CHAPTER 1

The Brave Child

Learning to Cope with the Range of Human Emotions

We all want our children to enjoy a happy, carefree childhood. But that goal can be hard to achieve. From packed schedules and demanding jobs to family complications, economic pressures, illnesses, and on and on, parents today live under a barrage of stressors. So do our kids. Cable television and the Internet deliver a relentless stream of anxiety-provoking news and images into our homes, where impressionable children struggle to make sense of reports about wars, terrorism, violent crimes, environmental disasters.

Then there are the everyday, personal worries and tensions of childhood. Your son has a bossy peer whom he has to sit next to. Your daughter wasn’t invited to a birthday party. The first day of kindergarten is looming. A math test is coming up.

Anxiety is real. It’s not all bad; in fact, this completely normal human emotion is not only unavoidable, but it’s a necessary and useful part of life. Most children figure out how not to let their fears get the better of them. Others have a harder time. And for some, persistent, uncontrolled anxieties make them feel miserable, interfere with age-appropriate development, and cause their parents endless worry and frustration.

In Growing Up Brave, I want to share with you this good and hopeful message:

• Children with extreme anxiety or anxiety disorders can get better.

• We are learning more all the time about what helps a child get better.

• Parents—not therapy, not prescription medications—can be the key ingredient in how successfully a child or adolescent begins to approach the world with greater joy and confidence.

In my years as a clinical psychologist working with hundreds of children and families, and in league with other professionals at the forefront of advances in treating anxiety disorders in young people, I have seen again and again the truly life-changing results when parents and children put into practice some relatively simple skills.

Growing Up Brave: What Does It Mean?

A common quick-to-come-to-mind notion is that bravery means not being afraid. “You’re afraid of the water? Just jump right in. Get over it. There’s nothing to be afraid of! Go ahead. Do it.”

Of course, there are things to be afraid of. Parents know that, children know that. And some things it’s right to be afraid of. But kids who are prone to anxiety fear too much, including situations and objects that will bring them no harm.

When I talk about a child growing up brave, I mean one who over time develops a solid sense of self-efficacy. The psychologist Albert Bandura, sometimes called the father of self-efficacy, writes: “People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.”

A brave child navigates tough situations, even if he worries that every other kid he knows seems to have no problem with them. He learns to cope with his emotions, no matter what they are or how uncomfortable they make him. He confronts what he’s most afraid of, and does not let what’s stressful in the world stop him from taking steps, moving forward, and participating in his life. He knows that some things are hard, but even when his brain is saying, You can’t do this, he develops the personal resources to deal with stress, with daily hassles, and with what frightens him. He learns to be accepting of himself; he feels good about his accomplishments.

That is what you hope to see in your child, the conviction that he can manage whatever comes his way. You play an active role in helping him get there. Part of any parent’s job is to encourage a child to feel there’s nowhere he can’t go—within the context, of course, of teaching what’s truly not safe or not appropriate. It’s not safe to go off with strangers, but it is safe to walk into the kindergarten classroom even though mom won’t be staying with you and you don’t know the other kids. You feel worried about going on a playdate, but being a little worried doesn’t have to stop you from doing it. You’re afraid of the dark and bedtime, but you can sleep and you’ll wake up in the morning feeling just fine.

That’s what anxious kids want to know. When I work with children, I sometimes ask them what it means to be brave. We talk about who they consider brave people, even among the characters they’ve met in books and movies. I ask, “What is it about that person that you admire?” Usually, the brave one is identified as being strong. Children tell me, “He can do anything, he’s strong, he has a lot of confidence.” They say they wish they were more that way themselves.

In gaining self-confidence, with parents’ help, children realize that their emotions and sensitivities don’t have to derail them from activities that may be a required part of growing up or may just be a lot of fun. And parents can help children learn to go through life without having one eye constantly on what’s around the corner or what’s ahead. Bravery speaks to the idea of being in the present moment. Anxiety, after all, is a future-oriented emotion. The anxious child is always anticipating, mentally putting himself in an expected situation that he is sure will make him feel just terrible. When you help your child become brave, he discovers that even if you’re not around, he has the ability to calm himself, to notice situations and avoid the ones that are not safe and approach the ones that are okay, even if it’s difficult.

All this is kind of a tall order, or at least a challenge, for us parents. We’re protective. It hurts to see your daughter sitting tearfully next to you at the birthday party while all the other little guests are playing musical chairs. It’s painful—and maddening or frightening—to watch your son obsessing over routine activities and engaging in compulsive behaviors that may make him seem strange and isolate him from his peers.

The first step in helping your child get control of his emotions is to deal with yours, by appreciating the role of anxiety in life.

Anxiety: A Normal Human Emotion

Anxiety or excessive fearfulness in a child is difficult for parents to confront. We have a hard time with it. We tend to yank our kids back from the situations or objects that are causing them fear, yet we don’t react that way with other emotions. If a child is sad, we feel comfortable telling him it’s all right, everybody feels sad sometimes, it’s okay to cry. If he’s angry, well, everybody gets mad sometimes, being angry doesn’t mean he’s bad or naughty, we just don’t hit people.

When a child says he’s afraid, our instinct is to wave it off: “There’s nothing to be afraid of,...