In this episode of Where Parents Talk, host Lianne Castelino speaks to Dr. Caroline Fleck—licensed psychologist, Stanford instructor, corporate consultant, and author of Validation: How the Skill Set that Revolutionized Psychology Will Transform Your Relationships, Increase Your Influence, and Change Your Life.

Dr. Fleck breaks down one of psychotherapy’s most impactful yet misunderstood tools: validation. She explains why it’s more than agreement or praise, how it strengthens connection, and why it’s essential for influencing behaviour—especially in tweens, teens, and young adults.

Through real-life examples, neuroscience insights, and practical skills, Dr. Fleck shares:

• What true validation looks and sounds like in families
• Why it boosts emotional regulation, trust, and behavior change
• How parents can shift from problem-solving to connection
• The critical role of empathy and presence in a distracted world
• Steps to repair strained relationships and rebuild communication

This podcast is for parents, guardians, teachers and caregivers to learn proven strategies and trusted tips on raising kids, teens and young adults based on science, evidenced and lived experience.

You’ll learn the latest on topics like managing bullying, consent, fostering healthy relationships, and the interconnectedness of mental, emotional and physical health.

Links referenced in this episode:

• whereparentstalk.com

Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence, and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Lianne Castelino.

Our guest today is a licensed psychologist, adjunct clinical instructor at Stanford University, and a corporate consultant. Dr. Caroline Fleck is also an author and a global expert on validation.

Her first book is called Validation how the skill set that revolutionized psychology will transform your relationships, increase your influence, and Change your life. Dr. Fleck is also a mother of one, and she joins us today from Los Gatos, California. Thank you so much for making the time.

Thank you for having me.

Really interesting subject matter, to say the least. When we talk about validation now, you call validation one of psychotherapy's best kept secrets.

Why?

Prior to including validation in psychotherapy, which happened around the 90s, up until that point, we had whole disorders that we were unable to treat. All right, so these were conditions in which folks had behaviors that were really resistant to change.

And obviously, I mean, the field of psychology is not young. We had spent decades trying to develop treatments for these conditions, and we didn't have any.

And it wasn't until we combined behaviorism, which I think most.

Most parents for sure, are familiar with, these ideas of reinforcement and shaping once we combined that those change approaches with this emphasis on acceptance and validation.

It was in combining those two approaches that we were finally able to treat conditions we'd never been able to treat before and effect change in ways that we didn't know were possible.

So why write this book now and in this moment and with this message, what made you decide to bring it out of the therapy room and into the public space?

Well, for several reasons. One is that I'd been doing so for well over a decade.

So although I was trained to validate my patients, essentially I was taught a set of skills to help me do that. I then taught my patients those skills as well so that they could be effective in their relationships in parenting at work.

And pretty soon I was teaching this stuff in corporate workshops. And obviously I use it day in and day out in my own life. And so it's.

It was just really apparent to me that we had kind of sequestered away this really critical information and approach, and it was kind of buried in these, you know, treatment manuals when really it applies to people in general. And so it was the success that I had In. In helping others develop these skills that made me think, okay, we need to be doing this on a larger scale.

There was that, and then, honestly, there's the political climate right now in which there's just so much emphasis on agreement, and you don't agree with me, and you don't see things the way I do. And really, the method I learned was how do we find common ground when we disagree? How do we influence people when there is a.

What feels like a fundamental divide? And that is what validation was designed to do. And so it just feels so, so important. And I think that that energy, it's not just in the politics.

I feel it in families. I feel it just kind of in the water. Right. It's like everywhere right now. And so I think that was also part of the backdrop for this.

When we talk about how this affects families and parents, parents in particular are told that they need to listen to their kids, but we're often not told how they to do that. So what does real listening or validation include in a family context?

Yeah. So critically. And it might help to just kind of define validation up front so folks understand what I mean by this.

Validation simply communicates that you are mindful, you understand, and you empathize with some part of a person's experience. Okay. Put simply, you're there, you get it, and you care. It is a signal of acceptance, and that culminates in the other person feeling seen.

