Chapter 5

Facing Fear to Fight Fear

Understanding Stepladders

Detective thinking will have taught your child different ways to think about things that worry him or her. This is an important first step in managing anxiety. However, learning new ways of thinking about a situation is not enough by itself to overcome worries and fears. Thinking realistically is not much use if the old ways of behaving don’t change as well. It is now time for your child to try out his or her new ability to deal with fears and worries in real situations.

Stepladders are a way to help children overcome their fears by facing up to the very things they are scared of. It’s mostly a commonsense procedure, and you will probably find that you have tried something like it before. The difference here is that we will put it into an overall anxiety management plan, and we will show you how to be more structured in the way you approach this strategy. Stepladders are carried out in a step-by-step fashion so that it isn’t overwhelming for your child. In this way, your child will experience difficult situations gradually and learn to cope with them. Being encouraged to try things that are frightening, and learning to cope, will give your child confidence and help to break the pattern of automatically responding with fear and worry.

Avoiding Fears Doesn’t Help

There is an old story of two men walking along the street, one man stopping every few steps to bang his head on the sidewalk. Finally his friend can stand it no more and says, “Will you stop hitting your head on the sidewalk?” The first man answers, “I can’t; it keeps the crocodiles away.” His friend says, “But there are no crocodiles here!” The first man smiles and says, “See?”

Anxious children will avoid many apparent dangers that just aren’t very likely to happen when we look at them rationally. However, by continuing to avoid, the child never learns that his or her behavior has nothing to do with the outcome. For example, just think of a child who is frightened of being killed while sleeping and so wants to sleep with his or her mother and father every night. We all know that the chance that the child will be killed while sleeping is almost zero. But by sleeping with his or her parents every night, the child never actually learns this. Logically convincing the child that he or she won’t be killed is the goal, and using detective thinking is the first step. But this is not enough. The child must actually face the fear to really be convinced that being killed at night just won’t happen.

Avoiding things actually strengthens the anxious beliefs, making it increasingly difficult for children to do things. Most anxious children have developed ways to avoid situations where they might become anxious. Sometimes these avoidance strategies can be very subtle and so habitual that even parents can be unaware of them. Stepladders give your child opportunities to practice different ways of behaving and learn that he or she really is able to cope with the fear.

The same ideas apply to all types of fears, whether they are fears of being separated from parents, fears of specific objects (e.g., heights, spiders), or excessive worrying about social situations or performance in a school test. The particular things being faced up to might differ, but the basic principles remain the same.

Let’s look at an example of how you might try to overcome a fear of your own using stepladders. Suppose you were afraid of public speaking and you wanted to become more comfortable with this so that you could take a promotion at work that involved giving talks to large groups of people. Naturally, you would begin by doing your realistic thinking—what is it that you are worried about, what is the evidence that this would happen, and so on. But this technique alone would not be enough. You would also need to face your fears. To begin with, you might decide to present a short speech to your family. This would perhaps be a little frightening because it might seem silly, but it shouldn’t be too hard. Once you have done this step (perhaps more than once), you might decide that you are now ready to present a short talk to a group of friends. After this, you might practice doing readings and introducing speakers at your local club. The whole time you are doing these steps, you are practicing your realistic thinking. After a few weeks of practicing these easier steps, you should find your confidence starting to build. Your next step might then involve presenting a few practice talks to your work colleagues. At the same time, you might join a public speaking club and practice giving weekly talks to the club members. Finally, you grab that promotion and begin to give talks as part of your new job. Even here, you could break things down by organizing your schedule so that your first talks are to smaller and less important groups and your later talks are the really tough ones. By gradually and systematically building up to your final goal in this way, you will become used to public speaking and will learn that you can cope and that the terrible things you may have imagined before are just not very likely. Over a period of weeks (or even months) you will find yourself becoming less and less worried about presenting in public.

Exactly the same principles apply when you begin to do stepladders with your child. For example, let’s think of a child who is afraid of going to sleep in the dark and wants the lights on in his or her room every night. To do stepladders, you might first get the child to go to sleep with a fairly bright light on in the hall. If this is not too big a step, the child will most likely agree. After several nights, you might get the child to go to sleep with a light on in the room across the hall. Then, after a few nights, the child might agree to try a small, fairly dull lamp in the hall outside. Eventually, the child could try going to sleep with the only light being a very faint one in a distant room. Finally, the child will go to sleep without the light on at all. At each step, the child will undoubtedly be a little anxious. But by gradually reducing the light in this way and having small enough steps, the child can reach the final goal without ever having to face extreme fear.

