Tag Archives: anxious

When Your Child Feels Worry or Despair
Worry, Despair

Don’t go underground when you see worry or despair in your child.

What do I say to my kids when they seem consumed with worry or despair for their futures and when tragedy cuts down innocent lives? When leaders demonstrate behaviors that I work hard to steer my children away from and demonstrate intolerance where I want to teach them tolerance? And in their day-to-day lives when they complain of teachers and kids treating them unfairly or feeling pressured to do what doesn’t interest them? I feel helpless when I can’t answer their questions.

More and more I hear parents describe their children as anxious and angry, who see no reason to strive in school, who seem engulfed in worry and despair. The worry may not be voiced but shows up when they drop out of activities, lose friends and spend more time alone in their rooms gaming and on social media. Is this what’s happening to kids now because we are not tough enough on them or is this a reflection of the world we live in?

When schools

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Building Resilience from the Ground Up

When little children fall and skin their knees, drop things that break, get pushed around by other kids, run outside without a coat, don’t eat a thing when it’s put in front of them—our “mother bear” instinct comes out and we do everything we can to protect them. Of course, our job as parent is to make sure they are warm and fed and unharmed. But do we do too much?

Is our job to be protector? To a certain extent. We can’t protect them forever so we must raise them to be well prepared for protecting themselves long before that day arrives. We have gotten more and more careful and are asking our children to be more and more careful. Are we unintentionally creating children who are afraid and anxious? Aren’t we asking them to tend to our fears instead of finding out for themselves what life has in store?

It used to be that children were pretty much on their own, except when at school. They knew the neighborhood kids and their parents and what to do if

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