Understand these and you can handle any difficult situation well.
Every human being has a trio of innate fears, and those fears are interconnected. The trio is so powerful psychologically that it drives much of the way adults and children respond to life situations.
The Heavy Hitters
When you understand the three fears, as well as the antidotes you have within your power to provide, you’ll be able to navigate any difficult situation with your child.
Fear #1: Rejection
Every child wants to be liked by their peers. This craving is so big that it can overpower anything else. I’m talking about a superficial like that isn’t in the same category as true love. I hear kids talk all the time about how many likes they have on Facebook. But those aren’t grounded in anything meaningful. They’re based on momentary emotion and the flick of a finger. They’re tinsel-like and shallow. Emotions flare up, retreat, and blow with the wind. They make your child temporarily happy and temporarily unhappy.
The same is true with liking in the peer group. “Liking” is a temporary experience, based on who is the highest on the food chain for the day. And rejection is par for the course in such an environment where every child is jockeying for position.
Yet some parents move their child out of a school because her BFF found another clique to fall into and she’s unhappy. That’s a classic overreaction to rejection. Just what is that action teaching their child? “When things are hard, Mom and Dad will fix it. I don’t have to adjust or do anything different. My happiness is what’s most important.”
Those three statements have innate problems that will take your child down. First, you won’t be there to fix her problems when she’s 30. She’s going to have to learn to deal with them herself without a hovering mama and papa.
Second, if she doesn’t learn to adjust or do anything different, she’ll become like a fragile porcelain jar, easily cracked. Instead, she should be like a Tupperware container—flexible enough to handle anything, even a fall to the floor.
Third, no one can always be happy. In fact, it’s not good for you. As I say in my book Have a New Kid by Friday, “An unhappy child is a healthy child.”1
All children are driven toward self-gratification, and parents are driven to make sure their child is always happy. Parents are even more afraid that their child will fall through the cracks and end up a social outcast. They will do almost anything to ensure that doesn’t happen. When their child is rejected by anyone and the tears fall, watch what happens with most mama bears. Let’s just say you don’t want to run into them in the woods.
But are you always happy? Then why should your child be? Setting up a fairy-tale experience where your child is always accepted and happy actually cripples them emotionally. They can’t deal with not being chosen as first violinist or first string on the team. They fall apart when their work proposal is rejected. When a dating partner rejects them, their world has effectively ended.
Learning to deal with rejection is part of today’s world. The sooner your child learns he’ll live through it, the better.
As for you, you can’t fight culture. It rules everything today. Likes on Facebook and likes in the peer group will remain huge in your adolescent’s mind. Trying to say otherwise to your child is pointless right now. But you don’t have to fall for the pressure of those Goliaths. Instead, you can pull a David—you can subtly beat those Goliaths with a few tricks of your own.
Fear #2: Uncertainty
We live in an uncertain world, where nearly anything can happen and frequently does. The things that keep you up at night, however, are different from the things that keep your child up. Your worries center on your job, making ends meet, and issues related to your spouse and kids. Anything that hurts those you love hurts you. You worry about your child’s safety in a violent, care-only-about-yourself world.
Your child also worries. Most of his concerns, though, relate to his peer group. Even if your family isn’t rolling in cash, he isn’t likely thinking about what to make for the next meal or how to economize in the purchase of your refrigerator. He’s wondering how to sidestep another guy who is targeting him at school for a reason he can’t fathom.
If your home is tumultuous, he may have another level of concern—not only how to protect himself but also how to protect his siblings and the parent who is taking the hits.
Children are affected much more by what is directly related to them than by larger world issues. They still know what’s going on elsewhere because of easy internet access, but the realities of their private existence override their wider-world concerns. All else seems free-floating unless it directly intersects with them.
Not so different from us adults, huh?
In addition, children who have faced abandonment in their early years—adopted children, kids in the system (foster care), those from divorced families or with an MIA parent, or those who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling—can feel even more that life is uncertain. After all, what they thought was initially stable (birth parents, a home life, their parents’ marriage, their loved one being alive) was ripped away from them. That creates a fear that nothing is safe. At any moment, even what they have now—people and things—could be taken away.
