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Dear Enda
Since he started in secondary school last year, my son has experienced extreme anxiety, but his anxiety has gotten worse since he went back to school a few weeks ago. He is 14 and has just started second year.
Last year, he got anxious about everything, even down to things like we might forget to collect him from school. Since his return to school, his latest anxiety is that he might catch the virus and bring it home to the rest of us.
The school have been brilliant and are so reassuring. Both they and our GP have suggested that we remain calm and keep reassuring him that he will be OK. However, this seems to make him worse.
Last year there were days that he couldn’t bring himself to go in at all and I’m afraid that we are heading in the same direction as the restrictions continue.
We are at our wits end. Is there anything we can do to help him cope better?
Lorraine
Dear Lorraine,
Firstly, let me reassure you that you are not alone in experiencing this. Since schools reopened at the start of September, I’ve had numerous contacts from both parents and schools over children getting anxious about a variety of what on the surface might seem irrational fears, like your son’s.
To highlight how we are going to help him fix the problem, try to first understand that his various anxieties are not being caused by what is going on around him, but by how he is interpreting what’s going on.
The problem with uncertainty is the uncertainty of it
In this case, ask him a very simple question: “Are you afraid that you will catch the virus or are you afraid that you might catch it?”
With anxieties like this, the fear is nearly always that he might catch it. Similarly, if you match this with the other anxieties that he has had since he started in secondary school, you’ll most likely find that this “maybe” is the common denominator in them all.
From: “They might forget to collect me”, to “I might bring the virus home”, your son is living in a world where he doesn’t know how to cope with all the uncertainties that he is becoming aware of as he grows through adolescence.
To make matters worse, the more we try to reassure him, the more anxious he gets
As you have already found out, reassurance in this case is making the problem worse. In your son’s world, the only way he knows how to fix his anxieties is to constantly try to be 100% certain that what he thinks might happen, won’t happen
Unfortunately, the more certainty he strives for, the more uncertainty he finds, until all he sees is the uncertainty.
To make matters worse, the more we try to reassure him, the more anxious he gets since all the reassurance in the world doesn’t relieve the fact that he still might get it.
Over time his “maybes” are becoming more “likely”. By this stage, his brain has now trained itself that all the possible dangers that could come true, will come true, unless I control them.
How to help
To help him, we need to get right back to basics and start teaching him how to train his brain that he doesn’t need to control things in order to prevent bad things happening.
To achieve this, we need to be practicing what we preach. So, we need to join him in his journey, by giving up trying to be in control ourselves.
And we don’t do this by trying to dismantle things we know we have no control over, but in areas where we currently do achieve it.
Coping with the uncertain world, is one of the biggest challenges that we must overcome as we grow up. Unfortunately, both he and everyone around him are trying to achieve something that is impossible.
We start learning by making simple changes at home
You see, the knack of living is not found in getting 100% certainty, but by learning how to accept the uncertainty of life without getting anxious.
Similarly, we don’t learn these skills by starting in big areas like school. We start learning by making simple changes at home.
In the same way that he grew the problem by practicing trying to control small things he had no control over, we solve the problem for him in the same way, by practice.
The uncertainty game
So, start as a family by having a conversation about how we all play the certainty game, and how we all need to learn how to cope with uncertainty.
Look for areas where every member of the family tries to control their world. Be light-hearted about how we all play the game. Take the drama out of the crisis.
From insisting that the kitchen is clean to getting annoyed when someone doesn’t do what we want.
The more you demand to be in control, the less control you will feel you have
Play games where each member must give up one controlling behaviour with a penalty, like unloading the dishwasher, if they don’t.
Gradually introduce your son to a world, where in order to feel reassured, he doesn’t have to have 100% certainty.
Gradually, he will retrain his emotional brain into realising that whilst anything can happen, in most cases, it usually doesn’t.
The more you demand to be in control, the less control you will feel you have. The reverse is equally true. The less control you try to exert, the more control you will feel you have.
By not trying to control everything around him, he will be better able to focus on influencing areas that are important.
By following simple precautions, he will learn that whilst the virus is highly contagious, it’s easily preventable
In a nutshell, this means that the more he acts to reinforce letting go of control, the more his brain will realise that just because I’m not in control, doesn’t mean that bad things will automatically happen.
Once he has achieved this, we can then help him figure out the best way to protect himself from becoming infected.
By following simple precautions, he will learn that whilst the virus is highly contagious, it’s easily preventable.
Enda Murphy is a cognitive behavioural therapist who focuses on supporting adults to support young people. For more details go to www.seeme.ie
Please email your own queries for Enda to advice@farmersjournal.ie
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