Parenting: Supporting Versus Enabling

One of our main jobs as parents is to guide our children to be solvers of their own problems and managers of their own lives. It is our responsibility to help them consistently acquire new "building blocks" for these necessary skills at each age and stage on their "runway" to independence. How do we know if the actions we are taking are truly helping our child or getting in the way of growth? Before we take an action on behalf of our child, it is important to ask, "Is this action I am about to take furthering my child's growth, or am I doing this because I feel anxious and need to do something to soothe my own anxiety?" In this talk, l discuss strategies for facilitating independence skill building and taming our own anxiety around our child's challenges so that we are able to help facilitate true growth.

Transcript

Welcome to this parenting talk on supporting versus enabling. Today we're going to talk about how to better understand when we are supporting consistent learning and growth with our children as opposed to when we may be enabling behaviors and patterns that are hindering growth and movement towards increasing independence. This information can be applied whether you are parenting a toddler or an adult. It is never too late to make changes in our approach and find new ways to support growth in our children, No matter their age. One of our main jobs as parents is to guide our children to be solvers of their own problems and become managers of their own lives. It is our responsibility to help them consistently acquire new building blocks for these necessary skills at each age and stage on their runway to independence. So how do we know if the actions we are taking are truly helping our child or perhaps getting in the way of growth? Before we take an action on behalf of our child, It's important to ask, Is this action I'm about to take furthering my child's growth? Or am I doing this because I feel anxious and need to do something to soothe my own anxiety? Today, We will discuss strategies for facilitating independence skill building. And taming your own anxiety around your child's challenges so that we are able to help facilitate true growth. So first I want to examine a concept called the zones of learning. So imagine a circle with three rings. The center ring is our comfort zone. The outer ring is our panic or overwhelm zone. But there is a middle ring that we often forget is there, And that is our learning or challenge zone. It's our growth zone. So let's look at these three zones in more detail. So the comfort zone, It's what we already know. It is the ways we are used to being. And sometimes where we are comfortable can still be miserable, But we like to stay there because it is what we know and it is more comfortable than stepping into the unknown or dealing with any uncertainty. Within this zone are also the skills that already come easily to us. It's what we can already do. But we aren't challenged. We may become stagnant in this zone. And then you have that outer ring, The overwhelm or panic zone. We think we can't do something or we think we don't know how to do this thing or face this thing. So we often panic. We immediately go into overwhelm and try to resist, To push it away, To avoid, To distract. And then we have that middle band, The middle zone. The challenge zone. I can't do this yet, But I'm willing to take steps to learn and move towards I can do this or I can handle this. We don't avoid or distract. We acknowledge that it is hard, Right? There's a quote, Sometimes we win, Sometimes we learn. So having a mindset where we view failures as stumbles and learning and opportunities for growth. Having a mindset as parents where we view our child's stumbles or failures as learning and opportunities for growth. And when we're in this zone, Because we're working to view the tougher moments through this lens, We see the value of spending a lot of time in this zone, Right? We don't push it away. We don't try to get back to our comfort zone. We can feel grateful for the learning opportunity rather than feeling anxious because our child is uncomfortable. We can begin to see the discomfort as a necessary and wonderful catalyst for growth. And we can become grateful for the opportunity instead of anxious or panicked or overwhelmed ourselves, Right? So reminding ourselves that in order to grow, We have to be uncomfortable. So take a moment to ask yourself this question. Do I step in and do as soon as my child leaves their comfort zone? We must allow our children to spend time in their challenge and learning zone. If we step in, We are limiting their growth. We are becoming a barrier to their growth. Now this action might ease our anxiety for a short amount of time because we've taken their discomfort away in that moment. And in turn, We've eased our own anxiety for the moment. But we've taught them nothing about working through discomfort, Working through a challenge, Persevering, Learning by stumbling your way through a problem, Falling, Getting back up again. And those lessons are waiting, Right? We can do this temporarily, But we're not always going to be there. So how do we begin to differentiate between supporting and enabling? So stepping in as soon as our child leaves their comfort zone is a sure sign we are enabling. Enabling is doing something for someone that they can do for themselves or begin to learn to do for themselves. We often enable as parents in an effort to allow our child to avoid discomfort or avoid dealing with the negative consequences that will naturally appear as a result of their actions or inactions. Enabling is doing something for our child, Including