Saving Our Kids From All Their Scary Feelings 🎃
How to prepare our kids for the road rather than clearing the road for our kids
Hello! I hope you and your family are doing well!
For decades, popular advice has told us we should save our kids from feelings of fear, stress, and worry. For a long time, parents have been encouraged to help kids avoid rather than navigate scary feelings.
But following this advice has earned us the name “Snowplow Parents,” defined as parents who try to clear all obstacles from their child's path rather than teaching them to face obstacles, learning and growing in the process. We prepare the road for our child rather than our child for the road.
When we act as snowplows, we help our kids avoid reasonable, productive stress and do things for them that they can (with a little effort) do for themselves. We mean well, but our actions accidentally get in the way of them learning from the natural trial and error of facing adversity.
For me, being a snowplow parent felt natural and good. One example of how it showed up for me is when my child felt afraid of elevators, I led her to the stairs. It seemed easier and more loving for me to avoid elevators with her than to teach her the skills and emotional fortitude she needed to ride in them.
My instinct to love and protect her was admirable, but my actions inhibited her growth and resilience. She was capable of riding elevators, but I was not letting her practice feeling fear and anxiety within the safety of our relationship.
Today I understand why I have the instinct to be a snowplow, but I’m also thoughtful about when, why, and how I help my child avoid reasonable feelings of fear, stress, and worry. Watching her struggle is incredibly hard for me, but knowing it’s an essential part of growth helps me tolerate it.
When our kids are afraid, it’s natural to want to help them avoid the things that scare them. But part of supporting our kids’ healthy development is allowing them to struggle with us by their side.
We can be there to support them through experiences of doing things that make them uncomfortable, like taking the elevator or eating a meal they loved before their eating disorder but has become a source of terror for them*.
Doing this is both excruciating and an important part of treatment and recovery. We can find the sweet spot, the appropriate mix of challenge and comfort, to support our children in developing mental strength and resilience.
Each of us has something psychologists call a window of tolerance.** Think of a room with a window in it. The window is your child’s capacity to cope with the external world’s stressors without flying into a rage, running away, or shutting down.
Recovering from mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, negative body image, and eating disorders hinges on expanding the window of tolerance and coping with increasing but reasonable levels of distress over time.
We don’t expect a child to double or triple the size of their window overnight, but we want to help them make steady progress and gradually expand their window of tolerance.
It was hard for me to realize that my attempts to help her avoid fear meant my child wasn’t building the skills she needed to navigate reasonable stress and adversity, but it’s OK—we just started practicing navigating her feelings rather than avoiding them.
We’re always learning and growing. We’re all works in progress!
Increasing your child’s window of tolerance is a game-changer. Let me know if you’d like some coaching on how to do it!
Ginny Jones Parent Coach / More-Love.org
* This exercise is best done with the support of an eating disorder professional.
** The Window of Tolerance is attributed to Daniel J. Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and author of many books including two of my favorites: The Whole Brain Child and The Power Of Showing Up.
Coaching Notes
Here are some stories from the last few weeks of my work with parents who have kids with anxiety, eating, and body image issues:
I got an uplifting update from a parent I worked with several years ago. Her daughter is in recovery from her eating disorder and has started training for her dream career.
I helped my clients differentiate when their child’s eating disorder symptoms need intervention and when they need to be expressed and witnessed with compassion and love. The result is a deeper connection and an easier relationship.
I wrote about how to feed your relationship and motivate eating disorder recovery. If you’d like to read it, you can do so here.
Understanding The Window Of Tolerance
You can help your child become more resilient and confident when facing challenges and adversity. I’ve created a summary of decades of research into the window of tolerance and applied it to your child’s mental health. We have so much influence and can help our kids develop skills and muscles to cope with challenges, and this guide will help you get started.
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