Being a mom is not an easy job. Drew Barrymore shares two daughters with ex-husband Will Kopelman, Olive, 11, and Frankie, 9. She doesn't want to gatekeep anything she learns along the way, so she had parenting expert and psychologist Dr. Aliza Pressman on the Tuesday, January 23, 2024, episode of her talk show.
Drew believes the parenting expert's advice made her a better mom. She taught Drew to not always try to fix her kids’ big feelings but simply be there for them instead. It is OK to have emotions. Parents shouldn’t teach their children to run away from them.
Drew could not say enough good things about Aliza. "You specifically changed my life,” Drew gushed. Drew then went into specifics. “I had my daughter Olive, who Aliza knows, she was going through a phase, this was years ago, where when she would get upset, I would try to go to her and I would try to make it better," Drew explained.
Drew was at her wit’s end. She wanted to help Olive but it never went well. "That was the last thing she needed or wanted. I didn't understand it, she would either run away or come back at me,” Drew went on to say.
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Drew did not know what else to do but Aliza did. “Either way was like the two extremes of no goodness and Aliza taught me to regulate myself, which again was like, OK. You said walk in the room and just say, 'I understand we're having a moment,'" Drew continued.
The parenting expert advised Drew to let Olive know she was there for her and then give her some space. "'I'm here on the other side of this door for you, waiting. When you are ready, I am here.' And I would walk out and take a deep breath,” Drew revealed. “I got the best results I've ever gotten in my parenting from that and it was never a way in I had thought of.”
Aliza elaborated on her advice. "I think we get so scared of the big feelings, that we want to fix them. And we're chasing them," she explained.
Drew admitted that she was absolutely chasing her daughter. Aliza helped her understand the bigger lesson, which was teaching Olive. "And the message is like, 'We are afraid of feelings.' And feelings aren't dangerous!" Aliza explained. "Being able to regulate ourselves as the adults and say, 'OK, I'm not being chased by a bear. My daughter's not being chased by a bear.' Meaning, it's not an emergency. It's a feeling."
Drew mused that the instinct to protect our children comes from evolution and the psychologist agreed. "Totally. And it makes sense that you would have it and it makes sense that you would want to make sure that your child is happy," she stated.
Even though the feeling is natural, that does not make it healthy. "But we need our kids to know how to dress for the weather and not try to control the weather," Aliza explained. "Because we can't. So, better they understand how to have the feelings and that they are survivable and that we are not shaken."