All right, so that's kind of what I'm going for. That's the target I'm trying to hit. I want this person to feel seen.

Now, in families, as in broader culture, we tend to be really distracted by what we see as problematic by what we disagree with. Right. The tantrum, the talking back, all of this stuff that we see, we need to change this. Right? Like, that's where our attention tends to go.

Validation focuses on what's right in this situation. So even though this kid is melting down, what makes sense? What can I see as valid from their perspective?

Their reaction isn't, but maybe their disappointment is. Okay, it makes sense to be angry. If your sister took something from you, does it make sense to punch her?

No, that's not a valid reaction, but I can validate the emotion. And in so doing, I am in a much better place to actually change the behavior.

Along those lines. A lot of parents are often faced with maybe misconstruing what validation looks like versus agreement.

And is it an endorsement of, let's say, less than acceptable behavior? If you're in that situation, so how do we differentiate?

Mm. I often give this example of when I was My.

My daughter was really young, and I wanted to be able to work out on the elliptical while she played quietly next to me. You know, she was like 2 or 3, and she could play independently, but, like, there's no way she would do it. When I was.

You know, as soon as I got distracted, she was like, mommy, Mommy. And so I'm like, I'm gonna. I'm. I am a behaviorist. I can do this. And of course, you know, we.

I set up the room perfectly with all the toys set out, and she's gonna get ice cream if she can play quietly for 30 minutes. And I got on the elliptical, and it lasted one minute. And before she melted down. Right.

And with validation, I led with, how did you do that first minute? That must have genuinely been hard for you. I know she wanted my attention. Right. Like, how did you do that? That was really amazing.

Now, the other third, the other 29 minutes, that kind of fell apart. But let's focus on that one, because I know that that took some work. What did you do there?

All right, so I'm genuinely validating what's valid, which is her effort in that first minute. Okay. And I'm not giving a pass to the other stuff. I'll say that stuff is. That was not great. We need to work on that.

I'm just not going to give it quite as much airtime. All right. That's the difference. It's not that I have to co sign on behavior or that I can't talk about it. No. If it's ineffective, I will flag it.

All right. The point is simply that I will give more airtime to what's going. Well, this is the basis of positive reinforcement, isn't is?

Absolutely. And so when you describe it in that way, there's a reframing of the situation that's happening.

There is a shift that is required from the parent to focus on the positive. And you also talk about it being a skill set that needs to be honed and practiced and that kind of thing.

So what is the first step that a parent can take to make that shift?

Yeah, I love this question.

As parents, we are genetically hardwired to keep our kids alive, which means that we are very focused on threats and protecting them and what's wrong. Which means we love to problem solve, and we are so good at it.

And so when kiddos come to us with, you know, a problem, an issue, a tantrum, what have you, our inclination is to Respond with like, how do I fix this? You didn't do well on the quiz. Let's get a tutor. Right? Like, let's. You're having a fight with your friend. Let me call. Let me contact the parents.

Okay, let's get in there and change.

What I would encourage folks to do instead and what I practice on a daily basis with my patients and with my family, with people in my life, is this simple question, should I respond with problem solving or validation? All right. When emotions are high, problem solving is unlikely to be very effective because the person is dysregulated.

Their brain is not online in the way that it needs to be for that problem solving to land. All right, so if I just slow down and think, do I respond with problem solving here, or should I focus on validating?

That simple gear shift really makes all the difference.

So when you talk about the brain, I think it's so helpful to unpack in layman's terms. If you could describe for us what is happening in the brain when somebody does feel validated.

Yeah. The neuroscience on this is very interesting. I've talked just a little bit. I've peppered in bits about behaviorism in there.

And the reason I do is because validation functions just like any other positive reinforcement, meaning it lights up the exact same regions in the brain that are associated with the release of dopamine and an increase in behavior. Right. So we know that validation is highly reinforcing.

