Anxiety: What we decide, they will follow – but first, the decision.

What we decide, they will follow.

When anxiety hits, our children will look to us for signs of safety. They’ll be needing to know, ‘Do you think I’m safe?’ ‘Do you think I can do this?’ ‘Do you think I’m brave enough, strong enough, capable enough?’

What we decide, they will follow. They might be achingly unwilling for a while, but eventually, they will follow. If only making the decision wasn’t so entangled, so often, with our own anxiety, their distress, and the smudgy, uncertain line that often comes before brave.

One of the hardest things as a parent can be deciding when to protect our kids and when to support them into brave. For them, brave, hard, new things (scary-safe) will often feel like dangerous things (scary-dangerous). Their anxiety around this will drive anxiety in us. It’s why their brave things will often feel scary for us too.

There’s a good reason for this. As their important adults, we’re designed to feel distress at their distress. This is how we keep them safe. It’s normal, necessary, and the thing that makes us loving, beautiful, available parents. But – it’s also why their anxiety will often drive anxiety in us, and a powerful drive to protect them from whatever is causing their distress.

Their distress will drive distress in us … exactly as it’s meant to.

When our children are truly in danger, their distress (fight or flight) will drive distress (fight or flight) in us to give us the strength, the will, the everything to keep them safe. Fight or flight in them will raise fight or flight in us – to give us the physiological resources to fight for them or flee with them if we need to.

We’re meant to feel distress at their distress – but those distress signals can also run interference on brave behaviour. Anxiety can make safe, brave, important things feel like dangerous things – for them and for us. This is normal and healthy. What matters is our response.

Sometimes making the decision, ‘Do I step back into safety or forward into brave?’ is too much for our kids and teens, so we have to make the decision for them. What we decide, they will follow. 

You will see evidence of this everywhere in your home: Do I need to brush my teeth? Is it okay if I hit? Do I need to be kind? Do I matter? Is my voice important? And the big one to strengthen them against anxiety … Can I feel anxious and do brave? The decision on most of these is an easy ‘yes’. We decide. They follow (eventually).

With anxiety, the line can be blurry. Sometimes your concerns might be valid, in which case their fight or flight (anxiety) will be doing its job. Sometimes though, our enormous drive to protect them isn’t so much about needing to protect them from the situation, but about wanting to protect them from the distress of their anxiety. This is so normal! It’s what makes us loving, responsive parents. It’s also why we have an incredible capacity to respond to their anxiety in ways that can widen the space for brave behaviour to happen.

They will follow our concern, or they will follow our confidence – eventually. It doesn’t matter how long the move towards brave takes. What matters is opening them up to the possibilities for brave behaviour that are already in them, and have been all along. They can feel anxious, and do brave. So can we.

This is why we have to ask the question, ‘Do they feel like this because they’re in danger, or because they’re about to do something brave/ hard/ important?’Am I reacting to the situation, or to their distress?

And what if I feel uncertain?

If you do feel uncertain, what do you need to feel safer?  More information? More conversation? Smaller steps towards brave? If you don’t believe they’re safe – at school, swimming lessons, with the person taking care of them in your absence – they won’t either. Do you need more information or conversation to feel more certain that they are safe?

What information do you need to be able to position yourself to respond the way your young person needs you to – either by protecting them, or by giving plenty of signals of safety so they can feel bigger and safer as they move forward into brave. Until we make the decision, they won’t either.

So I’ve made the decision. This is a time for brave. What now?

If you’ve decided that this is a time for brave behaviour, now they will need you to love and lead. It’s not about one or the other, but both. See their anxiety and make space for it, and also see their brave and make space for that too.

This might sound like, ‘Yeah, this is big isn’t it. It’s okay to be worried. Of course you feel like this! You’re about to do something brave. I know you can do this. If you can’t do (the whole brave thing), what will you do – and don’t say ‘nothing’, because ‘nothing’ isn’t an option.’

The posture to take here is, ‘I believe you, and I believe in you.’ I believe you that this is big for you, and I believe you that you feel worried or scared or threadbare – and I know you can do this. I know it with everything in me.

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Too many students are being stifled by anxiety, and this number is on the rise.

Far from being ‘another anxiety workshop’, this comprehensive approach will draw on neuroscience, evidence-based strategies, and highly respected therapeutic models in developing a fresh, impactful approach to working with anxiety in young people.

We will explore anxiety from the ground up, developing a ‘roadmap’ for a therapeutic response to anxiety that will include key information, powerful strategies, and new responses to anxiety to effect immediate and long-term change.

This workshop is for anyone who works with young people in any capacity. 

Includes full catering, handbook and PD certificate.

For the full range of workshops in Australia and New Zealand, see the link in the bio.♥️
Relationship first, then learning and behaviour will follow. It can’t be any other way. 

Anxious brains can’t learn, and brains that don’t feel safe will organise young bodies (all bodies) for fight, flight (avoidance, refusal, disengagement, perfectionism), or shutdown. 

Without connection, warmth, a sense of belonging, feeling welcome, moments of joy, play, and levity, relational safety will be compromised, which will compromise learning and behaviour. It’s just how it is. Decades of research and experience are shouting this at us. 

