Facing Fears and Learning to Not Teach my Kids to be Fearful.

Driving in the city scares me. Driving during rush hour scares me. Driving in the snow scares me. Driving in new places scares me.
And yet, today I did all of these things. My darling brother watched our dogs while we were away for our weekend in the Pocono's and had too much stuff to take the train back to his place in the city. So I did what any good big sister would do and volunteered to drive him back.

My default reaction to situations (and there are many) that scare me or make me uncomfortable is to not do it. I'm a big fan of the "you don't have to do anything you don't want to do" sort of advice when it comes to things outside my comfort zone. I am amazed, confused and overwhelmed by people who run headlong into new things.

My husband is one of these people. New restaurant, new recipe, new outfit, new vacation spot, new hairdo, new experience, you name it, he's for it. I like to think he's much more comfortable with new experiences, but I also know that part of it is a deliberate choice on his part. If something scares him, his reaction is to do it. If something scares me, my reaction is to avoid it.

So today, I dutifully got in the car and faced my fear of driving  in the city, in the snow, during rush hour to a place I'd never been before. I'd be embarrassed to share all the horrific things I could see happening.

And the shocker: I did it. Without any of those horrific things happening. Which is usually the case when we scare ourselves with the what-if's, isn't it?

But more suprising: I felt great when I got home. I'd done something that scared me, and done it successfully. When I think about raising my son, this is a trait I'd like to model and teach him. That being scared is ok, but that he is safe enough to try the scary thing too. That making mistakes is ok. That succeeding at the new and scary things gives you confidence and self-worth to try even bigger and scarier things.

Since bravery is not my default reaction to the things that scare me (though I often force myself to do some pretty daunting things), I want to learn as much as I can about not passing this on to my children. I found an article about managing anxiety in children on About.com. Some of the advice may seem simple and obvious to you, but some of the tips were real "aha!" moments for me.

Since my default reaction is to avoid things that scare me, I'll have to be careful not to model anxiety leading me to avoid things that I might really want to do or enjoy doing. The article also provides information on specific anxieties (separation anxiety, stranger anxiety, etc), the approximate ages a child may experience the anxiety, and symptoms that may be displayed.

There are also tons of book available, doing a quick search on Amazon brought up titles like "Freeing Your Child from Anxiety: Powerful, Practical Solutions to Overcome Your Child's Fears, Worries, and Phobias"  and Helping Your Anxious Child for parents and something I didn't expect - an entire list of books written for children like When My Worries Get Too Big! and What to do when you worry too much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety.

Admittedly, I'm too old for the kids' books, but the excerpts alone are sweet enough to make me order them, and honestly,the tips still apply to grown up worries. For instance What To Do When You Worry Too Much compares worries to tomatoes. Worries, like tomatoes grow bigger and bigger the more you pay attention (like watering the tomatoes) to them. And When My Worries Get Too Big  provides relaxation tips, specifically designed for children.

I hope you'll never have to help your child with anxiety, but if you do, maybe these resources can help.