Capable

How to Teach Your Kids the Strengths, Skills, and Strategies to Build Resilience

By: Sissy Goff, David Thomas

Narrated by: Sissy Goff, David Thomas

Today's kids face unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. Despite our best efforts, our children continue to struggle with internal and external pressures that impact their mental health. If we're doing all we can to make sure our kids are happy, why aren't they?

Beloved therapists, speakers, and authors Sissy Goff and David Thomas have discovered the key is found in one word: capable. Capable kids are confident kids who don't shrink from challenges. They're resilient kids who get back up when life knocks them down. They're thriving kids because they have a deep belief in their ability to do hard things, overcome roadblocks, and keep moving forward.

In Capable, Sissy and David draw on their more than fifty years of combined counseling experience to offer a clinically sound, emotionally attuned, faith-informed approach to help kids build the resilience they need in today's world. Through evidence-based insight and practical guidance, Sissy and David equip you to nurture capability—the internalized belief that a child can face adversity, navigate challenges, manage stress, and build confidence in who they are and who God has made them to be.

This enhanced audiobook includes bonus Q&A with the authors.

©2026 Helen S. Goff and David Scott Thomas

Must read for every parent

I read a lot of books but only review my very favorite and most impactful which this book scores highest next to Dr Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside. I will recommend for all my clients and every parent. So so good!

Very practical

There were so many practical ways to work on capability and good explanation of how and why

Thank you

This js the parenting book we needed: a comprehensive guide for parenting through the waves of emotions and experiences

Some good stuff, some cringe worthy plus misuse of scripture

In summary, some good stuff in here and some that was just inappropriate to include.

The chapter “Shaking off the Dust” was just a blatant misuse and misinterpretation of scripture and ended with Sissy encouraging parents to teach their children to use the scripture in a vindictive, self serving way. Jesus is teaching his disciples how to preach the gospel, including how to move on from places and people against the gospel. Sissy uses the scripture way too broadly to cover upsetting feelings/experiences and even ends by saying to reassure your kids that God will go after those who cause them “dust”! WHAT?? What team of Christian friends/editors read that chapter and thought that was sound teaching?? She could have instead focused on the water resistant analogy she mentioned.

There’s also an uncomfortable amount of descriptions of real struggling parents, who obviously did NOT give their consent to be judged and included in this book. There’s a mom (who struggled parenting on a flight), who may someday pick up this book for help and instead be crushed and heartbroken to see herself and her child being publicly scrutinized and judged.

There is a portion meant just for parenting girls and boys respectively, which is very stereotypical. Much of what is covered could apply to either gender or not apply to the gender they’ve assigned. I was tempted to skip the gender section that didn’t apply for my kids and then found it helpful, which made me feel wrong somehow? Like are my kids weird for also benefiting from this other genders’ parenting tips? No.

Is it worth a listen/read? I guess. There was some helpful stuff in the book. I would say the target audience is parents who have tried to gentle parent and are realizing they’re permissive parenting. Or parents that are struggling to give their kids independence. Maybe they can print a revised edition at some point without misusing the words of Jesus. Take what you need and leave the other stuff.