Skip NavigationKathryn Hecht is a clinical child psychologist at the Anxiety Treatment Resources center in Bloomington, Minnesota.Source: Kathryn Hecht
Parents often see their child’s anxiety as the enemy. But it can be a key to building the confidence kids need to grow into resilient, happy and successful adults, says child clinical psychologist Kathryn Hecht.
“A fundamental misconception” of her job, Hecht says, is that she can “get rid” of a patient’s anxiety. But “anxiety is a primary human emotion and it is present in everyone anytime there’s something new or uncertain,” she notes. The best way to help kids manage anxiety is to create an environment that allows them to safely confront their fears, says Hecht, who specializes in treating anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder through exposure therapy at the Anxiety Treatment Resources center in Bloomington, Minnesota.
In her work, Hecht uses a simple, two-step formula to help kids use their anxiety productively, she says: “Anxiety + Bravery = Confidence.” When kids realize they can handle something that once scared them, without the intervention of their parents, they can gain a huge confidence boost, she says.
Parents have to let their kids feel anxious
Parents are instinctually “hard-wired to respond to kids in distress,” Hecht says. But when you swoop in to rescue your child, “we unintentionally deprive them of that opportunity to learn whether the situation was safe,” she adds.
Without realizing it, your behavior can signal to your kids you don’t trust them to solve their problems on their own. Hecht says she tells parents to remember that anxiety is “safe, it is tolerable, it is temporary.” Experiencing these feelings is a necessary step towards moving past them, she says.
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But don’t swing too far in the opposite direction, she advises. You cannot force your child to be brave, Hecht says, because they will feel a greater sense of accomplishment from facing a fear when it is the result of their own motivation and action.
“If you are trying to get a child to go off the high dive, pushing them in the pool does not make them braver,” Hecht says. “For confidence to build, you need the child to take the step themselves in that direction of the hard thing.”
Model bravery and embrace playfulness
Parents can stack the deck in their child’s favor by creating “opportunities for bravery,” Hecht says.
If your kid has social anxiety, you can help them make strides in low-stakes situations. For example, the next time you’re at a restaurant, you can ask them if they want to order dessert for the family. Parents can also model bravery for their kids. For example, if you are afraid of bees, you can steel yourself to calmly shoo one out the window in front of them.
The other thing parents can do is celebrate and reward the steps your kid takes to confront their fears, no matter how small. “Any step in the direction of the high dive is something that we can give a lot of attention to and cheer on,” says Hecht. “It is just to get them to start moving in the direction we’re hoping for, because often bravery builds on bravery.”
She encourages parents to create a sense of fun and adventure around bravery: Turn confronting fears into a game and let your child take the lead by focusing on their personal interests. If a child loves math, for example, they could try counting more bees than their sibling and give them all funny names. If they’re anxious about making new friends, they could conduct a poll to see how many kids in their class also love their favorite television show.
There is no age limit on using playfulness to confront your fears and take away their power, she notes. “This is a tool set and an approach that is going to work across the age spectrum through adulthood,” Hecht says.
The most worthwhile goals in life often require overcoming a fear of uncertainty or failure. When kids learn to handle that kind of anxiety, “they have a lot more confidence that they have the capacity to deal with whatever life throws at them,” Hecht says. “The future stops feeling like risk and it starts feeling like opportunity.”
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