How Do Stepladders Work?

Stepladders are a step-by-step way to beat fears. With your help, your child will work out a step-by-step plan to beat each fear. Your child will attempt each step in turn, beginning with the least difficult and working up to situations that are the most worrying.

Every step of a stepladder is more proof that your child can beat the fear. He or she will feel proud of his or her success as he or she conquers each step but will need your encouragement to keep going. A system of rewards can be negotiated between you and your child to provide extra incentives to keep trying. To remind yourself about the ways to use rewards, see the section “Rewarding Brave, Nonanxious Behavior” in chapter 4.

Children learn from stepladders that even if they feel worried, they can cope. During a stepladder, children will have to experience some situations that make them feel worried. This is important because it helps children learn that although they may have started off feeling uncomfortable and worried, the bad things they feared did not actually happen. By doing this, your child learns that he or she can tolerate some feelings of worry and that these won’t stop him or her from doing things. After all, none of us can go through life without ever feeling anxious.

Practice is the key to success. It is not enough to practice a step just once. Your child will have to repeat each step over and over until the situation no longer causes a lot of anxiety.

How You Can Help

Anxious children lack confidence in their ability to manage certain situations. They may believe that they are less capable or weaker than other children. Children’s past experiences may make them reluctant to try something new or something they may have “failed” at before. You are going to have to encourage your child to try to do things that will not be easy. You will need to be sympathetic and understanding, but at the same time, you will have to be tough. This won’t be easy. But remind yourself that it is for your child’s good in the long run. At times, it may help to read over chapter 4 on parenting an anxious child.

Believe That Your Child Can Do It

You may be worried about your child’s capacity to tolerate anxiety and discomfort. For example, you might feel that he or she is more sensitive than other children. Children can pick up subtle messages from parents about how capable they are or how difficult a certain task may be. For this reason, it is important that you don’t let your worries show. Be positive about what your child is trying to change.

Are You Worried Too?

As a parent, it can be very difficult to know when to be sympathetic and help children out and when to ask them to try a little harder. This can be extra difficult for parents who may have similar fears. You know that it is good for them to do it but you may also feel empathy with the worries your child has and feel inclined to protect him or her. If you feel like this, it’s understandable. But you will have to try and separate your own concerns from those of your child. It may help to do your own realistic thinking about the problem. As we discussed in the previous chapter, it is also often a good idea to model for your child how you are coping. You can do this by setting your own stepladders so that you and your child can work on them together.

When your child begins to do stepladders, you may well find this quite difficult to face. There will be times when you will be sending your child out to face some pretty difficult situations and possibly to become quite frightened. At these times, many parents feel guilty and torn. If this is a risk for you, you need to try and put some safeguards into place to help you through this part of the program. First, remind yourself that encouraging children to face their fears is good for them and is the only way they will overcome their fears. Next, brainstorm some ways in which you might help yourself feel better at those times when you feel bad. For example, you might write out a Detective Thinking Worksheet for your own beliefs and worries at these times and read over it to remind yourself of the more realistic beliefs. Or you might make sure you have plenty of work to get into to distract yourself from your guilty thoughts. Alternatively, you might be able to ask for support from your partner or a good friend. These people might be able to remind you that you are doing the right thing and that your child will not “break” or “hate you” for what he or she is going through.

In short, these feelings are completely understandable but need to be overcome for the good of your child.

Be Clear About What You Expect

It’s important to be clear in your mind about what are reasonable expectations for children of your child’s age and for your child particularly. Your child will be best helped if you are clear on what you expect him or her to be able to do and how much you will help. For example, it would be unrealistic to expect a six-year-old child who is afraid of being away from Mom to stay home alone in the evening. But it would be quite reasonable for a fifteen-year-old to do this. In a similar way, there might be different expectations for children in different areas. For example, expecting your child to walk home alone from the bus stop might be quite reasonable in certain neighborhoods but not in others. Talk to other parents or your child’s teacher if you are unsure about what you should reasonably expect from your child. In addition, if you have a partner or someone else who also cares for your child, make sure you sort out these expectations together so that you are in agreement about what your child should do. It is very difficult for children to learn not to fear certain things if they are getting different messages from their caregivers.