Yet, we are asking more and more of our teachers. The more procedural or curriculum demands we place on teachers, the more we steal the time they need to build relationships - the most powerful tool of their trade. 

There is no procedure or reporting that can take the place of relationship in terms of ensuring a child’s capacity to learn and be calm. 

There are two spaces that teachers occupy. Sometimes they can happen together. Sometimes one has to happen first. 

The first is the space that lets them build relationship. The second is the space that lets them teach kids and manage a classroom. The second will happen best when there is an opportunity to fully attend to the first. 

There is an opportunity cost to everything. It isn’t about relationships OR learning. It’s relationships AND learning. Sometimes it’s relationships THEN learning. 

The best way we can support kids to learn and to feel calm, is to support teachers with the space, time, and support to build relationships. 

The great teachers already know this. What’s getting in the way isn’t their capacity or their will to build relationships, but the increasing demands that insist they shift more attention to grades, curriculum, reporting, and ‘managing’ behaviour without the available resources to build greater physical (sensory, movement) and relational safety (connection, play, joy, belonging).

Relationships first, then the rest will follow.♥️
Love and lead. 

First, we love. Validation lets them know we see them. Validation is a presence, not a speech. It’s showing our willingness to sit with them in the ‘big’ of it all, without needing to talk them out of how they feel.

It says, ‘I see you. I believe you that this feels big. Bring your feelings to me, because I can look after you through all of it.’

Then, we lead. Our response will lead theirs, not just this time, but well into the future. 

If we support avoidance, their need to avoid will grow. The message we send is, ‘Maybe you aren’t safe here. Maybe you can’t handle this. Maybe your anxiety is telling the truth.’ 

Of course, if they truly aren’t safe, then avoidance is important. 

But if they are safe and we support avoidance, we are inadvertently teaching them to avoid anything that comes with anxiety - and all brave, new, hard, important things will come with anxiety. 

Think about job interviews, meeting new people, first dates, approaching someone to say sorry, saying no - all of these will come with anxiety.

The experiences they have now in being able to move forward with anxiety in scary-safe situations (like school) will breathe life into their capacity to do the hard, important things that will nourish and grow them for the rest of their lives. First though, they will be watching you for signs as to whether or not anxiety is a stop sign or a warning. The key to loving bravely and wholly is knowing the difference.

Teach them to ask themselves, ‘Do I feel like this because I’m in danger? (Is this scary dangerous?) Or because there’s something brave, new, hard, important I need to do. (Is this scary-safe?). Then, ‘Is this a time to be safe or brave?’

To show them we believe they are safe and capable, try, ‘I know this feels big, and I know you can do this.’ Then, give them a squeeze, hand them to a trusted adult, and give them a quick, confident goodbye. Their tears won’t hurt them, as long as they aren’t alone in their tears.

It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they are forward.♥️
I'm so excited to be speaking about separation anxiety at the Childhood Potential Online Montessori Conference. 

The conference will involve conversations with over 40 other experts, and will take place from 27-31 January 2025. This is for anyone who is an important adult to a young child or toddler. 

I'd love you to join me. See more here 
: http://childhoodpotential.com/?a_box=ncw8h43m&a_cam=1
New, hard, important, brave things will always come with anxiety. It’s the anxiety that makes these things brave.

The only way for kids to never experience anxiety is for us to never put them in front of anything growthful, new, hard, brave. They’ll never feel the discomfort of anxiety, but they also won’t grow and strengthen against it. 

We’ll never get rid of anxiety and we don’t need to. The key to strengthening young people against anxiety lies in helping them feel safer with it. 

Here are 3 ways to do that. First though, and most importantly, establish that they are actually safe - that they are relationally safe, and that they feel safe in their bodies.

1. Take avoidance off the table. Avoidance makes anxiety worse by teaching the brain that the only way to stay safe is to avoid. Little steps matter - any step, even the tiniest, is better than none.

2. Show them you can handle their anxiety and the big feels that come with it:

‘Of course you feel anxious. You’re doing something big. How can I help you feel brave?’ 

Or, ‘I know this feels big, and it feels like you can’t. I know you are safe and I know you can. You don’t need to believe it because I know it enough for both of us. I know you won’t believe it until you see it for yourself. That’s okay, that’s what I’m here for - to show you how amazing you are and that you can do hard things. I can take care of you through the ‘big’ of it all. What’s one little step you can take? Let’s take it together. And don’t say ‘no steps’ because that’s not an option.’

3. Help them understand why they feel the way they do when they are anxious, otherwise they’ll interpret sick tummies, sore tummies, racy heart, clammy skin, big feelings as a sign of deficiency or potential disaster. It isn’t. It’s a sign of a brain and body trying to protect them, at a time they don’t need protecting. 

As long as they are safe, the need to avoid is often more about needing to avoid the thoughts, feelings, and physiology of anxiety, rather than avoiding the thing itself. This is why the physiology of anxiety will continue to drive anxiety until we make sense of it. ‘Hey Warrior’ will help you do make sense of it for them.♥️

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