Rememering Heather

One of my middle-schoolers was chatting about the happenings of the day last week and shared something one of the teachers said during class. The gist of it was a prediction that, if the USA goes to war with Iran, we will lose because Iran is allied with Russia. Whether or not that is a probability, and whether or not it’s appropriate for a middle school classroom teacher to say such a thing, the result for my kid was fear. His sister is active military. He’s worried about her. She’s in a potentially dangerous and even deadly position, and her safety is always at the forefront of the collective family mind, especially now with everything that’s going on in the Middle East. How a child learns to cope with and overcome fear is an important part of development. By the time we reach adulthood, we’ve generally had plenty of opportunities to face fear. The patterns developed from early childhood tend to follow us into teenage and adult years, so it’s important to help kids recognize their fears and learn to manage them in a healthy way. As parents, we’re tempted to shelter and protect our children from frightening things. It’s noted, however, that overly sheltered kids grow up to be timid, even fearful adults. If that’s you (and it might be, if it’s difficult to get along with others, if you’re cripplingly afraid of rejection, afraid to eat or to speak in public, or to touch anything touched by someone else, and you can’t remember when you weren’t afraid), it might be time to train to overcome such fears. Behavioral and cognitive exercises can help. Basically, for young people, training behavior (or applied behavior), in the face of opposition or fear, leads to either a feeling of strength and stability or weakness and insecurity. For older people trying to correct unhealthy behaviors that lead to unhealthy feelings, a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy that utilizes positive applied behavior techniques (with additional focus on the distorted thoughts that lie behind the behaviors), can be helpful. For young and old, social learning (watching how others behave, and focusing on how their behavior is rewarded or punished), can help teach the willful change of behavior. It’s never too early or late to begin working to improve and change behavior. For my 11-year-old kid, first afraid and intimidated; he’s learning to respectfully stand for what he believes and that teachers (and parents), can be wrong. He’s learning to carefully discern and evaluate what’s being taught and to understand that what he learns and how he applies that information is a personal choice. He’s learning to master and overcome fear, like we all can. Be well.