Is it my child's anxiety? Or is it a preference?
In this episode, we address a common concern among families—distinguishing between a child's anxiety and personal preferences. We explore how to identify if a child's behavior is driven by anxiety or simply a lack of interest in certain activities. Tune in to gain insights on this important topic and learn strategies to better understand your child's needs. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to my podcast for more valuable content!
Takeaways:
- Understanding the distinction between a child's anxiety and their preferences is crucial.
- Avoidance behaviors in children may indicate anxiety, requiring careful observation and support.
- Encouraging children to experiment with their fears can help differentiate anxiety from preference.
- Social anxiety often overlaps with introversion, necessitating nuanced approaches for understanding children's behaviors.
- Parents should consider their child's interests and motivations when addressing anxiety-related issues.
- Regular engagement in anxiety-provoking situations can enhance a child's coping skills and resilience.
Links referenced in this episode:
- childanxietysupport.com/podcast
Transcript
Hi, everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Child Anxiety FAC podcast.
Speaker A:FAC stands for Frequently Asked Questions, and I'm answering listener questions about child and teen anxiety.
Speaker A:My name is Dawn Friedman and I have been working with kids and families for more than three decades as a preschool teacher, parent educator, family case manager, clinical counselor, and now as the owner and operator of Child Anxiety Support, where I help parents of anxious kids.
Speaker A:And this episode's question is, how do I know if it's my child's anxiety or a preference?
Speaker A:Specifically, this parent is asking about their child's avoidance.
Speaker A:They understand that anxiety is about avoidance, that we look for the things our child is avoiding because those things make them upset and uncomfortable and we help them figure out how to go towards it.
Speaker A:And this family is wondering, so how do I know if this is anxiety and something we need to go towards, or is this my child's preference?
Speaker A:In other words, do they just not care for the thing?
Speaker A:That's a good question.
Speaker A:And we're not always going to know the answer, which means we might need to experiment a little bit and our child might need to experiment a little bit.
Speaker A:And actually, for this episode, I'm going to use myself as an example because I am an introvert, meaning I really enjoy my own company.
Speaker A:I don't always want to go to an event where there's going to be a lot of people.
Speaker A:I may not enjoy the kinds of group events that other people enjoy, or I may not always enjoy it.
Speaker A:I may need to protect my capacity a little bit as a clinical counselor and someone who coaches parents.
Speaker A:I do a lot of one on one work, and that means at the end of a workday, I maybe don't want to go and hang out with friends.
Speaker A:Not because I don't love my friends, but because I've been peopled out.
Speaker A:And that's a preference.
Speaker A:However, I also have social anxiety, which means that sometimes at group events I get really anxious and I struggle with negative feelings and thinking errors, negative cognitions about social events.
Speaker A:And that might look like going, probably nobody wants me to come.
Speaker A:What if I say something stupid and people get mad at me?
Speaker A:What if I show up and I'm not wearing the right clothes or I'm not behaving in the right way?
Speaker A:And that's social anxiety.
Speaker A:And again, if I have had a day full of people and I'm a little peopled out, I may have more social anxiety because my coping capacity is also all the way at the edge.
Speaker A:Recently I got invited to an event and it's the kind of event I don't usually enjoy a lot of small talk, a lot of meeting new people, not really clear expectations about what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to behave.
Speaker A:And I thought, do I not want to go?
Speaker A:Because that's not my idea of a great time.
Speaker A:It's got a lot of aspects to it that are not my favorite as an introvert.
Speaker A:Introverts tend to not like small talk.
Speaker A:Introverts tend to not like unclear expectations that they can sort of rest on.
Speaker A:Introverts don't necessarily like meeting a ton of new people all at once.
Speaker A:Or is this my social anxiety?
Speaker A:Because this is an event that is unfamiliar to me with a bunch of new people.
Speaker A:And I really wasn't sure I decided to err on the side of this is my introversion.
Speaker A:And when it's my introversion, I can often go and have fun.
Speaker A:Anyway, what I ended up doing was going and pushing through my social anxiety to get there.
Speaker A:And then once I was there, I realized, oh, yeah, this isn't really my thing, I'm going to head home.
Speaker A:I didn't want to skip it since I wasn't sure.
Speaker A:Is this social anxiety?
Speaker A:Is this my introversion?
Speaker A:If it's my social anxiety, I want to go towards it.
Speaker A:I want to stretch my ability to do things that are hard for me.
Speaker A:And when I got there, I realized, oh, my introversion is saying, this is not a great fit for me.
Speaker A:I'm going to go ahead home.
Speaker A:On the other hand, I do a lot of public speaking.
Speaker A:Ironically, public speaking can be easier for people with social anxiety because it gives us something to do.
Speaker A:That is a thing I can do.
Speaker A:I have a role to play.
Speaker A:I, I am going to speak and afterwards I will answer questions and that is a more comfortable way for me to participate.
Speaker A:So I, I go to these events.
Speaker A:I often have a lot of social anxiety before I go, right?
Speaker A:Because public speaking, anxiety provoking.
Speaker A:But I end up having a good time because I really like having that role to play.
Speaker A:I really like knowing what the expectations are and I really like meeting people when it's not going to be small talk as much.
Speaker A:We're going to be talking more about the specific topic that we're all at the conference for.
