Via TED
"Parenting for comfort is not limited to the parents of anxious kids. It's the common thread in the last 30 years of parenting trends, from the helicopter parenting of yore to the gentle parenting of today. All of it is rooted in this (false) idea that healthy is a synonym for happy. But I have watched this approach play out hundreds of times in my office, and I can tell you, there are three big problems with parenting for comfort."
— How to Raise Kids Who Can Handle Hard Things | Kathryn Hecht | TED, at 6:32
Pediatric psychologist Kathryn Hecht argues that the last 30 years of parenting trends, from helicopter parenting to gentle parenting, are "rooted in this idea that healthy is a synonym for happy."
The instinct to protect children from discomfort is loving, but it backfires.
- It places an impossible burden on parents. When we try to manage a child's emotional experience, we take on the task of controlling something we can't: someone else's feelings.
- It teaches kids that hard feelings are an emergency. When we cancel the picnic or open the bathroom door mid-stream, "our actions shout: 'This feeling is a problem.'" Children learn that their emotions are dangerous rather than manageable.
- It doesn't work. We cannot guarantee emotional comfort when discomfort is a side effect of being alive.
This pattern of behavior in parents, known as Accommodation, comes from love. But it sends children a destructive message: the threat is real, the fear is justified, you can't handle this on your own.
Rather than parenting for comfort, Hecht advocates parenting for confidence using the ABC formula that exposure therapists have relied on for decades:
A (Anxiety) + B (Bravery) = C (Confidence)
The ABC formula operates on the premise that kids don't require a comfortable life. Rather, they need to become comfortable with discomfort and develop the confidence to handle the situation at hand.
How do you parent for "handleability"? Hecht offers three strategies.
- Create opportunities for anxiety through adventure. No kid jumps off the high dive if you never take them to the pool. For Sammy, a bee-phobic eight-year-old, that meant resuming ordinary family fun: walking to get ice cream, smelling the flowers, eating watermelon on the cabin deck.
- Model bravery yourself. Sammy's parents didn't force him outside. They went out and enjoyed watermelon despite the wasps. This is jumping in the pool and showing the water's fine.
- Celebrate confidence-building actions. "Being brave is hard work, and hard work deserves a reward." Sammy earned brave points for each step he took on his "bravery ladder": bee pictures, then videos, then a dead bee in a jar, then real bees.
Parenting for confidence requires bravery from parents, too.
This means watching your kid panic before the hockey game and sending them onto the ice anyway. Or peeling your protesting one-year-old off your body at daycare and walking out before you burst into tears.
"These actions ask us to place a bet on our child's ability to cope when they themselves are screaming: 'Don't bet on me.'"
It's emotionally hard. But the secret is this: anxious kids can transfer anxiety to adults, and adults can transfer confidence to kids. Children look to adults to gauge safety. When we stay calm, we signal that they're capable of handling it.
A parent's job during a wave of anxiety is not to rescue their kids. It's to be a warm, steady anchor while the kids discover they can ride it out.