It is also associated with the regions of the brain that signal social connection and belonging. So you've got this kind of, you know, dual emphasis going on, you know, internally that signals, this is yummy. This is good. Okay?

So we want validation. We seek validation. And, of course, this is something that has been very stigmatized, and we've been warned never, ever to seek validation.

But let's pause there and differentiate validation from praise. Okay? Praise says, I like the way you look. Good job. I like how you perform. Validation says, I accept you independent of how you look or perform.

Those are two very different messages we seek. As I described, biologically, we seek validation. We seek a sense of belonging. It is how we evolve to survive.

There is nothing pathological or unhealthy about that. We should be in relationships where we feel accepted, and those signals should be frequent.

And if they're not, we shouldn't be in those relationships. Yeah.

And so with our kids, we want them to feel what that feels like, to have relationships in which they feel seen and accepted, even when they're making mistakes. And that's what we're trying to model.

It's so interesting because you talk about validation as having sort of this dual impact where it can both communicate acceptance and then encourage change. For parents listening to and watching this interview, that could seem like quite a unique paradox. How is.

How are both of these things happening at the same time? Take us through what's happening and how it happens.

Yeah, let me. Let me kind of give an example here.

And this is kind of a weird one, but part of what validation communicates is that the other person gets where you're coming from. All right? And when we feel understood, we are much more likely to listen and take advice. And that's not me just saying that.

I mean, that is, we've got, you know, decades of research on that effect. And to break it down, just really simply imagine that you have a.

You're heading out to work one morning, and your car makes this awful sound, and your neighbor comes running out and they say, oh, gosh, you need a new engine. But this neighbor bikes to work every day. They don't own a car. They know nothing about cars. Right.

You're probably going to be like, okay, thanks, and keep going.

Imagine the next day you head out, car makes the same noise, and your neighbor, who is a mechanic and owns the best mechanic shop in all the area, comes out and says, you need a new engine. You're going to listen to that person because you trust that they understand the situation. That is the power of validation.

It communicates very swiftly. I get it. I know what's going on. I understand where you're at, and I have a perspective that's valuable as a result. Does that make sense?

So it gives you street cred, almost. Yes, absolutely.

Parents are constantly navigating ages and stages. That's just what we sign up for.

And I'm curious as to validation in terms of when it could play a more critical role in the ages and stages of a young person's life. Is there such a thing? Or is this something that we should be starting early and continuing on across the lifespan?

Starting early, continuing on. However, that said, the shape, the form that validation takes must change in order to remain effective.

So when I validate my, you know, my daughter, when she's six, I can. I can lay it on really thick, right? I can. I can lay on. I. I am really interested in how you handled that.

I think that that was, you know, that must have been very hard for you. You must have been scared. Right?

I can go into all this detail, and she's like, she'll, you Know, she'll really absorb it if I do that when she's 13, like, she will punch me in the face and be like, no, you don't understand. Right. That feels very annoying and intrusive and everything else. So I've got to come at it a different way. Right.

I need a much softer touch, but it is just as critical. And I think, interestingly, that's where we tend to drop off when our kids become tweens and teens.

They're pushing us away, and we're not necessarily adapting and coming up with different ways of communicating love and validation such that they can receive it, and so they don't receive it from us. And that, I think, is a mistake.

So one of the things, again, one of the reasons I wrote this book and teach these skills is because as psychologists, these skills have to work regardless of who's in the room across from you. It could be a narcissist or someone who's delusional, but the skills are meant to adapt based on the person across from you.

And that's the level of sophistication I think we need, frankly, in our relationships and society at this point.

When we look at that tween teen, adolescent, young adult phase of life, can you give us some examples of what validating behavior and responses versus invalidating look like?

Yeah, Again, it's going to depend on the kiddo.

I as in relating to teens and tweens, one of the most validating experiences, interestingly, can be simply, I would have done the same thing in your shoes. Okay. Or, I've been there. So a kiddo comes home, let's say that they were caught smoking. Really concerning to a parent.

