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Parenting: Moving our children from “BUT” to “AND”


Next week is children’s mental health week and the theme this year is “ Know yourself, grow yourself”.  In our schools our children will be exploring the different parts of themselves – the kind part, the mean part, the lazy part, the super competitive part.  They will be meeting their big feelings and learning that all our emotions have a place and a job and it is important to make room for every single one. 

The tide has finally started to change and we are now beginning to support our young people to shift themselves from a “BUT” to an “AND”

From “I would like to go to the party BUT I am feeling anxious about going” to  “I would like to go to the party AND I am feeling anxious about going”

This may appear to be a benign change but within these small words lies so much agency both for ourselves and for our children. 

Within this context imagine your child has been invited to a playdate.  They are super excited and they are super anxious.  Their mind starts to show up with all sorts of things like “will I be ok” “will I be able to find the toilet” “what if I need a drink of water” “where will I put my coat” …and so the list goes on.  This is our child’s mind doing exactly what it is supposed to do - thinking of all the possible scenarios so our child can feel prepared in the situation.  Two things normally happen in this space…

We attempt to reassure them by challenging their thoughts – “you are fine without me at school all day, you are going to be fine;” “you have been away from us lots of time before and you have been OK”, “you can always ask where the toilet is” … This can be helpful because it supports our children to broaden their perspective and essentially challenge what their mind is showing up with.  This can also be difficult because their mind will almost always be more tenacious than you and will meet your challenge with endless “Yeah, but what if ….”

We invalidate them – “you’re not worried you are just excited”, “everybody loves playdates there is nothing to worry about”, “you are overreacting” ….  

While well-meaning, each of these scenarios (if repeated again and again) have consequences.  Persistently invalidating our kids’ emotional experiences can lead to two things.  One, our kids feel like we don’t get it and stop sharing their feelings with us.   Two, they start to question their own emotions because they are persistently told they are not feeling what they think they are feeling. And we know excessive reassurance actively maintains anxiety.

As a parent it can feel painful to watch our kids grabble with tricky feelings and our instinct is often to move them away from these feelings.  But each time we move them away we are missing an opportunity for growth. We need to use these opportunities to focus on the longer-term gain of tolerating discomfort.    None of us, big or small, have control over our emotions. They show up when they want, how they want and for however long they want.   When our children learn that it is perfectly normal to feel uncomfortable doing something new, they can feel uncomfortable about something AND they can do it anyway.  As parents it is our job to be strong leaders.   When we feel confident that the situation is safe, although uncomfortable, the most helpful thing we can do in that moment is to support our children to go and do the uncomfortable thing. 

The how….

·       Normalise feeling uncomfortable about new things - “I get it. It is completely normal to feel worried about doing something new”

·       Draw attention to the difference between unsafe and uncomfortable. “I believe that you have big feelings about going to Jack’s house AND I believe that you can manage those big feelings.”  Our children look to us for cues about how safe a situation is and how confident we feel about their ability to manage the situation.  Over time our confidence in them will become their confidence in them.   

·       Hold a sturdy boundary.  This will look different for different kids.  It might be in one big step - they go for the whole playdate – or it might be much smaller steps – they go for 10 minutes while you wait in the car.   

We live in a world that consistently allows us to choose comfort.  We want to watch a movie; we click onto amazon prime. We would like a new top; we order online and it arrives the next morning.  We want to find the answer to a tricky maths question, we pick up our phones and type the question in.  Our kids are growing up in a world of instant gratification and while this can feel massively convenient in the short term, in the long term we are taking away the organic moments that build their capacity to sit with discomfort.  Because of this we need to hold steady when our child is feeling uncomfortable in a safe situation.  This feeling is often unfamiliar to our children and unfamiliar often feels unsafe.  Supporting our children to feel the feeling AND do it anyway may be hard in the short term but in the long term it will be one of your most worthwhile investments.      


 



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