Steps to Teach Children Stepladders

Developing stepladders with your child is usually fairly straightforward. But it can be tricky at times, and, as with any skill, there are some systematic steps you can follow that can make it more likely to work.

Step 1: Explaining Stepladders to Children

The first step in facing fears with your child is to explain clearly and simply the purpose of the exercise. It’s important that your child is a willing and active participant in the process, or you will be fighting an uphill battle. Naturally, the way in which you explain stepladders will vary a little depending on your child’s age.

A useful way of explaining stepladders to children is to tell them a story of a child who is scared of something very straightforward (like a fear of dogs or a fear of heights) and ask them to suggest some ideas on how they could help that child overcome those fears.

A good example is to describe a child who is frightened of swimming in deep water. Ask your child how he or she might suggest to that child how to go about getting used to going into the water. Most children are pretty good at coming up with a commonsense plan. Hopefully, your child will be able to come up with a plan where the other child would begin with a low-fear step (for example, going into water up to his or her knees). If your child does not come up with a sensible approach, you will need to prompt gently until he or she gets the idea. The next suggestion might be for the child to gradually begin to move deeper and deeper into the water. This should allow time for the child to relax and get used to each step. Hopefully, children will understand that the frightened child will need to experience a little bit of fear, but by moving through each step gradually and getting used to each step along the way, that child will eventually reach the final goal without too much discomfort. Activity 18 about Molly and her fear of heights will help you to structure this introduction.

Step 2: Making a Fears and Worries List

Once your child understands the idea of stepladders in principle, the next step is to apply these ideas to his or her own specific difficulties. To begin, you and your child will need to sit and brainstorm all the different things that he or she is afraid of. You will create a Fears and Worries List that is a record of a number of different situations and activities that your child finds frightening and usually avoids. For example, items such as big dogs, meeting new people, and spending time away from you, could all be included. For some children there may only be one fear while for others there will be many. No doubt, you will have many suggestions and you will need to make sure that your child covers as much as possible. But it’s important that your child is involved in the exercise, so encourage him or her to come up with the ideas first, if possible. Try to make this a fun game, seeing how many things you can list. Children may need to be reminded of specific situations where they may have been anxious rather than presented with a general concept such as fear of separation. It’s also important that this is not seen as a list of failings but as a list of things they would like to be able to do.

At this stage the idea is to get your child involved and brainstorming. Therefore, don’t worry if the suggestions are not realistic or even sensible. They can be fixed later. Also, don’t worry if the list does not cover everything. The list can be added to later—it is a working reminder of what your child wants to change. As the items are generated, you will divide the list into things that are really hard, moderately hard, or not too hard. It is often a good idea for your child to give a worry rating for each item, although this is not essential at this stage. The most important point of this exercise is for you and your child to get lots of examples of the types of things that they don’t do because of anxiety. Giving worry ratings to each item might simply help you to make sure that fears are roughly sorted.

You might find that your child isn’t able to come up with fears or may even suddenly claim now to have no problems at all. It is not uncommon for anxious children to deny any difficulties. We call this “faking good” and it usually happens because your child wants to appear “perfect” both to you and to him- or herself. If you believe that your child is avoiding acknowledging his or her fears, don’t nag. Begin by suggesting one or two recent situations that were difficult. Focus on the lower-level fears and remind your child that you will tackle those first and then come back to the list. Some children may avoid some areas of difficulty, such as social fears, but focus on others. Acknowledge that your child is working on one area and plan to try the other, more difficult problems later. As your child succeeds on easier problems, he or she will gain the confidence to try to beat some other worries. If your child still denies having any difficulties, challenge him or her to try certain things anyway. For example, you might say something like, “I think you are a little afraid of X, so why don’t we put this down, and if you are not, then you can prove to me that I am wrong.”

Lashi’s Example

Lashi had many worries—and they seemed to be getting worse, upsetting everyone in the family. Lashi and her mother made a list of the main things she worried about. Her mom chose a quiet time when she and Lashi could talk about the worries. At first Lashi thought everything worried her equally, but when talking with her mother she was able to sort the worries into groups. Writing it down can make the fears seem more manageable.

Using this list of fears and worries, Lashi and her parents could choose which worries to start with to make step-by-step plans to fight her fears. The fears seemed to fall into three main groups—(a) being away from Mom, (b) being in the dark, and (c) going to the doctor, particularly getting an injection.