This is something they want to change. They want to lean in and punish and freak out. And, like, all the cancer thoughts are going through their heads.

If you flip that kiddo comes home and you say, yeah, I actually used to smoke in high school. I get it. I wish I hadn't, but I did.

I smoked for five years and whatever, you know, just kind of sharing that experience, not in an effort to change them, but just to say, like, I get it. Most parents hear that and they're like, oh, no, you're saying it's okay, and that's not the case.

I'm simply saying I know what it's like to be in your shoes. To some extent. I wish she'd made a different choice, but, like, I get it. All right.

The research on this is very interesting on the function, the extent to which validation through disclosure functions on teens, very, very Powerful stuff.

They find that kiddos whose parents disclose their use of substance use, their use of substances and model kind of that self disclosure see better outcomes.

Interesting.

Dr. Fleck, is there an example in your clinical work or in your, you know, in your own lived experience where validation and the use of it made a marked difference in somebody's life and you saw it in with your own eyes. You talk about how you've been, you know, teaching these skills for over a decade now.

And I'm just curious if there's an example that gives you pause still.

Oh my gosh. Countless examples. Some of the most vivid have, have been in the context of couples therapy, actually.

So seeing folks who were just kind of could not see eye to eye and just that pivot towards once someone felt heard their ability to hear and what that looks like. Another, frankly, is in my experience, you know, I talked about disclosure as a form of validation.

And I work with folks who are often depressed, they may be self harming, they may be suicidal and sitting across from me, talking to me with all my degrees behind the wall and my book behind me, most folks don't feel like I can really get that. All right? And so when I'm trying to encourage treatment and what I'm getting in response is like, yeah, easy for you to say.

Basically, some of the most transformative moments that I've experienced have been when I've disclosed my own history of depression with clients and said like, no, I get it to some extent. Okay, maybe not to the extent that you do, but it was pretty bad for me.

I had ect, which is a very, very invasive treatment for depression for very severe cases. And I share that. I disclose that in moments to say I get it. And listen, I'm not going to give up on you. Okay?

I see that you're more than this and I know what it takes to get through this and I'm not going to stop fighting. Okay, so you, so you can't either. And I know what it's like to fight this fight. I've done it before, so stick with me. All right? That, that has been.

Those have been some of the richest moments in therapy, in my experience, the most transformative.

So along those lines then, is there a correlation between a person's ability to validate somebody else and whether or not they have validated or are able to validate themselves?

That is a great question and it's an empirical one. I would love to do a study on that. As far as I, I am not aware of any research in that space. However, anecdotally, that has been 100% my experience.

In fact, I find people become much more adept at validating themselves through validating others because it's much, much harder to validate yourself. All of that dialog that those tapes that play in our heads, they're kind of subliminal or they're, you know, we, we're not even aware of them.

And so it's much harder to target that stuff. And it is in developing this skill set with others. That's where you get the practice. Okay, that's like.

And then you can level it up by turning it internal. So often when I'm trying to foster self validation, I do it through helping the person learn how to validate others.

What would you say to parents in a household where they feel like they've lost hope?

Maybe the connection and the communication with their children, teen, tween, young adult, is really broken, doesn't exist, and they feel like validation. They're just too far gone. Nothing's going to help us.

Is it possible for somebody in that situation to learn validation, learn the skill set behind it, and to bring it back into that household?

Oh, my goodness, 100%.

But one thing I also want to say in that, having just talked a little bit about self validation, I think the really toxic element to that type of dynamic is how we as parents feel about ourselves and the amount of guilt and shame and responsibility that we internalize and letting that go, okay, having compassion for yourself, being able to validate your own experiences. It wasn't just that you failed royally. There were all sorts of other, you know, conditions, a long chain of cause and effect that got you here.

And it doesn't boil down to you're a bad parent. Okay, so that piece is critical.

From there, you know, I talk about these different skills that we use to, to validate at various levels when there's that type of distance. Validation is often just as simple as paying attention and being there. Anything much more than that can be too much. Right?