Fear #3: Fear Itself
Every child who walks out the door and heads to their school in the morning has one fear. I hope I’m not the one who gets picked on today—the one who gets singled out, mocked, and laughed at.
You see, kids are so changeable that whom they target changes with the merest whiff of the wind. They can also turn vicious in an instant.
Take a flock of middle school girls, for example. Individually, they could pass as normal human beings. You might even think they look sweet and innocent. However, put them together as a group and something shocking happens. They are electrified in a gossipy, vindictive mess and become a force to be reckoned with. They instill fear into any girl who becomes their target. That’s the power of the peer group.
It gets even worse because of social media that allows kids to be anonymous in their comments. Any filters of civility are often dropped because there is no consequence. You can say anything you want about anyone at any time. It’s far easier to spread a rumor on the internet than it is to sit face-to-face with someone and call her a name. (However, this is changing a bit, with a few Hollywood and K-pop stars deciding to legally go after their anti-fans who take things too far.)
Because children want to be accepted as part of a group, fear rules on a daily basis. Every child—even if he is currently “popular”—is always aware that, at any minute in time, he could morph into the one with the target circle painted on his back.
If you have an only child, he may grapple with fear even more. That’s because he’s the only one in your family who’s experiencing the hits of the peer group. He hasn’t been able to watch an older sibling go through the gauntlet and survive to tell about it. Also, he feels deeply the possibility that someday he’ll be alone if anything happens to you. He doesn’t have siblings to count on to support him. That makes his world scary indeed.
Rejection, uncertainty, and fear itself are a part of your child’s psychological makeup every day in our complicated world. He steps out your door with that trio hanging heavily on him. Much of the time these fears exist only in your child’s imagination of the worst-case scenario. Other times those fears become realities. But the very fact they exist at all increases his daily stress. What can you do to ease the burden your child feels in this regard?
Three Antidotes You Have the Power to Provide
You don’t always have control over what happens to your child once he’s outside your nest. It’s humanly impossible to be with your child 24/7, guarding him. This is even truer as he grows older and does more activities on his own, and his circle of potential contacts widens.
Still, even then, there are antidotes to the trio of fears that you can easily provide if you’re aware of them.
Antidote #1: Unconditional Love and Acceptance
The antidote to rejection is unconditional love and acceptance. Your son may face some rejection in the peer group, but he can weather it all without too many dings in his spirit because he has a strong foundation of acceptance at home. He knows you love him, warts and all.
What’s happening in your child’s heart is far more important than what is happening in his world. In my book The Way of the Wise, I talk about the first six tightly packed verses of Proverbs 3. In those verses, King Solomon—the wisest person who ever lived—uses the word heart three times. That’s how important the heart is in determining motivation and next steps. When I talk to CEOs who are working hard to realign the priorities and directions of companies, I talk about where vision comes from. They may think it comes from the head, but it actually comes from the heart.
Tough things may be going on in your child’s world, but it’s all meaningless if she is secure in your love and your acceptance of who she really is. She can then take rejection in stride, realizing that not everyone will like her (perhaps due to their own issues), but that doesn’t change who she is at her core. She may be considered uncool for hanging out with the kid who’s physically disabled or considered weird. But that’s not a bad thing. It reveals her heart, which will stand the test of time in a shallow world.
A few encouraging words from you will turn that rejection on its tail and reveal it for what it is—meaningless in the long run. “I know you get picked on for being friends with Jeremy. But I think it’s wonderful you see Jeremy’s heart when other people only see that he’s different. It shows me how genuine your heart is. Every time I see the two of you together, I smile and think, Wow, how lucky I am to have a kid like you.”
Rejection won’t matter as strongly if you point out that her gentle concern for others stands out from the crowd, making her unique and special. Why? Because it’s diametrically opposed to what many kids do, which is think only about themselves.
Every time you say something like that to realistically encourage your child, it’s like feeding pellets of love to a baby bunny. You’re not only feeding her with what she needs to grow, you’re also showering her with positive, healthy attention to combat the negativity of rejection.
