Raising Anxiety: Why our good intentions are backfiring on children (and how to fix it).
Dr Judith Locke, alongside a fellow clinical psychologist, Dr Danielle Einstein, returned to St Hildas to deliver more sessions; this time, the topic was the current increase in anxiety issues in young people.
Judith and Danielle spoke to all teachers, students in Year 5 to 8 classes, and many parents to ensure that fears and anxiety don’t hold children back from doing what they need to do. For those of you who missed the parent session, here is a taste of what we said.
- These days, many parents are doing their very best to give their children a great childhood that is unblemished by disappointment, difficulty or sadness. While this is a well-intended attempt at increasing children’s self-esteem and subsequent potential, it means that some children might not become used to coping with occasional tricky days or less than stellar outcomes. When these children encounter life’s inevitable challenges, they are not as practiced or capable of coping, and more likely to have a strong emotional reaction.
- This is particularly true if a child is protected from facing the sorts of activities that make them fearful. While the term ‘anxiety’ now has connotations as being something children should avoid, experiencing fearful feelings prior to doing an activity means nothing more than the endeavour is important to you, and that the outcome of your efforts is unknown or uncertain.
- More importantly, nerves are often helpful. They can prompt people to do useful things, such as spend some time preparing, practising, or studying, to have a better chance of getting though or doing well in the task.
- Feeling anxious or nervous never feels good (for anyone) but it is important to learn to face the feeling. If children avoid those things that make them scared, it will mean they miss critical tasks that are important to their goals and their growth. If they avoid facing these tasks often enough, then they will fail to keep up with their peers and become more likely to develop an anxiety disorder.
- Things don’t have to go well every time. Practice in coping with facing a range of tasks with a range of outcomes is a critical element of children developing resilience. But, if they don’t learn to endure facing any task with an uncertain outcome, such as applying for a role or team, or delivering a talk in class, then they’re making themselves more prone to a likelihood of developing an anxiety disorder and other issues, such as depression or an eating disorder.
- To stop this likelihood, parents should deliberately ensure that their child is learning to go with the flow of an often-unpredictable life with the challenges of other people and necessary course corrections. Parents can do this in simple areas: not altering your plans of who was intended to put your young child to bed, despite their current preference for the other parent; not spending endless time getting their hairstyle perfect enough for them; or not enabling them to dictate the other students in their camp or class group is as being exactly to their preferences. That’s because these accommodations will inadvertently make your child think they can only cope if things always happen in the exact manner they want. Over time this will make them less independently capable and inflexible.
- In the Year 5-8 classes, we adjusted the information to only talk about the value of facing challenge and supporting your friends doing the same. The students seemed very receptive to the messages we delivered. Parents might be interested to know that even the Year 5 and 6 classes completely understood that they needed to have occasional difficulty and disappointment in their lives to be ready for the years beyond. (Almost all Junior school students said that they would never send a child to the imaginary ‘Dr Locke’s School of Endless Happiness and Success’, as it would not make any students ready for the years beyond school.) Children know the value of facing challenge, they just might need reminders of this every now and then from their parents and teachers. They also might need to be prompted of the benefits of getting better at facing down their fears and apprehensions, and remember that they will always be proud when they have managed to face tricky things.
- When children do express fear to parents or teachers, we suggest that it is best to listen to their fears a little, empathise with them, and normalise their emotional reaction as being typical and something many would feel. Then encourage your child to think if there is anything they can do to help them become a little more ready for the task. ·
So what else can parents do to help their child face their fears? Raising Anxiety recommends lots of different ways for parents to reduce the likelihood of their child developing an anxiety issue, and lots of tips to help your child face any overwhelming fears impacting their day-to-day responsibilities. We have some strategies for parents’ fears as well (clinically, we find that a child’s fears sometimes bring on parent fears and vice versa). There are many tips in the book that are also associated with issues associated with anxiety, particularly two very large chapters on exact ways to introduce and subsequently manage screens to ensure the black mirror doesn’t impact your family’s harmony and wellbeing. We also include ideas on how to help ‘sensitive’ children, assisting your child manage any friendship challenges, and, should the need arise, how to ensure therapy is effective for you or your child. (Additionally, The Bonsai Student – which all parents at St Hilda’s have – also has some great ways to coach your child through many school challenges, such as getting ready for school and doing their homework, so that these don’t become such a challenge for parents!)
Good, productive and satisfying lives involve occasional hard things. Parents and schools need to work together to ensure that we don’t inadvertently hold the next generation back in a misguided attempt at care. We owe it to our children to make sure we genuinely help them grab every opportunity and undertake every part of their school journey to be able to reach their true potential.
© Dr Judith Locke, Clinical Psychologist.
