Facing fears and avoiding avoidance
When, why and how to do the things we fear
Fear is a valuable and necessary human emotion and instinct. Fearing consequences helps keep us safe. We don’t put our hands in fire, stand near the edge of a cliff, eat food that smells bad, leave our homes unlocked, walk across a road without looking, all because of fear.
We are also programmed to seek to avoid a whole load of unpleasant things: hunger, thirst, being too cold or too hot, illness, exhaustion, pain, discomfort, people being mean to us, disapproval, criticism. The list goes on.
The opposite of all this is a sense of security and comfort. We want that and it is not a bad thing to want.
However, sometimes we need to step out of that state of security and comfort and to allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it is good for us to be hyper-alert to danger; feel hungry or tired; speak up even if we might be looked at or criticised; to fight for our rights; to help another person; to take a risk for the sake of a better outcome; to aim high even if we might fail; to walk into a new environment such as a class, or job, or group of people; to be inquisitive; to try something difficult; even to feel pain and exhaustion for the sake of the pleasure or pride at the end of it.
We need to learn to face fears. But first we need to assess them: are they reasonable? Are we more afraid than we should be? Are they preventing us from a better life? Are they getting in the way? And what is the best way of approaching them? If our approach has been to avoid the things we are afraid of, is this OK? (Spoiler alert: it’s not.)
As adults, we often avoid the things we are afraid of. We try to choose jobs that don’t involve what we don’t like or feel we can’t do. We often get away with it. But it’s not ideal, is it? It’s not what you want for your young people.
If you are a parent or teacher, how can you help the young people you care about become braver and access all the opportunities they may be missing by letting their fears win?
Very common and big fears that a young person might have:
Fear of going to school - this might have specific reasons or be more general; it is rarely actually a fear of school but more often a fear or dislike of some of the emotions that happen during a school day or of being away from the security of home
Fear of public performance - including giving a presentation or just reading aloud or answering a question. I include in this the fear of social situations - often called social anxiety. This is largely anxiety about being looked at and interacting with other humans.
Fear of being ill - typically, the fear of vomiting or fainting, though it could be more general than that.
Fear of something happening to family/parents/friends.
There are also, of course, many fears of specific things, whether spiders or heights or the dark.
I should also mention that eating disorders typically involve fear of what will happen if you eat or eat certain foods, or don’t exercise enough. Eating disorders are a complex set of problems and I can do no better than direct you to the work of a friend of mine and the most wonderful and kind expert in the field, Eva Musby. Eva has huge experience as the parent of a child with anorexia.
How should we help a young person with fears?
I have a three-step process.
Question
Equip
Learn
1. QUESTION
Discuss the following questions:
What exactly is your worry? This is where you start to unpick the exact nature of the fears, with words and as much detail as possible: What goes through your head when you think about this thing? What do you think might happen and how might this feel if it did? Has it happened to you before? Is there a specific thing you’re afraid of? For example, is it one aspect of school/illness/performance?
How likely is it that your fear will become reality? What things might really happen (including positive things)? What’s the evidence and how can you quantify the possibilities that the bad thing will or won’t happen? Try to bring a objective questioning into this, without ever saying or hinting that you think a fear or thought is “silly”. (You can say it’s unlikely but that doesn’t actually reduce the fear.)
Is your fear reducing the quality of your life? Are you missing out on anything beneficial by avoiding the thing you fear? In other words, is this a fear worth dealing with? If it’s not a problem and not stopping you having a good, happy and successful life, fine. But if it is making your life less valuable, let’s do something about it.
Is there anything positive you can do to make the risk lower and the outcome better? Positive is the important word and what I mean is that it needs to be an action that does not have negative consequences.
Avoiding the fear usually has two negative consequences:
Fear grows when it’s avoided. If you’re afraid of spiders and you take enormous steps to avoid spiders you do not become less afraid of spiders and you are still going to need to face a spider at some point because they are common.
You risk missing useful opportunities. If you are afraid of social situations and you avoid them, you miss countless opportunities that might have led from the social situations; you lose out on friendships, which bring support and happiness; and you feel bad.
TOP TIP: Listen. When adults ask questions, they often don’t fully listen to the answer. Remember that young people are often less good at saying exactly what they mean so if you think you’ve interpreted, check back that this fits what they meant. Listen, listen, listen. You do not always have to fix a fear, just hear it.
2. EQUIP
Instead of avoiding the things we fear, unless those things are really fine to avoid, we need to learn to manage the discomfort. Because that’s actually what all those fears have in common: they make us uncomfortable, mentally or physically or both. They create a stress response, which is perfectly natural but needs to be managed so that it is proportionate and appropriate.
How to equip ourselves (or others) to manage fear:
Be prepared: What would help me in the situation I’m facing? What will I feel like and what parts of that can I control? This could be things like talking to someone in advance (a friend or adult), going to the social event with someone, practising the presentation, making sure you have everything ready in advance - just adapt to whatever the thing is. There are always things you can do to be more prepared. (It’s also important to stop preparing when you’ve done enough. For example, if the fear relates to something very hypothetical and quite unlikely, you need to allow only a small amount of time for the what ifs.)
Control body: learn a breathing technique and a grounding technique. There are lots to choose from in No Worries and soon I will put some in a post here. These techniques are SO powerful and everyone needs them. They are life skills.
Control mind: again, No Worries contains many mind-control techniques but my favourite one is “just now”. You simply add the words “just now” to whatever you’re feeling. I’m feeling scared… just now. I’m worried about my presentation…just now. I wish I was at home safe in my bedroom…just now.
3. LEARN
What did I learn from this? You learnt that you can do it! It probably didn’t feel as bad as you thought - or the thing you feared didn’t happen, or it happened differently. But, whichever, you came through. You did it. Next time you can do even better. You learnt, you grew and you should feel very proud of that achievement, however big or small it was.
Fears don’t go away after just one experience, though. Even though you’ll see progress, you might not always see progress. An entrenched fear has deep roots and takes time to deal with. But effort, support, patience and inevitable maturity, along with lots of talking and listening between you and the person you’re trying to help, will soon make a difference.
In a sense, what you’re doing for your teenager is the equivalent of holding their hand as you did when they were small. A teenager with a fear becomes like a younger child and they need gentle support to help push them through the situation. But what they don’t need is you to shield them from the thing they fear. They need to be shown how they can do it themselves, with their team - you, other adults, their friends - cheering them on in the background.
The two of my books you’ll find most useful for this are No Worries and Be Resilient. No Worries has all the techniques for managing anxiety in body and mind. Be Resilient has chapters on courage and confidence, as well as how to build a great support network.
I sometimes write about brains, adolescence and building brilliant teenage minds and sometimes about the business and art of writing for publication.
If you’d like to buy any of my teenage brain/wellbeing books (and thank you!) you can do so from all the usual places, including my books page on Bookshop.org, which helps independent bookshops (and me!)
You might be interested in buying a Gift for a Teenager - it’s a perfect present for someone you care about. You choose the book to go in the package and your chosen teenager gets inspiring, personal messages from me.
Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend!