By Clay Kaufman
Some stress is inevitable as our children grow up. Figuring out how to complete a task under time pressure, how to complete a new challenge or how to overcome a fear is a great life skill, and those are not situations to be avoided. But stress for the sake of stress–the debilitating kind–can hurt our children’s confidence, keep them from muddling through difficult times and even leave them hesitant to try. As parents, we can help!
Stress and anxiety can come from a feeling of lack of control. And just think about how little control children have over their own lives! When children are very young, we choose what they eat, when they eat it, when they sleep and for how long, what they wear, where they go–the list goes on. Even small opportunities to gain some control over their own lives can make a big difference. That’s the reason psychologists will suggest offering a young child a choice of two shirts to wear. While it’s a fairly limited choice, it gives them agency and confidence. It feels easier to agree to put on a shirt when you’re given a choice.
As children get into middle and high school, they express more opinions about what they wear and eat, and perhaps can find a way to avoid eating the broccoli for dinner. But their days are a series of meetings run by other people (their teachers and coaches), with set times and rigid expectations. When the math homework is #1-27 odd, you’re expected to do them all, not just enough problems to show you understand the concept. Faced with so little control when I was a teenager, I remember that my friends and I made sure to get our learner’s permit for driving on the day we turned 16, and not a day later: the sooner you got your permit, the sooner you could practice driving to earn your license, a license that meant you got some control of your life back (“sorry, momI would have been back an hour ago, but you know the traffic…”). Now, it seems like apprehension about driving and the ubiquity of rider apps make children less eager to get their licenses, which means a little less control over their own lives. While one of my children got their license as soon as possible, the other two felt less compelled, and ended up relying on others for ridesagain, a little less control.
So what can we do? Any opportunities for control make a big difference for children of any age. In my long experience as an educator, I always appreciated teachers who wove choice into their assignments, and I encouraged everyone to do the same. Students of any age might choose from among several topics for a writing assignment or project, or have several choices of what book to read next. When students choose, they not only gain a sense of control, but also gain ownership over the process. When I coached baseball, I always asked the team which of several activities they wanted to choose to end practice. It was a little thing, but it energized them.
At home, children can help pick the menu for the week or help with tasks around the house. Although children will always complain about chores, fulfilling a task gives them a sense of confidence and control. And giving children some control over their schedule can really help. Maybe it’s just choosing the order in which they get things done after school, or helping make family decisions that affect them.
A sense of control is particularly important for students with learning differences, and the principles apply to all students. When I was head of school at a private school in Maryland, I had a student who had had great trouble getting to school on time. She was new to the school as a 10th grader, and her parents had decided not to fight the fight anymore. A few weeks into the year, her advisor told me that she had missed most of first period every day so far. So her advisor and I sat down with her, and I asked her what her mornings were like. She explained that she had 6 things to do in the morning, including showering, getting her lunch and feeding the dog. I asked her if it mattered what order she accomplished the tasks, and she said that if she didn’t shower first, somehow it would throw off her whole timing–by the time she showered she was late. We came up with a schedule for her morning with everything in the order she chose, and made 4 copies: one for her room, one for the bathroom, one for the fridge and one for the front door. She followed the schedule, and the next morning, she arrived at school on time. Her parents were thrilled at how smoothly the morning went. She told us that it was such a relief to have a set order for her morning and to be able to check things off as she went. She had control of her morning.
Checklists can indeed be a great way of gaining control and alleviating stress. We all make grocery lists and check things off as we find them, and many students have told me how much they love writing down a list of homework assignments and crossing them off as they are completed!
As parents, any supports we can give our children to use on their own–like my student from Maryland–empower them and give them a sense of control that is essential for confidence and to alleviate the anxiety that can stem from feeling like a passenger instead of a driver in one’s own life. Any responsibilities they can fulfill on their own help prepare them for fulfilling responsibilities down the road. Giving children some agency and responsibility from a very young age won’t necessarily eliminate stress and anxiety, but it can teach them about the power they have to live the life they want.
Clay Kaufman, a longtime educator and school leader, is former Head of School at The Cedar School, a high school for students with language-based learning differences, such as dyslexia, in Greenwich, and is currently at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Riverdale.