Step 3: Working Out a Step-by-Step Plan

Once you have listed as many fears as possible, the next step is to organize the fears into a practical plan. The aim is to have one or more stepladders—that is, lists of fears that are practical and organized so that they contain a number of steps going from the easiest to the hardest.

You will find that some of the fears that you have recorded on the Fears and Worries List are already small practical steps in and of themselves. For example, the item from Lashi’s list, “Visiting Grandpa and Grandma with Mom” is rated as a low-level worry and is practical and doable. On the other hand, some of the items on your list will be much broader and larger. For example, from Lashi’s list, the item, “Being in the dark” is quite vague and broad because Lashi’s level of fear might be very different depending, for example, on whether she was inside or outside, which room she was in, what time it was, how dark it was, and so on. The items that are practical and doable, can be left as is. However, the items that are broad and a little vague need to be rewritten so that they are much more specific. This might involve breaking them down into several smaller steps. For example, the item, “Being in the dark” could be broken down into several different items such as “Being in my room with the light down low,” “Being in my room with the light off in the early evening,” “Being in my room later at night with the light off,” “Being in the far room with the light off,” “Standing outside the back door with the light off,” and “Standing at the end of the garden with the light off.”

When you have a detailed list consisting of specific, practical tasks, your child can place them in order of difficulty from easiest all the way up to the hardest. Once they are organized, you and your child will have your first stepladder.

If your child has lots of different fears, you may find it easier to create several stepladders. Each stepladder would contain items that logically go together and are relating to the same overall fear. For example, you might have one stepladder for being away from parents, another for mixing with people, and a third for sleeping in the dark.

In creating stepladders, you’ll need to make sure that you and your child have come up with steps that are not too far apart. The idea is that eventually your child will begin with the first step on the ladder and practice that item until he or she is relatively comfortable with it. Then, your child will need to move on to the next item up the stepladder, and so on. If the steps are too far apart—if the next step is too much of a jump for your child—he or she will not be able to do it and could lose confidence.

The best way to create smaller steps to reach a goal is to think about several different ways that a child can face a situation. For example, a situation such as “asking directions from a stranger on the street” can include many different features that will result in quite different levels of anxiety. Directions could be asked from a male or a female, from an older person or a younger person, or from a person alone, a couple of people, or a group of people. Each of these variations would most likely produce different levels of anxiety for a shy child, and each child will be different. By brainstorming about these variations, you can produce a large number of steps that your child can then place into order of difficulty and put onto a stepladder.

Another important consideration in creating a stepladder is to choose items that are doable. After all, your child is eventually going to be asked to do each item on the list. Look over the list and remove any steps that are offtrack or perhaps not even possible. For example, if dealing with a fear of heights, climbing to the top of Mount Everest might really help, but it’s not very likely to happen.

On the stepladders in the children’s activities there are ten steps, but you can have more or less than that. There is no set number of steps to be included, but there should be enough steps to provide plenty of opportunities for practice. It is more effective to have a greater number of smaller steps to reinforce the learning than only a few large ones. Large steps and big jumps in the level of difficulty between items must be avoided. Each step should be very clear, with details of time to be spent, the place, and what is to be achieved. Use everyday activities to give your child opportunities to really do lots of practice. Tasks that are too elaborate or difficult to organize, demanding special efforts from parents, will rarely be done despite good intentions.

Lashi’s Example

Lashi and her mom came up with a number of different areas that she was frightened of including sleeping over at various people’s houses (including her father’s), sleeping by herself at night in the dark, staying home with a sitter while her mother goes out, and going to school. To help organize all of her fears more easily, Lashi and her mother decided to create separate stepladders for each of these different areas. We show, below, part of Lashi’s stepladder for learning to stay home while her mom goes out.

Lashi’s goal: To be able to stay at home with a sitter without worrying about Mom being out

1. Stay home with Dad while Mom goes out for ten minutes.
2. Stay home with Grandma while Mom goes out for thirty minutes.
3. Stay home with Dad while Mom goes out for the afternoon.
4. Stay home with Grandma while Mom goes out for most of the day.
5. Stay home with a sitter while Mom goes out for the afternoon.
6. Stay home with a sitter while Mom goes out for most of the day.
7. Stay home with Dad while Mom goes out for the evening (a few hours).
8. Stay home with Grandma while Mom goes out for the night (until late).
9. Stay home with a sitter while Mom goes out for a few hours in the evening.
10. Stay home with a sitter while Mom goes out for the night (until late).