You're forcing the relationship. That's not where it's at.

But you can continue to invite the other person in to create space for them and to show up to the extent that you can and they'll allow you to.

Paying attention in a hyper connected, incredibly distracted world is more difficult than it probably should be. What can you say to parents who find themselves caught in that sort of spiral of trying to do all the things that we're trying to do as parents?

Remain present, but they're not in a space where they can be validating to their child. How do they get there?

Yeah. This really speaks to the extent to which I see validation almost as a lifestyle. We had this concept of mindfulness.

When this kind of hit the mainstream, it was a real turning point for us as a culture to understand what it means to just be present nonjudgmentally. And it's a practice. Validation is very much that same thing. All right, so it is a lifestyle.

It is a practice of kind of interpersonal mindfulness where you are choosing to put the phone down and the alerts off and you're going to miss things. And that's part of the practice, is to just tolerate the fact that dinner is missed and things are falling down, or so it seems.

The biggest obstacle to connection we face right now, it's phones, frankly. And so that, I think is typically the first point of intervention when you're feeling overwhelmed.

You've talked about the skills. You've alluded to them. Can you give us an examples of a couple of the skills and how we can teach them and learn them as parents?

Firstly, before we teach them.

Yeah. One of the most basic skills is copying. All right. This is considered kind of. It just conveys a sense of like, I hear you, right?

And so someone, you know, says, oh, I just. Everything's falling apart, nothing's working. And I just say, oh, nothing's working. What's going on? I would just kind of repeat like that.

I don't do this preamble of I hear you saying, nothing's working. Right. That sounds very therapized or whatever. Or I'm just kind of matching their affect. With kids, this can be very powerful.

If they're upset and you're smiling, it's okay. You know, there's a disconnect.

But when you allow yourself to be affected, when you come down to their level, when you match in that way, it activates mirror neurons, wherein you're actually able to taste a little bit of what that little person or person across from you is feeling. Okay. It's a very basic level of validation. They feel seen and heard.

And as a function of copying, you are actually able to understand and empathize better. That's copying. Another great one is proposing, this is a little bit higher up. It's a little more sophisticated of a skill.

Someone shares something with you and you propose something they haven't said yet, but might be thinking, all right, so my daughter's talking about how these two new friend groups are mixing together at her middle school. And our group is blending with these other kids.

And I say something to the effect of like, that must be overwhelming to have all these new people in your group. Now, if I got that wrong, that's not going to land, and I've got to go back to just copying and paying attention.

But if I got it right, it's like, oh, you get it right. That one takes some work to land.

But once you master that skill, it's like a Jedi mind trick, because every now and then you say something that the other person hadn't even realized, right. And they're like, oh, yeah, that's kind of what's going on. That's proposing.

And then another skill really high up there, really effective when it lands, is that disclosure that I talked about before. Okay. That's one of the most advanced validation skills. Because if you mess it up, it can be a disaster. Right. It can sound like back in my day. Right.

Which is invalidating. Um, or it could be too much, what have you. So that just kind of gives you a sense of the range of what these skills look like.

So in a family, for instance, where there's been distance and fallout, I'm focused much more on just copying and attending, Just being there when there's more intimacy and there's more safety in the relationship. I'll disclose. Or use some higher skills to validate the other person.

In order for those skills that you just outlined to thrive and be sustained, there has to be foundational elements for it to.

To.

To be founded on. Right. So what are some of those foundational elements? Some of the roots, the prerequisites, if you will, that are required for validation? To.

To be able to grow?

Yeah. You mean in terms of the. The person doing the validating, like, what do they need to kind of internalize? Yeah, I mean, the.

The primary component here is one of non judgment. So you're not judging the other person's experience. You're just observing with. You're just connecting with it. Okay.

You need to let go of your concerns about do I agree with this or not? Abandon that. That's not what this is. You need to pivot away from problem solving. Again, that's not what this is.

