I’m scared of a lot of things. I’m scared of parties, politics and the weird elongated men that hide under my bed and try to grab my ankles if I don’t leap into bed from at least a metre away. I’m forty two, and that’s one of my major fears.
I’m scared that one of my children might get hit by a car, or get their heart broken or be touched up by some bastard in a movie theatre. I’m scared they won’t get enough calcium for healthy bones, I’m scared someone will bully them, I’m scared they won’t ever know their full potential.
But my biggest fear is that they will be scared and lonely and no one will take that fear away in time.
Which is sort of ironic, when you think about it. Why am I so afraid of my children being afraid when I know that I cope just fine with that feeling and that it doesn’t really change a thing unless you let it.
It doesn’t change a thing.
At the risk of sounding like Susan Jeffers, it’s actually okay to be worried, afraid, scared, daunted and even terrified. It’s okay. What’s not okay is letting our fears stop us or our children from going forward in some way. It’s important that we teach them that they are in control of how the world makes them feel.
I wonder what makes some of us more fearful than others. We seem to be born with a certain propensity towards being fearful or not. And, of course, being ‘brave’ is easy when you’re not really afraid of anything. Being brave is much, much harder when you’re worried about most things but you go ahead and do them anyway.
Being fearless is different to being brave. Being fearless is an automatic reaction to rational danger. I’ve always been a fearless sort of person, but I’m not terribly brave. Being brave requires us to confront our own clawing, irrational creations. To confront our very selves.
Which is ironic, when you think about how many times we encourage an anxious child to be ‘brave’. What a lot we ask of them! The fact is, the only thing that most of us are ever terrified of is that we will find ourselves in a situation and not be able to handle it.
We are simply scared we won’t catch ourselves.
The key to raising ‘brave’ children is to teach them that they can handle things on their own. That they have all they need inside to sort out what’s going on outside.
Which is easy for me to think, but much less harder to action. For instance, I was never very good at managing fear at night at our place and I would in my children’s rooms for as long as it took them to fall asleep. I spent so many nights sitting on the end of my those beds that these days I am part nocturnal.
The old scared-of-the-dark conversation went like this:
“I’m scared, I want you to sit with me.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, your dad and I are just downstairs.”
“But I’m sooooo scared,” starts to cry. “I really need you here.”
“Oh, okay, but only for a minute…. just a minute more… only for a little bit longer…”
The new-scared-of-the-dark conversation goes a little bit like this:
“I’m scared, I want you to sit with me.”
“Well, I’m busy doing other things so I just can’t right now.”
“But I’m sooooo scared,” starts to cry. “I really need you here.”
“What are you thinking about? What’s making you feel so scared?”
“Monsters. The dark.”
“I want you to lie there quietly for a little while; it’s okay if you cry a little if it makes you feel better. Think about those monsters and the dark and all the things you’re worried about. Do some detective work and think about why those things make you so scared. I’ll come back soon and we’ll talk about what you find out.”
“Don’t go, I’m scared!”
“It’s okay to feel scared. Mummy wouldn’t go if I thought that anything would happen to you, would I? I’ll be back soon.”
And then I go.
Now, the outcome of both of these conversations might be exactly the same. My child will cry about being scared some more and I will probably head back in there in about 5 minutes or so. But in the new conversation there are three critical things I know I’ve done as well:
1. Acknowledge the fear
Dismissing a fear doesn’t make it go away. It can actually have the opposite effect for kids. Being told ‘there’s no such thing as monsters’ only makes them scared of monsters and talking about their feelings. The monsters they fear are very real to them and it’s important to acknowledge that.
2. Don’t rationalise the fear
We rationalise our children’s fears when we apply the balm they’ve asked of us. So, in the first scenario, sitting in the room with my child would have made her believe that her fear is real and appropriate. I might say, “you don’t need to be scared of monsters, nothing is going to happen to you” as I sat down, but all she would be hearing is, “I’m going to tell you there’s nothing to fear, but I’m going to sit at the end of your bed to protect you from all those monsters, see, here I go, you need protecting because they’re really out to get you.” Acknowledge the fear and then leave it at that. Don’t start believing in monsters yourself.
3. Confront the fear
Lastly, rather than telling my child not to ‘be brave’ and not think about monsters or worry about monsters, I’ve asked her to confront those monsters. Again, I’m not going to sit with her while she does that because I want her to know that she can manage this on her own. I will be very engaged, interested and present by coming in every now and then, always with a reason (“have a think about X and I’ll come by in a little while to talk about it”), I’m clear that I’m not “checking” on her, I’m just coming back for the next part of the story. Of course, my very presence will be reassuring to her and that’s one point. The other point is that I’m helping her learn that she is perfectly capable of monster slaying without me.
Helping our children realise that they are perfectly okay without us is kind of the point of parenting. It’s not at all pleasant to think of our children being scared and not immediately taking that fear away, but it’s even more unpleasant to raise them to be scared of being scared.
It’s okay to be scared, it’s what you do about that feeling that matters in the end.
It’s okay to be scared, it’s what you do about that feeling that matters in the end.
What are you afraid of? Have you ever confronted it head on?
This post was originally published on Village Voices. I’m republishing some of my favourites here.