Speaker A:So, for example, I speak a lot at early childhood conferences and I like to hear about people's jobs as early childhood educators.
Speaker A:I like to hear about their challenges.
Speaker A:I enjoy knowing more about them in the context of their work.
Speaker A:So that is easy for me to overcome my social anxiety because it's a Good fit for my introversion.
Speaker A:Is this making sense?
Speaker A:But I have to experiment because I don't always know.
Speaker A:There's a lot of overlap in introversion and social anxiety.
Speaker A:And I try to go towards things because I don't want to miss out.
Speaker A:My anxiety encourages me to miss out.
Speaker A:But also I am open to learning that it's just a poor fit for me as a preference.
Speaker A:If you have a child, for example, who doesn't want to learn to ski and you say, is this their anxiety?
Speaker A:Are they afraid of the risks of skiing?
Speaker A:Are they afraid of going downhill quickly?
Speaker A:Are they afraid of not knowing how to do it in front of people?
Speaker A:Is there some social anxiety or performance anxiety there or is it a preference?
Speaker A:They don't like the cold and they don't like skiing.
Speaker A:Well, to figure it out, you may want to look back at other things they enjoy.
Speaker A:Is this a child who generally does not like big muscle activities, who doesn't like the outdoors, who doesn't like winter clothes, then maybe it's a preference.
Speaker A:On the other hand, is it a child who does like those things, who likes moving quickly, who likes building skills, building athletic skills, then it might be anxiety and it's worth going towards.
Speaker A:You can ask your child to try things and report back.
Speaker A:That's a big part of what we're doing with anxious kids, is encouraging them to try.
Speaker A:So instead of saying to them, try it, you're going to love it, try it, it's going to be worth it.
Speaker A:You can say, you got to try it to know for sure.
Speaker A:So let's try it and give me feedback as we go.
Speaker A:I'm interested in hearing your experience with it.
Speaker A:When I was working with kids clinically, I would talk to them about being anxiety detectives, like, can you see where the anxiety is and where the discomfort is and where it seems worth it to push through?
Speaker A:When we're working on anxiety, I like kids to have some goals for themselves.
Speaker A:Now, you know, in my program, in my child anxiety program, I am working with parents specifically and I'm not looking necessarily for where the child is motivated, although it might be part of what we're exploring.
Speaker A:When I'm coaching families and talking to them about creating a plan for their kids.
Speaker A:But when I'm working with kids about learning some anti anxiety skills, I'm looking for where they might have motivation and that's where they are feeling like they're missing out.
Speaker A:When you're trying to figure out is it anxiety or a preference, or try to understand, do they feel like they're Missing out on something.
Speaker A:Do they seem to have some regret?
Speaker A:Are they pulled towards the thing?
Speaker A:If they're not, it may be a preference.
Speaker A:This can be trickier.
Speaker A:When we're talking about things like kids sleeping by themselves, they're often not pulled to that at all.
Speaker A:And there is preference, but that's when it's really important.
Speaker A:We're working with parents because the kids, again, don't have an interest.
Speaker A:It's all going to be on the parents.
Speaker A:However, for a kid who say, wants to learn to sleep by themselves because they really want to go to a slumber party and they want to deal with their homesickness, which is anxiety about not being home, about being away from their parents, a little separation anxiety, which is a normal thing for kids to work through, they might be more motivated to work through it because they really want to do that slumber party.
Speaker A:And that would be a good target for, for them to work on their anxiety.
Speaker A:So when you're asking, is it my child's anxiety or a preference?
Speaker A:First of all, it may not matter so much unless you want to use that area to work on their capacity to go towards their anxiety.
Speaker A:If you're not working with them specifically about it, then it's about, well, what does it mean for the family?
Speaker A:If your child is not interested in skiing and you really want the whole family to ski and somebody doesn't want to stay in the lodge with them, that's more complicated, right?
Speaker A:You're like, so does that mean that we need to create an exposure plan for skiing or does that mean as a preference we need to consider their preference about it?
Speaker A:That's a very personal decision and it has to do with, with a whole lot of other things going on for the family.
Speaker A:I would say it's not a great initial target to have.
Speaker A:If you are just diving in to anxiety work with your family.
Speaker A:Skiing or those one off events are not it.
Speaker A:When we're doing anxiety work and we're targeting the family's parenting pitfalls, it's important to have something that's happening more regularly than skiing.
Speaker A:And unless you ski every single day as a family, which I guess could happen, although I can't really imagine a scenario where that's a thing.
Speaker A:It wouldn't be a great target not to start with.
Speaker A:I would suggest starting at an everyday thing and getting a better understanding of your child in the context of their anxiety and then looking at these other areas, you'll have a better idea of how anxiety looks for your child.
Speaker A:You'll have a better idea about unpacking your own expectations for your child.
Speaker A:And then when you're looking for preference or anxiety, you will have more expertise to bring to your observations.
Speaker A:If you have questions specifically about your child, you can head to my website, childanxietysupport.com check out my programs, see if they'd be a good fit for your family, and if you're not sure, schedule a 20 minute consultation with me.
Speaker A:Ask me more about what it is that I do, let me know what's going on with your kids and I'll direct you to where you can get the most help.
Speaker A:Thanks and I'll see you on the next episode.
