Parents want their kids to be happy, well-adjusted, and content. Who wouldn’t want that for their children?
However, what happens when we try to protect children from disappointment or failure? For instance, they don’t make the cut for the basketball team. Or they learn that they weren’t invited to another child’s birthday party.
If we don’t allow them to face that disappointment, the result can be that they never learn how to cope adequately with that kind of stress. Inadvertently, our need to protect them can actually cause our children to start having anxiety.
As they grow up, this can lead to bigger problems, such as anxiety disorders.
For good reasons, then, anxiety is something parents need to address with their kids. That includes the possibility that they themselves might be instilling anxiety in their children.
Laying the Foundation for Anxiety
Parents don’t want their kids to be anxious. Yet, at the same time, they may not want their children to experience distress either.
First, let’s make one thing clear: there’s a big difference between anxiety and distress. Anxiety results from not feeling in control of a situation. Whereas, distress involves experiencing negative feelings or emotions—such as hurt, disappointment, or even fear. Certainly, distress can lead to anxiety, but the two are separate things.
The problem is that parents may unintentionally be instilling anxiety in their children by not allowing them to feel distress. This could be because they are worried about what might happen for their children if they become anxious.
Instilling Anxiety by Rescuing
The concept of not allowing children to experience these distressing feelings is called “rescuing.” It’s what you do, as a parent, when you notice your child is feeling upset—you swoop in and save them from this experience. For instance, if they don’t make the team, you find a way for them to join an alternate team. Or, at home, you don’t put too many requirements on your child to do chores or homework.
You mean well because you don’t want them to become stressed out. Yet, you are also taking away an important formative experience—how to live with disappointment. In the long run, this causes your child to be less resilient, incapable of coping with emotional distress and anxiety.
Important Lessons and Coping Skills
Knowing how to cope with disappointment and loss is very important for childhood development. What do you think about when facing a setback? Do you wallow in your misery? Ok, maybe for a moment. But then what?
Do you…
- …learn from your mistakes?
- …choose a different course of action?
- …recommit to accomplishing your goal?
- …reevaluate the situation and perhaps shift your goal to something more realistic?
Most especially, does disappointment affect your inner core of who you are as a person? If not, then it’s probably because you had experiences that helped shape your ability to cope with these situations, to develop resilience.
So, why do some parents fail to pass these same life lessons on to their children?
Anxiety Disorders and the Family
It’s not unheard of for parents to pass on anxiety traits to their children. One is simply biology, especially when it comes to brain chemistry; the other is environmental.
When children see their parents react to stressful situations with anxiety, they learn to do so themselves. Thus, they don’t develop the coping tools necessary to deal with difficult situations that occur in their own lives.
This also means that your child will likely avoid taking risks that could be stressful but, at the same time, also provide rewards. For instance, applying for a job or taking on a difficult task with no predictable outcome. Sadly, a lot of worthwhile experiences may be locked out of your child’s life because they’re too anxious to even try.
What Parents Can Do
If you are concerned that you may have been inadvertently instilling anxiety in your child, stop for a moment. This line of thinking could cause you to have anxiety yourself!
Instead, take a step back and reflect on how you responded to your child in the past. Then, begin to consider how you can better support your child through distressing times to help them develop resilience. It’s never too late!
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Parents play a crucial role in how children deal with stress and anxiety. Certainly, anxiety in children is something to be concerned about. If left untreated, they could develop an anxiety disorder in adulthood. However, if you stay aware that you are not unwittingly instilling anxiety in your child, you can give them a better foundation for coping with anxious moments in adulthood.
If you’re interested in knowing more about my approach to anxiety treatment, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m happy to help.
