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Key points
- Some kids want to stay in their comfort zone and avoid taking on new challenges or experiences.
- Avoiding challenges or doing anything new can make their worlds small as they seek safety and avoid risk.
- Helping kids get out of their comfort zone means parents creating opportunities to expose kids to challenges.
Jacob (6) loves swimming and joins a swim team that he is really enjoying. Then he has a series of illnesses that keep him out of this activity for over a month, after which he starts refusing to go to practices. When his parents ask why, he says he doesn't like swimming anymore—that it is "stupid”—which is perplexing and worrying to them. They know how fortifying this activity is for Jacob and that giving it up would be a real loss.
His parents are in a quandary about how to respond. They know this avoidance is unhealthy. At the same time, it feels very uncomfortable and "wrong" to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do. And how would they even do that, anyway?
This is a very common situation many of the parents who come to see me face. Their child is avoiding things that are hard or that they aren’t perfect at. They give up easily and are thus missing out on important experiences that could potentially bring them a lot of pleasure and build their confidence that they can muscle through challenges.
How to Help Kids Work Through Their Discomfort
Resist the temptation to cheerlead and bribe/reward for participation. While parents intend these tactics to be motivating, they can backfire, especially for highly sensitive kids who are very tuned into the underlying motives of their moms and dads. They are already coping with difficult feelings about the situation. When they sense that you are disappointed or unhappy with their non-participation—when they won't jump into the pool to join the class with the other kids, or when they resist joining in the scrum at the birthday—and that you are trying to control them, and make them behave differently, it adds to their stress and makes it less likely they will feel confident to persevere through the challenge.
Indeed, when Jacob's parents start cheerleading—encouraging him and offering rewards if he agrees to return to the team—Jacob only digs in his heels further. He refutes all of their talking points and doubles down on his position that he is quitting swimming.
Get curious and seek to understand. Jacob's parents pivot when they see they are striking out with him. At bedtime, when he is most open to talking and reflecting, Jacob’s mom shares: "I have been thinking about your concern about returning to swimming. We were so busy trying to convince you to go back that we didn't really listen. We do want to hear about what you are thinking and feeling." She pauses. They are quiet for a minute. Then Jacob shares: "I don't want to be worse than all the other kids, which I will be because I missed so many practices."
His mom validates and empathizes with his worry about having fallen behind; that it makes a lot of sense to them that he would feel that way.
Remind yourself that what your child wants is not necessarily what they need. Few kids I know voluntarily put themselves in an uncomfortable situation. The default, what they want, is safety. (This is true for many adults, too.) So, if you make doing the activity a choice, and are relying on their agreeing to the activity, it is unlikely to happen. Avoidance wins.
While these kids want to stay in their comfort zones, what they need is exposure. This means parents creating opportunities for children to face and work through the discomfort, not enable the avoidance, which requires tolerating their discomfort. The only way kids learn to work through the fear is to live through it and see that they survived and can handle it. That's how resilience and grit are developed.
Accordingly, Jacob's parents explain to him that being on the team is a commitment and it is their job as his mom and dad to be sure he follows through on his commitments. They are clear that the rest is up to him; that once they are at the pool, he has to decide whether he will participate or not. That is his choice.
He still fights them on going. They continue to acknowledge his discomfort and that they know this is hard for him, and they stick with the plan. They don't get drawn into a negotiation with him. (Be mindful that once a child sees that you are seeking their buy-in—that following through on the plan is dependent on their agreement—it creates an opening to talk you out of it, resulting in yet another power struggle and the child being in charge of making a decision that may not be in their best interest.)
The first practice his parents take him to after his absences, Jacob sits on the sidelines and refuses the teacher's bids for him to join. His mom refrains from cajoling him to participate and suggests that maybe, while he is watching, he could do some detective work and see if the kids are really that much ahead of where he was before his hiatus. He likes this idea and they engage in it together. Jacob is the color commentator, narrating what he is observing, as Mom asks questions about the skills they are learning and the drills they are doing. (I believe Jacob was freed to engage in this way because his mom wasn't forcing anything. She wasn't pushing or encouraging him to jump in the pool and participate. She was accepting of his choice so he wasn't in defensive mode and was more open.)
The second practice, Jacob jumps right in and gets back to it. He is elated when the practice is over, clearly feeling very proud of himself for having overcome this fear and being back as part of the team.
I recognize that these adaptations don't always happen so quickly. But it doesn't mean taking this approach is not effective. For some kids, the process needs to be more incremental and will take longer. But enabling avoidance is what's harmful to kids, as they miss out on so many pleasurable and fortifying experiences, and come to see themselves as unable to handle and work through the discomforts we all face as we navigate this world.
