When Worry Creeps In, Try These Steps
Supporting our children as they work through anxious thoughts can sometimes be tricky to navigate as we strive to balance reassurance with resiliency-building. The most impactful approach adults can take is to be present and ask thoughtful questions that encourage agency. Try these steps:
Listen. Your child’s worry is very real to them.
Empathize and validate. Focus on connection. This step can include identifying and normalizing the feelings you hear being expressed, which builds emotional fluency. For example: “It sounds like you feel really concerned about ______ . So many people feel this way when they’re (trying something new/feeling scared/finding their brave).”
Make space for a collaborative solution. This step can sound like “What do you think would be a good solution for this problem?”, or “How can I help?”
Reassure. Here, you can offer a statement that summarizes the previous steps. For example: “I’m listening, and I hear you saying that ______. It sounds like you’re feeling ______ and this is totally understandable. Your idea of ______ seems like a great solution to try.”
Move on. After you’ve followed the previous four steps, you can be done. Resist the urge to offer additional reassurance in the moment or give ongoing attention to continued voicing of concerns from your child.
It’s often the case that our own fears get in the way of supporting children’s confidence. And we do a disservice when we over-reassure, as this sends the message that we don’t believe our children to be capable. We do not need to jump into the pool of our child’s feelings through ongoing co-rumination or over re-assuring; instead, we can develop a practice of ‘they will feel it, we can talk about, and then we’ll move on’.
Defining the range of emotions for what they are (temporary, sometimes intense, and ever shifting) frames the conversation that all humans exist in multitudes and are not defined by one single moment or situation. As an antidote to rigid or fatalistic thinking we can remind our children of their growth and their progress while looking ahead with realistic optimism; this is how self-confidence and agency will be developed, and personal agency is protective of mental health.
We can also encourage our older children to reflect on their feelings from a different perspective; for example, “What advice would you give a friend in this situation?”, or “Two weeks from now, how do you picture yourself feeling about this?” Offering perspective through distance can allow more objective processing that’s removed from the intensity of the current moment.
It’s ok to listen and sit with our children in their discomfort instead of rescuing or fixing. Ultimately, our job as parents is to help them believe in themselves.