What is there to do on a rainy last day of Chanukah, when all the kids are home from school? Oh wait…and that all the kids can AGREE ON….??!! After arguing for days about what to do (usually we end up arguing the whole morning of the vacation day and then don’t have time to go anywhere, so this time we started a few days early!), we decided to go to a mall in Be’er Sheva with a really amazing arcade/amusement area, and then go to IKEA for dinner. (Another perk of living in Israel, Mehadrin restaurant at IKEA!) The trip was enjoyed by all, with activities for all ages and good food, no major fights and a relatively calm car ride each way (calm Ema plus Mordechai Shapiro music videos on Ema’s phone=calm kids, most of the time!). What struck me the most during this wonderful day of family bonding was my 6 year old son, the one who is having such a hard time in school, and who our OT told us seems to have anxiety. This kid did not seem anxious at all! He tried many different rides, even ones a little outside his comfort zone, stayed at the Gymboree by himself while we tended to his younger brother in a different part of the room, and participated fully in an interactive show for kids at Ikea. He was happy, engaged, and adventurous; he tried new things, interacted with new people and was excited about life! So why does he seem to have “anxiety” in school? Could it be that something in the environment is stressing him out, to the point where he can’t handle it? Is he always in “fight or flight”, always worried he won’t be able to step up to a new challenge, or he will be yelled out or sent to the principal’s office? In the last post I spoke about being there for and with our kids, co-regulating with them to help them through stressors and challenges. Of course, the activities at the mall are not the same as school. But they could have been stressful for some kids: a new ride that goes higher than he is used to, being alone in a Gymboree while his parents are across the room, singing, dancing and performing during a play in front of other kids he doesn’t know. In fact, for many kids, these would have been stressful and anxiety-producing. So why was my son okay? I think the answer boils down to one word: relationship. My son feels safe and secure in his relationship with me, so when I take him to a new place and show him a ride and say, “you can do it,” he feels secure that he can do it. When I tell him I’ll be right back to get him, he knows and trusts I will come back. When I’m watching him and cheering him on, he feels confident to dance and perform. Of course, there are some kids whose innate personalities shy away from many of these activities.
But I think that most kids can thrive in many areas, including school, if the relationship with the teacher is first established, as one of love, trust and confidence in the child. Deci and Ryan point out in their classic work on motivation that one of the key components of becoming more intrinsically motivated is the positive relationship with the person motivating you. And we all know that when our kids are the most difficult and “defiant,” it is often because of some rupture in our relationship. As Gordon Neufeld so aptly puts it in his book Hold on to your Kids, the real power of a parent (and I believe a teacher!) lies in their connection to the child. This connection can also reduce anxiety in many situations, and replace it with a feeling of calm, of having someone there who has “got your back.” The Chovos Halevavos states that bitachon is an absence of anxiety or fear, and is a feeling of Menuchas HaNefesh because you know HaShem is there for you. It is the visceral feeling of the Emunah that we work so hard to cultivate in our minds. When we help our children to connect with us, thus limiting their anxieties, we are giving them this concept of bitachon. Life has many situations that may produce anxiety, but if I know there is someone there, guiding me, looking out for me, cheering me on, I can feel calm, confident, and secure in whatever I do. When our children are young, that “someone” is us-as they get older it will be”h translate into Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Post script to this post: we decided to switch our son to a different school, where he could have a fresh start, and start from a place of a good relationship and less anxiety. More on that in a future post!
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