As a parent, one of your main priorities is raising your child. A lot goes into this: keeping them safe, teaching them kindness, and supporting them in finding their place in the world. This is a daunting affair: in fact, 68% of Americans polled in a recent study by the American Psychiatric Association reported significant anxiety around keeping themselves or their families safe in 2024. On top of that, 43% of the same respondents reported feeling more anxious than they did the previous year.
It’s easy to understand why, as a parent, you would want to do everything you possibly could to remove your child’s anxiety. Anxiety is an uncomfortable thing to experience, if not actively painful, and most people wish to avoid and reduce this experience at all costs.
However, fully removing or significantly accommodating your child’s anxiety will not be beneficial to their overall well-being. Think of it this way: anxiety has been the thing that has kept humans safe and alive since the beginning of our time on Earth. Without anxiety, we wouldn’t look both ways before crossing the street. Without anxiety, we wouldn’t care about the hurt feelings of a friend. Without anxiety, we wouldn’t know what matters most to us.
And similarly: without learning to experience anxiety, we wouldn’t feel safe to leave the house. Without learning to experience anxiety, we wouldn’t be able to make and keep friends. Without learning to experience anxiety, we wouldn’t learn to expand and grow.
With the million pieces of unsolicited parenting advice you have received (fully including this one) it can be difficult to know what style will be best for you. We would like to propose a model that may help you be supportive, not accommodating. Be a guard rail, rather than a bulldozer.
Bulldozer vs Guard Rail
Bulldozer: Removes everyone and everything from a person’s path, leading to a faux environment that is free from any and all dangers. Though, when the bulldozer is no longer available, the person will not be aware of the danger they will travel to.
Guard Rail: Sets up a barrier that is protective to the person traveling, but does not fully remove the natural environment. Allows the person traveling to witness the environment and any potential dangers with a layer of protection.
If you are interested in learning more from Compassionate Healing, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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