Turn Fear Into Bravery | Helping Kids Handle Emotions (Ep. 2)

Horror movies, family group text, kids waking you up before the alarm in the morning. These are all legitimate scary things. We've all had years to learn how to cope and deal with the things that keep us up at night. But our kids, on the other hand, don't have as much training. From the monster under their bed to simply the idea of being alone can be overwhelming to them. The good news is, there are easy ways to help our kids respond to the feeling of fear and to move past it. Hi, my name is Stacey and I've been working with students for over 10 years, teaching, listening and talking to them in an effort to better understand what they need. I'm also the mother of three young kids. I've spent a considerable amount of time training adults on how to listen and respond to students in ways that better meets their needs and empowers them. Today, I'm going to help you add new tools to your toolbox that will help you comfort your kids and equip them to choose bravery when facing fear. I recently had to use this tool with my oldest as he started to be afraid of the dark. My son, RJ, has become afraid of the dark at bedtime. Initially, I responded to his fear with annoyance, dismissal and even some frustration. It seemed like every night he wanted to add a new thing to our nighttime routine. He wanted to read countless books. He wanted more water. He was hungry. He needed another blanket. He wanted us to sleep with him. He had countless requests and honestly, I just thought he was stalling, making excuses to stay up later because he wasn't tired. Our bedtime routine already took long enough each night and just like many of us, my husband and I look forward to the time after our kids are in bed just to have a few hours to ourself. So RJ's extra requests were making it hard to be patient and understanding. I've worked with students long enough to know that behavior is how kids communicate

when they don't have the words. So instead of letting my frustration and annoyance take over, I decided to investigate. I slowed down and I played detective. I asked, I wonder questions like, I wonder if he's really stalling or I wonder if he's really still hungry. Then I asked him, it seems like you don't want to go to bed. Do you know why? It's too dark, he would say. Do you know what you're feeling right now? Afraid of monsters? Okay, where do you feel it? How does your body feel? In my belly or my chest is how he would respond. And I realized that RJ was experiencing fear. He was scared of the dark and had started to believe in monsters. So I evaluated my options and thought of some ways that I could respond to RJ's fear. Here are the options that came to mind. I could step in and rescue him from his fear by sleeping with him every night until he was no longer afraid. But I knew that that response probably wouldn't end up equipping him to handle the feeling of fear in the future, which was bound to show up in one way or another. While solving his current fear by sleeping with him so he wouldn't be scared would solve the problem temporarily, but it would not give him any tools or practice navigating the emotion that he was feeling. I could just say to him, monsters aren't real and there's nothing to be afraid of. Which in all honesty, I totally said before, but I knew that that was dismissive. It was a response that wouldn't show him empathy. I want to equip RJ to handle the fear, not just turn it off or ignore it. I knew I wouldn't be able to shield him from the feeling of fear forever, but I knew that fear would be an emotion that he experienced again, maybe not for a while, or maybe even

as soon as tomorrow. And I also knew that I couldn't just swoop in and make him stop feeling it. So instead I started with the end in mind. My goal is and was that my kids are equipped to acknowledge and communicate their feelings and then respond to them. So realizing my first two responses probably didn't accomplish the goal that I started with, which was the end in mind. I knew I had to put in the time, the patience, the grace to walk through responding to my son's fear. What did that mean? And what did that look like? Well, we named his feeling. I gave what was going on in a word. I gave him the words that he didn't have. You're feeling afraid, I told him. I showed him empathy and I validated his feeling. I told him it's okay to feel fear or scared sometimes. I told him we cannot stop what we feel and we can't stop it from happening, but we do get to decide how we respond to the fear. I told him the things that I want him to remember about himself, because if we're going to remove something like fear, we want to replace it with something like truth. So I tell him you are brave. You are strong. You're never alone. You're safe. I told him we would work together on what he could do when he was scared or felt fear. I offered some solutions and I invited him into the process by asking him if he had any ideas. We picked three things he would use every time he felt fear. Together we landed on I am strong and brave.

Self-talk, we landed on praying, so asking God who is always brave and always with us. And then thirdly, I reminded him of the truth. And then along with that, I made sure to always include something for him to look forward to, like breakfast, he loves waffles. Now we had a plan that we came up with together. RJ had picked the tools that he wanted to add to his toolbox for responding to fear. So the next night when RJ felt fear and started to respond with stalling behaviors, I sat down and I looked him in the eye and I reminded him of the plan that we had come up with together. And then I modeled each tool we came up with and gave him the chance to try each tool himself. You are afraid. You're afraid of the dark and of monsters. It's okay to feel afraid. You're brave, you are strong, you are safe. You are never alone. What tool do you wanna use because you're feeling afraid? Do you want me to pray with you and pray for you? Then the next night, the same stalling behaviors began. But instead of only me doing it, I told him that tonight, we were gonna use the tools together. We did it together step-by-step for many nights before RJ initiated using the tools from his toolbox on his own.

The first night that he used words to say, I am scared instead of stalling, I told him that I was proud. I told him naming his fear was brave and that he is brave. And every time that he initiated responding to his fear without prompting from me, we celebrated it. I had to check myself and remind myself the goal as a mom is to equip him to handle fear so that as he gets older, he can handle that emotion without me and without me walking through it with him. Whether your child is afraid of the dark like RJ or is older and afraid of starting school or making new friends, our kids will all experience fear and we can equip our kids to respond to fear instead of being paralyzed by it. And we can do that by just following a few simple steps. Give them the language, name the fear, use the feelings chart if you need to, empathize and validate their feelings of fear. Tell them the truth over and over and over again, you are brave, you are safe. Talk to them about different tools that they can add to their toolbox. Maybe your toolbox is a physical collection of different strategies, or maybe it's just something that you keep in your mind. Whatever it is, talk with your child about how they want to respond to fear.

Give them options of things to pick from if they have no ideas. Work on this together. I would pick only one or two ways to respond to fear so that your child can remember their coping skills. You could even call it their fear tool and then celebrate it by marking the moment. You can make a post-it note wall, a rock collection, use stickers, celebrate naming the feeling, celebrate positive self-talk like I am brave and I can be brave and I'm never alone. Celebrate when they use their fear tool. Whether it works or not, whether the outcome is what you want it to be or what you think it should be, doesn't matter, celebrate it. They are using their toolbox, or at least attempting to use their toolbox, and that is a win.