Yeah, so sometimes when mistakes happen, it can also lead to frustration on both ends, right? Like kids can get frustrated, parents can get frustrated, but we want to make sure that throughout, as we said earlier, we’re looking at exploration together and being curious. So, moving from you made a mistake to let’s learn from this. And that’s how you can kind of repair that trusting like, okay, we’re learning together, rather than like, I can’t trust you ever again or it can also be the other way. Like you may not show up and your child stops trusting you for showing up. That’s the whole doing the dance together. So, that’s important to make sure both as parents and children having the growth mindset and then showing up afterwards to rebuild back up and relearn or fill the gaps when you need to.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah. So, as we’re talking about all this, I am thinking about this idea of trusting your child and how that impacts them or influences them as they are growing and developing. So, how does trusting our children in age appropriate ways now prepare them to have perhaps effective or stronger interpersonal relationships? Are there long-term benefits of this approach? And even the flip side is like, what are the risks of not developing this trust?

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: Yeah, those are great, really big picture questions here. And, trust is a very important thing for children and parents to be able to develop at all different age ranges. And we’re really just starting to learn how important trust is to developing lifelong independent skills, self-confidence. I mean so many of the things that we hope for all children to be able to have available to them as they mature and get bigger. We’re starting to see this even on a community scale. You know, some cities are making really concerted efforts to create opportunities for independent play for children. You know, the one that comes to mind is the Berkeley Adventure Playground here in the Bay Area, which is just this absolutely beautiful playground space where children are encouraged and allowed to build, climb, bring in all kinds of materials to explore and see how they go together. They get tools and all kinds of things to sort of assemble what they think is the most fun way to play and kind of explore. And so, you know, when there are spaces where children are trusted to take risks, navigate conflict, come up with their own solutions, these are the moments where they’re building those skills that they’re going to be able to tap into as adults. And in terms of the long-term benefits, I mean, there’s some wonderful research that’s starting to happen now, Peter Gray, who I mentioned before, there’s an article in the Journal of Pediatrics, which I’ll be happy to share the link here with the listeners. Some of the findings there we’re sharing that the more opportunities that children have for independent activity and all across the age range, really do have positive social and mental impacts for them as they turn into adults. You know, their main findings there are that they’re attributing it to children just learning that they can be competent and have this internal control over the environment around them. So, it’s not something where they’re feeling like they have to respond entirely to demands from other people, or that their day-to-day experience is sort of predicted for them ahead of time. They actually get to be the ones who are building and, you know, involved in the world in the way that they want to. And so, you know the more we can start encouraging kids to do this at an earlier age, the more they’re going to have access to these abilities and be able to use them when they need them.

Cindy Lopez: Something you said in previous remarks, Dr. Stewart, was the idea of developing agency and that’s such a big thing for our kids to have agency as they are growing and what that leads to as adults and that idea that you just mentioned Dr. Stewart about having some control over what you do and how you do it. Those are big things to developing agency and developing confidence in oneself, especially as they think about the options in front of them. Like, should I do this? Could I do this? All of that. So, I think this idea of trusting our children is really foundational to not only the parent child relationship, but to who they become. So, I’m wondering what you hope our listeners really take away from our conversation?

Marjan Ebadi, PhD: Learning to trust. Trusting your child, I hope they remember that learning to trust your child and continue to guide and support them is a fundamental part of learning and growing up. So, it’s important to keep them safe while also aligned to explore and learn from their mistakes, and building this collaborative relationship can lead to strong attachment and trusting relationship that can be with you and also can be replicated in their future relationships and other ones.

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: And I would hope that parents are able to take away that listening and collaborating with your child is the foundation for building trust here. When you work together in this process, it really helps everyone feel heard and that their needs are being valued. Those are the skills we hope to teach our children as they’re getting bigger across their lifetime. So, sometimes as parents, you’re going to have to do less for your child to feel ready to do more. But when you’re working on that together, it’s going to make a really big difference for everyone to feel ready to take that next step.

Cindy Lopez: Yeah. It’s so important, and thank you both for taking the time today to share your experience and expertise with us. And to our listeners, if you’re feeling like you’re kind of stuck in a way with your child and the trust thing is very difficult because there might be other things going on. Please feel free to reach out to us at CHC. We are here for you. You can talk with our care team by calling 650-688-3625 or you can email our care team at [email protected]. So, we have lots of different types of services that might be helpful to you – as both Dr. Stewart and Dr. Ebadi said they both do assessments of children that might be helpful. We have parent coaching. You can get some coaching from one of our specialists, one of our experts who can help you in this process. So, if you need help, please reach out. So, thank you all for joining us today, Dr. Stewart, Dr. Ebadi, and our listeners.

Dylan Stewart, PsyD: Thank you so much.

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