Your words are also based on real things she does to go the extra mile for others. You’re not blowing smoke by saying, “Wow, you’re such a great kid.” Instead, you’re focusing on the acts of her thoughtful, caring nature toward others. You’re not creating her self-esteem; you’re subtly pointing out what she’s already doing and verbally encouraging it.
With such acts your child may not get an A from her peers—at least not at this stage in her life, because they’re too busy focusing on themselves—but she’ll get an A in life. And that’s a report card grade that will travel with her into the future and pave the path to relational success.
Antidote #2: Stability at Home
The antidote to uncertainty is stability at home. That means you believe in and stand by certain values that you’ve established. No matter what happens, those things won’t change. When your child walks in your door, he knows what to expect. He may have had the worst day of all, but he walks into a calm environment where he can sort out his thoughts and the events that threw him a curveball. He knows you are there and you’re not leaving.
That’s why, parent, no matter what is happening in your own life—work pressures, relational stresses—your child needs you to stand firmly and not blow with the wind. The feeling of instability children feel otherwise creates all kinds of emotional and physical turmoil that can last for years and impact future relationships. It’s also why I tell women to never ever stay in abusive relationships. Even if you lack courage to stand up for yourself, you need to flee that environment for the sake of building a stable home for your children.
Tough things may happen in your world and in your child’s world, but you’re never leaving. You remain the constant in your child’s rapidly spinning, changing universe. You never shift your character or your actions. You decide what basic values you will defend and not sway from, and you teach those values through both speech and role-modeling to your kids. Those things establish a rock-solid foundation that can combat any uncertainty your child faces.
Antidote #3: Realistic Encouragement and a Guarantee That Your Child Won’t Be Alone
The antidote to fear is realistic encouragement and a guarantee that your child won’t be alone in difficult times. “Bad things happen. I won’t deny that reality. But we’re all in this together, and we’ll get through it. Those things I can guarantee you.”
Many parents think that cushioning their children from difficult events will protect them. In fact, it accomplishes the opposite. It increases fear when those events do happen because the children have no framework for dealing with bad things.
Toni is the mom of an only child, Brandon, who became excessively clingy. The trigger was the death of a friend’s parent. After experiencing bouts of this behavior, Toni realized her son didn’t know how to manage his fear that something might happen to his own parents. With some tips from me, she had the following conversation with him.
“Are you afraid that something might happen to Dad or to me, since it happened to Troy’s dad?”
Brandon nodded. She’d hit the nail on the head. Once the fear was out in the open, she could address it.
“What happened to Troy’s dad was unexpected and really sad. Accidents sometimes happen, and people die. I know Troy loved his daddy, just like you love your daddy and me. Troy will miss him, I know. Let’s think of something we can do for him when he’s feeling sad.”
That’s the key with fears—to get them out in the open and to give them a name so you can talk about them. The bogeyman under the bed, for example, is much scarier to kids when they don’t know what it is. Bringing fears out into the open is like shining a flashlight on that unnamed bogeyman. When it’s identified, it’s not as scary.
Note that Toni was also realistic and honest. She didn’t say, “Don’t worry. That will never happen to us.” Then what if it did? Brandon would feel betrayed by his own mother’s words.
Truth is, accidents do happen. They’re unexpected—that’s why they’re called accidents. Instead of lingering on that aspect of the death, though, Toni turned the tables by suggesting they do something to help his friend. That effectively moved Brandon’s focus off his own fear to a practical solution. She knew he wouldn’t feel as fearful and helpless if he could actively do something to help his friend.
For older children, you can go a step further in this type of conversation. You could add, “You know, because people do die, it’s so important to make the most of every day you can. Be kind to people. Tell them you love and appreciate them. Treat them well. It’s also why family time is so important and special to me, and why I work hard to plan activities we can do together even when we’re all busy.”
Fear turned inward can be insidious. Once named, it can be put into perspective and conquered.
Now that you know the three basic fears and how you can proactively address them with your hurting child, they’re not so scary after all, are they?