Today on RAW, I speak with Ruti Dariel—mother of three, psychotherapist, expressive arts therapist, and certified parenting coach with over 20 years of clinical experience.
Ruti’s journey is deeply personal and profoundly relevant to this moment. A few years ago, despite her professional expertise, she found herself facing questions many parents know intimately:
How do I truly connect with my child when things get hard?
How do I set boundaries without losing myself?
How do I respond to frustration and aggression in a way that actually helps?
Especially as a mother of highly sensitive children, Ruti realized that many conventional parenting tools simply didn’t reach far enough. Her search for deeper understanding led her to the attachment-based developmental approach, through years of study at the Neufeld Institute and beyond.
In this conversation, we explore the emotional toll of living—and parenting—through war in Israel. I asked Ruti:
How does ongoing conflict affect our children, especially the more sensitive ones?
How can we stay emotionally present when we’re anxious and afraid ourselves?
What can we do when our kids act out or shut down—and how do we help them find resilience and hope?
And how do we talk to children about things like fear, bereavement, and the future in ways that are age-appropriate and honest?
Ruti offers not just wisdom, but warmth—a sense that we’re not alone in our struggle to show up for our children in such uncertain times. This episode is for any parent asking: How do I hold my child’s heart, even when mine feels heavy?
