Kathryn Hecht
Child and adolescent clinical psychologist and partner at Anxiety Treatment Resources (Twin Cities, MN), specializing in pediatric anxiety and OCD; her 2025 TEDx talk "How to Raise Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things" was a TED Editor's Pick.
3
APPEARANCES
2
PODCASTS
Sep 10, 2026
Katie KimballHOST
Has it changed being a mom? Has being a mom changed the way you are in your practice professionally? I don't know that it has changed
Kathryn HechtGUEST
I think it has inevitably bought me an incredible amount of empathy, like additional empathy.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
I think I have, you know, I've always had a lot of warmth and sympathy for what parents were going through, but I, you cannot possibly understand at the same level until it is hitting your own heart.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
And so I think with a lot more oomph in my practice, can I say to a parent, look, I get it.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
And when I tell you to do this, I also want you to know nobody's going to be able to do this perfectly.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
Even like professional degrees, I think I say this in the talk, professional degrees don't make you immune to the intensity of your child's emotions.
14 MINS LATER
Katie KimballHOST
It's almost like, galactic medicine or like preventative medicine in a way to give them skills before they're even anxious or fearful about something?
Katie KimballHOST
What do you think it is about the world and the state of our kids that's making this necessary?
Kathryn HechtGUEST
Gosh, I I think fundamentally we are all ready for this message for a few different reasons.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
You know, the first is all parents right now, you know, we all, we love our kids deeply.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
And we also, despite the name of this lovely podcast, the healthy parenting handbook, right? This is, this is filling a very specific need, which is we're not handed the handbook at the start of our parenting journey.
6 MINS LATER
Kathryn HechtGUEST
Because that discomfort, that is the first essential step to creating confident kids.
Kathryn HechtGUEST
This week, I had an eight-year-old stab me with a needle twice, took a kid into a basement on a spider safari, and played Uno on the bathroom floor with an understandably reluctant teen.
10 MINS LATER
speaker_2UNKNOWN
[laughs]