Anxiety is a normal healthy part
of being human. If we don’t feel anxious
when there is an angry dog heading our way it is very possible that we will be
attacked – we need anxiety to keep ourselves safe. However, for many of our young people their
anxiety shows up in situations that are primarily safe but often uncomfortable
or embarrassing. This might be starting
a new school, reading out your English essay or going to your fist disco. This happens
because the part of our brain that is responsible for processing danger, a tiny
little almond shaped structure called the amygdala, is not very good at knowing
what is dangerous and what is not. And
when the amygdala is not sure it always errs on the side of caution and sounds
the alarm. This means that our kids can feel super anxious in all sorts of
situations even though we know (and they sometimes know) that nothing bad is
gong to happen.
It is helpful for our kids to
understand the science behind their anxiety.
Knowledge is power and it allows them to make sense of what is happening
to them. BUT knowledge is not
enough. It is not enough because the
brain learns by doing.
Imagine this scenario: Your child is about to leave for football. Their mind is showing up with all the things
that might go wrong – they might miss a goal, they might get sent off, they
might get injured by another player – and so the list goes on. The amygdala is listening to this commentary
and decides it is way too risky to go to the match. It sounds the alarm and activates your
child’s FFF response. What you as a
parent observe is your child getting more and more dysregulated, their
breathing might change, they might start to shake, they cannot seem to hear
anything you are saying and ultimately you all make the decision to stay at
home. Everyone feels relieved and the
hyperarousal that your child is experiencing gradually dissipates.
But what is your child’s brain
learning through this process? The
amygdala now feels vindicated, it feels like it has averted a potential threat
and it needs to record the incident in the memory log (The Hippocampus). It
will record something like this
The
football match is full of potential threats, we stay safe in this situation by
not going to the football match.
Now fast forward to the following
Thursday and it is football night again.
This time your child’s brain has a lived experience of surviving
football training and it now believes that the way to stay safe is to not
attend. So, when you ask your child to
go get ready the amygdala swings into action immediately. It activates the FFF response with all its might
to make sure the football training does not happen because that is what kept
their child safe the last time.
Ultimately when we facilitate avoidance
of the things they are frightened of we are inadvertently strengthening their
anxiety. We are teaching the amygdala
that the way to keep them safe is to avoid the situation. When this happens repeatedly the amygdala
becomes so frightened of letting them go into the situation that it activates
more and more intense anxiety reactions.
When we facilitate avoidance, we
are ultimately allowing our kids feeling to dictate what is happening. We are effectively handing over the reins to
the anxiety and letting the anxiety decide what happens.
Our job in these circumstances
has three parts
1. We need to validate our kids feeling. We need to let them know that we see them and
we get that this is difficult for them
2. We
need to let them know that we believe that they will be uncomfortable and we
also believe they will be able to cope with the situation. We are their mirrors and we need to reflect a
confidence in their ability - not their ability to do something without anxiety
but rather their ability to do something regardless of their anxiety
3. We
need to hold our boundaries and not allow the anxiety to dictate what is going
to happen next
When we hold robust boundaries,
we are supporting our children to do the things that they are frightened of and
we are allowing them the opportunity to build competence. When our children have the experience of
doing something they didn’t think they would be able to do this feels really
good. But not only that, their amygdala
must now process a new entry into the memory system
The
football match is full of potential threats but we went and nothing catastrophic
happened, maybe the football is not so dangerous
Dr Becky Kennedy identifies
competence as the antidote to anxiety.
She suggests that competence essentially comes from struggle. You take something on, you feel anxious about
it, but you see it through. And while
this may feel uncomfortable or even embarrassing, you survive it. One
of the things we need to remember is that when we are doing new things,
particularly things that make us feel vulnerable, we are going to feel anxious. This is part of being human. If we protect our kids from these experiences
because they feel anxious, we are literally depriving them of opportunities to develop
an inner sense of competence. And without
an inner sense of competence anxiety will thrive.
Going to the football training may
continue to be uncomfortable but by putting our child into this situation over
and over what we are doing is facilitating them to tolerate the uncomfortable feeling
over and over again. And it through this
process that our kids develop the skills to tolerate uncomfortable feeling like
anxiety. We are not trying to eliminate
the anxiety; we are supporting them to feel the anxiety and do it anyway.
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