George’s Example

Part of George’s shyness also extended to a perfectionistic streak. George was so worried about what others thought of him that he tried not to make any mistakes. As a result, he often worried extensively about whether he had said or done the wrong thing and he often redid his schoolwork many times in order to get it just right. Below is part of one stepladder that George made up to tackle this problem.

George’s goal: Not to be bothered by making mistakes at school

1. Intentionally call Mark (a close friend) by the wrong name.
2. Don’t brush hair before school.
3. Draw a wobbly line on a page and leave it there.
4. Don’t check an essay for mistakes before handing it in.
5. Make a deliberate mistake in a science project.
6. Intentionally hand in an essay with several spelling mistakes.
7. Answer a question in class when not 100 percent sure of the answer.
8. Intentionally return library books three days late.
9. Deliberately give the wrong answer to a question in class.
10. Don’t do the correct homework.

George is very shy, so one of his worst fears was speaking in front of other people. The following stepladder was designed to tackle this problem. George did not begin work on this stepladder until after he had done several steps on most of his other stepladders. This was both because public speaking was not a very important goal for George and also because it was a harder topic to tackle than several of his other goals.

George’s goal: To present a talk to the class

1. Prepare a talk—not to be delivered.
2. Prepare a short talk and practice alone, taping it.
3. Give a short talk to parents.
4. Give the talk again to parents and deliberately leave something out.
5. Give the talk to grandparents and mispronounce a word.
6. Give the talk to aunts and deliberately drop notes.
7. Give the talk to friends and family.
8. Give a longer talk to friends and family.
9. Ask a question of the teacher in class.
10. Give a two-minute report to the whole class.
11. Give a longer talk to the class.
12. Make an announcement to the whole school.

Talia’s Example

Talia’s fear of water had meant that she missed out on a lot of fun activities like pool parties and holiday activities.

Talia’s goal: To swim at the beach with friends

1. Go to the local pool and swim across the pool at the point where I can just stand up.
2. Go to the local pool and swim at the deep end with Dad next to me.
3. Go to the local pool and swim in the deep end alone.
4. Go to the beach and swim in the sheltered lagoon.
5. Go to the beach on a calm day and swim with Dad.
6. Go to the beach on a calm day and swim on my own up to shoulder height.
7. Go to the beach on a rougher day and swim with Dad.
8. Go to the beach on a rough day and swim to shoulder height.
9. Go to the beach and swim out and back on a boogie board on a calm day.
10. Go to the beach and swim out and back on a boogie board on a rough day.

Jess’s Example

Although Jess has two close friends at school, she is scared of spending time with other children in case she loses her current friends. She worries about this constantly and has missed out on activities with other children because of her fear.

Jess’s goal: To spend time with children other than Sally and Annie

1. Call Jill and ask her about some homework details.
2. Ask Madeline a question on the playground before school.
3. Ask Jill and Madeline to join Sally and Annie in a game of basketball.
4. Talk to Sally and Jill about going away together during the holidays.
5. During lunch on Wednesday, invite Madeline over for dinner on Friday.
6. Sit with Jill while eating lunch and then ask her to join Sally and Annie.
7. Walk around to Madeline’s house after school to see if she is home.
8. Arrange to meet Jill and Sally at the mall to have lunch.
9. Invite Madeline, Jill, Sally, and Annie to go to the movies.
10. Go to a party when Sally and Annie won’t be there.
11. Accept an invitation to visit someone else’s house.
12. Invite Madeline and Jill for a sleepover.

There are several other types of stepladders that will be discussed in the next chapter. These are slightly trickier to create, but they help with fears that involve doing things to reduce worry, like when a child wears only certain clothes or washes his or her hands a lot. If these types of fears are the only ones that your child has, then you might want to read the next chapter now. However, it is preferable if the first stepladder you attempt to create is for a concrete fear where your child is directly avoiding an activity because the stepladders in this chapter are easier to design and are easier for your child to understand.

