As a parent of an anxious child or teen, it can be challenging to not be irritated, frustrated and even embarrassed by his fears.
You want them to be like the other kids and not cause a scene.
It takes SO long to get them to do things. You resent that as you watch other kids just go and participate. You feel claustrophobic with them climbing all over you, clinging and crying. You feel like you’ve tried and tried and its just not working. It feels like everything takes SO much longer to prep them, to get warmed up and willing, to slowly ease in and then multiple attempts.
Or, you feel like your kid just won’t even try. You think that If they’d just try, they’d be able to do it.
You might think thoughts like, “Why is my kid so different, so afraid, such a whimp? What’s wrong with them? Or, you may be thinking, “what’s wrong with me? What did I do wrong? Why is this still a problem? I’m sick of everyone staring at us. This is so embarrassing!”
Or, you may be thinking, “How do I know how hard to push my kid? Am I pushing too hard? Not hard enough? I feel like we’re fighting about this all the time, so should I give in? Is this a battle worth fighting? Is this going to cause more problems in the future? Is this ruining our relationship?”
Are you starting to feel like you’re also the one worrying?
Don’t worry, that’s normal.
But it doesn’t have to stay around causing stress and anxiety for you as well as your child.
As a coach I can help you identify what thoughts you are having about your child’s anxieties and how those are affecting the situation. Your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings drive your actions.
Yes, your words, body language and voice tone all make a difference.
If you are thinking any of the thoughts above, like, “I’m sick of this, This is so frustrating, Why is this such a problem?”, those thoughts will create feelings such as frustration, annoyance, anger, confusion, sadness, critical, overwhelmed, inferior, etc”
When you’re feeling those feelings, what do you think your body language will be like? Your tone of voice? Your compassion and empathy? Your facial expression?
What actions would those feelings drive? I know it drove me to frown, complain, worry more, get upset, yell, push too hard or avoid situations, dwell on negative thoughts, worry what others were thinking, etc.
Those actions certainly weren’t helping me help my child. They were actually making the situation worse.
So, what do you do?
You get really curious and learn to watch your thoughts, notice the feelings rise in you, how to work with your stress response instead of letting it control you and you create new thoughts that drive new feeling and actions.
This is what I can teach you to do.
Yes, the first step for your anxious child/teen to make progress is for YOU to work on your own thoughts and feelings and actions.
And yes, you CAN do it!
I’m doing free sessions for missionaries and parents. Schedule a time for a FREE session. Have a quick question? Shoot me an email at info@jillfreestone.com. I’d love to hear from you.