Notice the urge to change a child's emotions when they're upset. It's totally natural. But when we push towards change, we risk invalidating the emotion. Right.

We are too quick to say it's okay or it'll be okay that we don't just let it be. Right. There's this swiftness to move past, and it's okay to let things be, but that requires some tolerance on our end.

So I think those are kind of the foundations that are required and they're going to wax and wane and you just kind of need to recommit to them and just notice when you've strayed.

The other thing that you've mentioned several times now is empathy. And I'm wondering if you could sort of paint a picture as to the role that empathy plays for validation to be effective.

Yeah, I was thinking about this before our call.

I remember at some point someone explained to me, you know, if you're an adult and you're yelling at a child, like, picture a grown man yelling at like a two or three year old kid, right? And they're so big, like, just think about what that would look like, okay?

And I remember hearing that and what happens there is you put yourself in that kid's shoes and you almost see yourself looking at, you know, looking up and you go, oh, yeah, that's scary, right? It's that, that moment of, let me look at this from this other person's perspective.

Let me see all of it, not just what they're saying, but let me zoom out and look at the context. All that's going on here. How would I feel in that situation? That is the empathy component.

There's understanding logically, hey, you need to get your engine changed.

And then there's understanding emotionally, ah, this person must be so stressed out they're going to have to deal with this car and they're supposed to be at work. That's a lot going on, right? And so validation at its finest includes both that logical understanding and that empathic understanding.

But if you don't have both, just lead with what you've got.

Dr. Fleck, I'm curious.

Was there anything in the course of you researching and writing this book that really gave you pause that struck you as somebody who already know so much about validation? But as you poured over the research, you were like, wow, I didn't know that. And it, you know, it kind of gave you something else to think about.

My gosh, there was so, so much. Unfortunately, I think some of the most startling was the research on invalidation and just how toxic that is.

And so we see, you know, kiddos who are raised in pervasively invalidating environments. That means we all invalidate our kids. It's okay. But situations in which every time a kid discloses an emotion, it's dismissed or shut down, right?

Or there's emotional abuse or physical abuse, that type of invalidation just what it does to a person. I mean, it is. Invalidation is highly correlated with just.

Just about every single mental health disorder you can imagine, including some of the most severe, like psychopathy, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder. I mean, the list goes on and on. And so this is really toxic stuff. And I don't think that there's an appreciation for that on a larger scale.

I think we know we're not supposed to do it, but I don't think there's a sense of why.

Doctor Fleck, if you could rewrite one parenting mantra through the lens of validation.

What would that be? To rewrite one or come up with one either. Okay, I don't know if I would re. I think I would lead the.

The parenting mantra I've got in my head is around that. Like, should I respond with problem solving or validation? Is this something to change or accept? All right.

That to me is like a really solid mantra because I find myself tripping over the urge to change constantly, especially when my kid's in distress. It's just so hard to be like, let's just sit with this. Let's just feel this.

As a psychologist, I'm shocked how difficult that is for me as someone who sits with big emotions all day, seeing it in my kid is just a different thing. And so that mantra of accept or change, accept or change, validate or problem solve, what should I do?

And that's not to say you can't problem solve ever. It's just, what are you going to lead with? Because if I want to be effective in giving advice, if I want it to be taken, I need to validate first.

What is one tip that you can share with parents who listen to or watch this interview about a small step that they can take tomorrow or today to address and include validation in their lives?

As parents, I want them to focus simply on saying the words or feeling the words. I see you. Okay, those are words you can say, but do you feel it?

So when a kiddos spinning out or whatever, especially after like a conflict with you in which you're feeling targeted, can you see the kernel of truth in their experience? So much of it is like out of proportion and X, Y or Z. But can you see some part of how they got there?

I'm often asking myself, like, what's the kernel of truth? Where is it? Can I see them? And I want to feel that in me. And that is the North Star.

What a wonderful way to end our interview. Dr. Caroline Fleck, licensed psychologist and author of Validation Lots to think about. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

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