Parent Activity: Creating Your Child’s Stepladders

Although you will be creating stepladders with your child’s help, it is useful to think through the possible stepladders and steps in advance. Based on the Fears and Worries List, how many stepladders do you think your child will need? Think about some ideas before you work with your child to create his or her stepladders. For each of the possible stepladders, you should list your ideas for possible steps—but remember that your child should ultimately have a big say in which of these steps are entered on the final stepladder and the order in which they’ll go.

Ways of Manipulating Steps

• Group different tasks involving the same fear (for example, talking to relatives at the dinner table versus giving a presentation to the class).
• Change the number, age, gender, or familiarity of the people present while doing a step (for example, spending time in the playground with the sixth grade children versus spending time in the playground with classmates from fourth grade).
• Change items by the location of the task (for example, asking for help at the corner store versus asking for help at the customer service desk of a shopping mall).
• Change the amount of time spent in the situation (for example, staying at after-school care for a half hour versus staying at after-school care for the afternoon).
• Change the amount of preparation before going to an event (for example, being told on the previous Wednesday what will be happening on the weekend versus being told on Saturday morning what is happening on the weekend).

Step 4: Motivation and Rewards

Asking children to do stepladders can be like asking someone to have a tooth removed without anesthetic. Stepladders will be hard work for your child, and some steps can be quite frightening. By developing good stepladders with small steps, you can reduce the fear. But it isn’t possible to get rid of it entirely. Your child is going to have to face fear to overcome fear.

We all need encouragement to help us to do unpleasant or difficult things. As an adult, you can recognize the value of unpleasant things; for example, if you have to undergo a painful operation, you would do it because you realize that it will help you in the long run. But children are not as good at recognizing what is good for them. One of the biggest differences between adults and children is that children have very little understanding of the future and the concept of time. Telling children, “You have to go through this pain now because it will be good for you later” just doesn’t make the same sense to them as it generally does to adults.

For this reason, one of the really important parts of stepladders is to give your child rewards when he or she successfully completes a step (and to use backup rewards to encourage ongoing effort when your child tries a step but is unsuccessful). Giving rewards after each practice increases your child’s motivation because it balances the unpleasantness of facing fears with a positive experience.

Over the years, we have occasionally come across some parents who do not feel that they should reward their child for doing stepladders exercises. After all, other kids can do these things without problems, so why should your child be rewarded for doing something that other kids do so easily? The point is that all children are different. For whatever reason, your child doesn’t find these things easy, even though other children might. To put it in context, imagine forcing yourself to sing a song on national television or climb into a pit full of snakes. The level of fear you might feel doing these things is no more than what you are going to ask your own child to face. It is necessary for your child to do these things so that he or she learns to overcome these fears. But it won’t be easy. Offering rewards for your child’s attempts is the only way you will motivate him or her to try these things, and it will also communicate to your child your pride at what he or she is doing. A reward is not a bribe. Bribes are things you give someone to make them do something that is of benefit to you. A reward is simply a motivator to encourage your child to do something that will ultimately benefit him or her. A reward is also a signal of your delight and approval in your child’s behavior.

We covered all of the important facts about how to give rewards in chapter 4 about parenting an anxious child so we will not go through it again here, but we urge you to reread the section, “Rewarding Brave, Nonanxious Behavior” to remind yourself of the important points. Here are some of the main points to remember:

• Rewards do not have to be financial, but can include fun activities.
• Rewards do not have to be large, but need to be relevant to your child.
• The reward should be an appropriate size for the difficulty of the step.
• Rewards need to be given as soon as possible after your child has done what he or she agreed to do.
• You need to be consistent—give a reward if your child has earned it but don’t give it if the step hasn’t been attempted.
• Reward your child for doing the step whether or not he or she was scared.

Step 5: Doing Stepladders

Once you and your child have brainstormed a series of situations that your child is frightened of, organized these situations into one or more stepladders, and decided on a few rewards for the first few steps of the stepladders, your child will be ready to begin facing his or her fears.

To begin stepladders, your child should pick the first step of one or two stepladders. You and your child will set a date and time that he or she will try a first step. How much you leave this up to your child’s control will depend on the age of your child, the type of step, and what point you are up to in the program. For an older child, you may simply decide that he or she needs to do the step “some time this week.” For a younger child, you might need to set the precise day and time. It is also a good idea to be more specific about practice early on in the program, for example, actually set a specific date and time for it—then you can loosen up a little and leave more control to your child later on, as he or she builds confidence. However, the control and timing will depend mostly on the type of step. Some steps will need to be set at a particular time (e.g., if the step involves you going out and leaving your child with a sitter), whereas others can be done more flexibly (e.g., leaving it up to your child to decide when to call for information on the telephone). Of course, some tasks will need to be more opportunistic and can only be done when the task presents itself (e.g., answering the telephone when it rings). Don’t forget to reward your child when he or she has done the practice.

