Why Your Kid's Anxiety Might Be Yours

Jon's eleven-year-old had been more anxious than usual, and his wife told him why.

You have been more stressed at work. He is a reflector. He picks up on your energy. 

Bryan Post takes that and does something more useful than reassurance. Your son has his own part, formed long before this week. You have yours. And the moment you take his behavior personally, you lose the ability to be present for him, because you have made his stuff your stuff. He gives the actual words to use, and the reason they work: all behavior arises from stress; a stressed child regresses to a younger age, and between the stress and the behavior there is only ever love or fear.

Then the part most parents get backward. When your kid's fear frightens you, what you do next is control, suppress, and correct, and you tell yourself that is good parenting. It isn't.

He finishes with the child who goes quiet instead of acting out, what happens when you try to pry that child open, and the one thing that works instead.

 

IN THIS EPISODE

• What Jon's wife told him about his own energy
• Your part and their part, and why the difference matters
• "Every communication is energy"
• Why personalizing your kid's behavior costs you the ability to be present
• The script: "Dad's been really stressed lately, and I've noticed you have been too"
• All behavior arises from stress, and why a stressed eleven-year-old acts like a five-year-old
• Love or fear: what actually sits between the stress and the behavior
• "You're doing that because you're scared"
• Turtle children, and why you cannot dig them out with a stick
• The linchpin, the neuroscience behind it, and the Bruce Lee line that sums it up

 

FULL EPISODE

This is a short cut from one of the best conversations on this feed. The whole thing is worth your time: Love-Based Parenting Is Firm, Honest, and Harder Than Yelling Ever Was — https://frontrowdads.com/531

 

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