First, there is elation. Then come fear, guilt, doubt, apprehension, frustration and — when driving lessons begin — hysterics.
Such is the emotional life of a parent.
But parents could steady themselves, and reassure their children, by stepping back from the emotional maelstrom and applying a little logic, says child psychologist Mary Ann Shaw, of University Park, Texas.
In her new book, “Your Anxious Child — Raising a Healthy Child in a Frightening World” (Birch Lane Press, $14.95), Shaw offers logical solutions to common problems.
For instance, if your teenager won’t do his homework, don’t ground him on the weekend, ground him during the school week. That makes the punishment fit the crime and makes sense to the child, says Shaw, who believes children deserve weekends off just as their parents do.
She recommends punishments that are logical and predetermined, and she recommends a crime-and-punishment chart that delineates sensible sentences for transgressions.
“Leaving the yard without asking,” she says, would beget “No outside play for a day.”
Today’s parents have an extra burden, Shaw says. They must avoid exacerbating their children’s anxiety in a world torn by divorce, crime, job insecurity and academic pressures.
It’s not easy. Every child is different, and children require different approaches at different stages. A child who, at preschool age, needs reassurance to quell multiple fears might, in adolescence, need an injection of fear, Shaw says.
How to instill fear but not paranoia? Tell children their fears are justified and, at the same time, help them feel safe when venturing out, Shaw says.
To avoid heaping the weight of the world on tiny shoulders, parents can recast the focus on their own fears.
“I’d say, `I’m uncomfortable with you doing this. I know you don’t think anything will happen. But I’m not going to sit here and be a nervous wreck,’ ” Shaw says.
Fortunately, most childhood fears are not life-and-death. But how a parent handles his child’s everyday concerns is as important; missing vital cues can inflict needless harm, Shaw says.
Some ways parents aggravate a child’s anxieties are timeless: the athletic dad who pushes his shy son into team sports that make him feel like a failure; parents who enroll a retiring child at summer camp to “get used” to social situations.
Logic dictates better solutions, Shaw says. A shy boy would have a better chance at mastering a sport if his parents steered him toward a more solitary pursuit, such as swimming or biking.
Shaw, who operates a private practice and is a consultant to Children’s Medical Center, urges parents to examine the child’s natural temperament. Children of shy parents might also be shy. Trying to force them in another direction can do real damage, creating chronic stress that can feed psychological and physical maladies, Shaw says.
An only child of strict, perfectionist parents, Shaw suffered performance anxiety growing up in Dallas.
“I was so anxious about 1st grade, I threw up every morning,” says Shaw, 58. “I was afraid I was going to be late. My parents were so efficient, if you will, and we were never late.”
Because of this, she froze during tests, making scores that “were not that great.”
But she continued her education as an adult, receiving her doctorate in education from the University of Houston in 1972.
What kept her going was an affinity for children that she discovered in her first job, teaching mentally handicapped students.
At a time when the mentally retarded were regarded as having little potential, she took the children on fun outings.
The work “was so rewarding,” she says. “The parents just marveled that I didn’t care, that I wasn’t ashamed of them.”
The outings proved therapeutic.
“The bed-wetters quit bed-wetting and the thumb-suckers quit sucking their thumbs,” Shaw says.
Later, she served for 10 years as director of psychological services for the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, in Dallas. There she learned to size up family difficulties and impart helpful guidance while the child was being treated, sometimes in as little as three days, honing an ability to recognize common parent-child stalemates.
“I can tell kids what their parents are going to say, and I can tell parents what kids are going to say,” she says.