To help your child to get the most out of the stepladder, your child will keep a record of the week’s plans and all of his or her practices (see “Children’s Practice Task 4: Fighting Fear by Facing Fear”). This helps to make sure the practice is done and to let you know when practice is slowing down. It will also provide a great record of achievements that your child can look back on when his or her motivation begins to drop. This record also encourages children to think about what strategies they will use to manage their anxiety. And it allows you to track success and difficulties to keep track of your child’s progress.

Things to Remember

The process of conducting an effective stepladder program involves being realistic, responsive, and repetitive, and rewarding effort and success.

Choose Realistic Goals

• Choose goals that can be achieved and are appropriate to your child’s developmental level and capabilities. The shy child will probably never become Mr. or Ms. Personality of the class but can aim to be able to speak up in class, give a talk, call to ask a friend over, and speak to the school principal.
• Your child does not have to be totally free of anxiety. A certain amount of anxiety is normal and realistic in certain situations and may even help children to perform better. This program focuses on reducing excessive anxiety. Your child needs to learn that he or she can tolerate a certain level of anxiety and to go ahead and “just do it.”

Respond by Adjusting the Program If Difficulties Occur

• You need to monitor your child’s progress and adjust the steps in response to the progress being made. It may be necessary to slip in new items to bridge a gap between the steps if there is reluctance to move to the next one. Sometimes the step can be altered by adding different people or varying the place where the task is to be performed. Moving through the items too quickly may mean the steps are not difficult enough. It may also be a form of avoidance since some children will just “grin and bear” a situation without learning that the situation itself is not too bad. You should talk to your child after each step and find out his or her attitude toward the situation. Doing stepladders should eventually produce an attitude like, “That’s not so bad” or “I can handle that” instead of, “If I just hang in there, I can get through this.”
• Where there are difficulties or things do not go well at the first attempt, this too is a valuable opportunity to encourage your child to persist, to learn that a “failure” is not a disaster, and to look at how he or she might do it differently next time. When a child tries and doesn’t succeed, you should still provide some form of backup reward for the effort. Remind your child about the earlier lessons on self-rewards—your child needs to remember that not everything has to be perfect every time.

Repetition Is the Key to Long-Term Results

• It is important to remember that the best results and most long-lasting benefits from the program will come from lots of practice and repeating steps over and over until your child feels confident. You will know when your child has practiced a step enough, because you will get the feeling that your child could suddenly do that step again any time without warning and not get thrown at all. Look for a feeling such as, “I’m bored doing this step.”
• Repeating the steps strengthens children’s learning of new ways of doing things by giving them more success and a growing feeling of mastery over the fear. Your child has probably had many experiences of feeling like “a failure.” Trying the steps several times proves to ­children that they can do it and is essential to ­overcoming these well-established expectations.

Reward Effort and Success

• Maintain the reward program consistently throughout the stepladders process.
• Encourage your child to self-reward both for achieving a step and for his or her efforts in trying hard. You should keep up the praise and the rewards. Anxious children need reinforcement of their efforts to encourage them to keep going in the face of frustration.
• Good intentions to reward children for progress can be easily overlooked after some progress. However, the reward program and parental praise should be continued right through all of the steps of each stepladder.

As your child progresses up the first stepladder, you will be able to start on another of his or her stepladders. Children can usually work on two or three different stepladders at the same time.

Activities to Do with Your Child …

Children’s Activity 18: Fighting Fear by Facing Fear

Remind your child that anxiety often changes what we choose to do or makes it much harder to give things a try. Then tell your child that fears can be stubborn and that they don’t go away until you stand up to them. Tell the story of Molly, whose best friend is moving and is having a party in a restaurant at the top of Super Tower, the tallest building in the city. The problem is that Molly is scared of heights. Ask your child to come up with ideas of what Molly could do to make it possible to go to her friend’s party (encouraging your child to come up with the idea of breaking the fear down by slowly having Molly go to higher and higher places). Repeat the activity of solving someone else’s problem until your child seems to have a good grasp of the basic idea of breaking fears down and facing small amounts of fear at a time. You can use the following problems:

• Jeff won’t play in the park or the yard because there might be a spider there.
• Adriana is afraid of the dark and still sleeps with the light on.

Explain to your child that with your help, he or she will be starting to face fears. Some children will be concerned about what they will be expected to try and how difficult it may be. When talking with your child, emphasize these things:

• You can create your own stepladders. All steps are negotiated, starting off with things you can almost do already, so it won’t be too difficult. The harder steps will only happen once your confidence starts to improve, and then those steps won’t seem so hard.
• Each step will be done a few times until you feel confident doing it.
• When doing steps, your anxiety will drop if you stay there long enough and also the more times that you do the step.
• You will be earning rewards as you move up your stepladders.

Children’s Activity 19: Making a Fears and Worries List

Similar to what you did earlier, help your child to create his or her own Fears and Worries List. It may be helpful to read through Lashi’s example, found earlier in the chapter, before beginning so that your child understands that some fears listed will be ranked as only a little scary and others will be ranked as very hard to do.

Children’s Activity 20: Making Your Stepladders

Continuing with Lashi’s example, show your child how Lashi’s fear of being away from her mom was turned into a stepladder. Emphasize that Lashi helped to plan these steps, that there were rewards for doing each step, that each step was repeated until Lashi wasn’t really worried anymore by that situation, and that it was not until then that Lashi would move on to the next step.

Help your child to create a first stepladder by following these steps:

• Set a goal that is practical.
• List all the possible steps you can think of to break the worry down.
• Give each step a worry rating (although this is not absolutely necessary).
• Choose enough steps from your list so that almost all of the possible worry ratings have a step next to them.
• Write your steps in order from easiest to hardest to create a stepladder.
• Discuss what reward will go with each step (small rewards go with the little steps, and bigger rewards go with the harder steps).

When you complete the stepladder, praise your child for taking the first steps toward facing his or her fears.

Children’s Practice Task 4: Fighting Fear by Facing Fear

Using the first stepladder (and any future stepladders that you create), your child now needs to commit to starting the first step. Talk about when, where, and how the first step on the stepladder will be attempted. Tentative plans for facing the second and future steps can also be made, but these depend on the success of the first step. Your child’s fear will need to come down at least a bit on each step before he or she moves on to the next step. Make these initial plans with your child and then follow through during the week.

A planning and record table (with column headings, “What step will I do?” “When will I do it?” “What coping strategies will I use?” “Worry ratings before and after,” “What I learned,” and “What reward did I get?”) can be very useful for keeping track of stepladder progress. You can easily draw a table like this yourself or you can use the form provided in the free workbook available from www.ceh.mq.edu.au/hyac.html. The strategies column is designed to remind your child to use other anxiety management skills, such as detective thinking, during the stepladder practices. Once you have the plans written down, you will need to follow through with attempts at the steps at the planned time. Ideally your child will be attempting a step or two every day (although remember that your child may need to do the same step four or more days in a row, perhaps, before he or she is ready for the next step).

In addition to having your child plan and record attempts at steps, it is also useful for parents to record the successes, challenges, and difficulties you experienced. To help with this task, a table is provided for you to use in the next parent activity. You can use these notes to work out any patterns to the difficulties your child is having. These patterns may help point to a solution. You can also use them to remind you of successes that your child is having over time.

Chapter Highlights

In this chapter, you and your child learned …

• To fight fear you have to face fear.
• The best way to face fear is to break the fear down into small steps, with each step being a little harder to do than the last.
• To create a stepladder you need to do the following:
• Set a practical goal.
• List all the possible ways you could break the worry down into small steps.
• Give each step a worry rating (this can often be useful, but is not absolutely necessary).
• Choose steps that are practical and that cover low to high worry ratings.
• Write the steps in order from easiest to hardest.
• Set a reward for each step.
• Steps can be broken down by varying the type of task attempted, the people (or type of person) present, the location of the step, the amount of time in the situation, or the amount of preparation allowed before completing the step.
• It is important to plan when you will do steps and to keep track of successes and any problems faced.

Your child will need to do the following:

• Complete the children’s activities with the help of a parent or other adult.
• Attempt the first step or the first few steps on his or her stepladder(s).
• Use detective thinking as a strategy to reduce anxiety when attempting a step.