adult children. Because they aren't taking action and we can see a failure or a negative consequence for them on the horizon and we cannot handle watching that. Enabling allows our child to avoid uncomfortable situations. To avoid having to find their way with grit, Perseverance, And hard work. And once again, We are postponing the learning and growth. That they inevitably need. Experiences that we all eventually have to go through. Enabling means we solve and help them avoid a failure for the time being because we do the work for them. We are protecting them from the negative consequences of their own actions, But I will reiterate and argue that we are doing this primarily in order to deal with our own anxiety and not to actually serve our child's growth and development. So there's some emotions or thoughts that possibly accompany enabling. So if you feel discomfort when your child feels discomfort and take action from that place, That's a sign you're enabling. You feel fear over a potentially negative consequence your child may experience. You feel compelled to take action to help your child avoid consequences. Your action creates further dependence on you and quite possibly perpetuates unacceptable behaviors, Procrastination, Avoidance, Dishonesty, Et cetera. Another emotion or feeling that can come with enabling. You have an uneasy feeling. Maybe you are getting some signals from your internal barometer that you aren't sure you're taking right action. You don't have real clarity. So another side effect of us enabling our kids is that we may be inadvertently sending our child the message that we think they are incapable and we'll make a mess if we don't intervene. To reiterate what it means to enable, I want to read this profound and relatable list from childmind. Org of telltale signs that the action we are taking is enabling. So it is usually enabling to, One, Allow your child to avoid all uncomfortable situations. Two, Cover up for things your child did, Forgot to do, Or did poorly. 3. Speak up on their behalf instead of letting them learn to express their own thoughts and feelings. 4. Enforce house rules inconsistently because you feel bad about your child's struggles or you are afraid they won't like you. Five, Overly react to nonviolent tantrums by engaging in long lectures or creating emotional fireworks of your own. Six, Intervene with other adults to prevent your child from experiencing disappointment rather than helping them work through their feelings. And lastly, Protecting them from the consequences of their own actions. So once again, One of our main jobs as parents is to guide our children to be solvers of their own problems and managers of their own lives. So we need to work to create conditions that allow our children to cultivate resilience. This should be one of our main goals. I would rather have a kid graduate high school or college with C's, But have that kid be a kid who knows how to manage their anxiety and deal with being less than perfect. Deal with falling down and getting back up than the kid who maybe graduates with a super high GPA, Right? A 4. 8 is possible in high school with, You know, Taking a high load of AP classes. So having that kid that maybe graduates as a super achiever, But isn't resilient because everyone made tons of accommodations to protect from any failures. So how do we know? We are truly supporting. Support is empowering our child to move forward with greater resilience and building skills for independence on their road to adulthood. It is helping them learn to manage their thoughts and emotions with balance and clarity. Supporting or helping includes assisting with things they are currently incapable of doing for themselves. So we help them stay in their challenge or learning zone to learn how to do the things they aren't capable of doing. We are assisting, Not doing. Support is taking actions that help facilitate them in managing their own lives, Their own emotions and behaviors, Not taking over and doing it for them. So we're walking beside. We're offering a hand to help them up onto a boulder or down off a boulder, But we're not carrying them and doing all of the heavy lifting and heavy thinking. So emotions that might accompany support, Supportive actions, And these could be signs that you're on the right path to stepping into more of a supporting versus an enabling role. You feel calm. And peaceful about how things are going and the help you are giving. You know where you end and your child begins, And you are clear on whose problem it is to solve. The action you're taking feels right. It doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of panic. Your action comes from a place of wanting to support and teach and not from a place of worrying about what will happen if you don't take action. Your action leads to increased autonomy and helping the other person learn. And finally, You're sending a message to your child that they are ultimately capable, Even if they need a little support along the way. We all need a little support along the way in order to learn. But we never learn when someone just does the thing for us. So what are these building blocks to independence that we're helping offer our children, So a true form of support. I encourage parents to assess each year what can I turn over to my kid at this age that is developmentally appropriate for my particular child. So some ideas include. Ordering for themselves off a menu. Emailing a teacher. Filling out a medical form. Making and packing their own lunch. Starting to do their own laundry. Making or canceling an appointment for themselves. Managing all of their schoolwork and their deadlines and stepping back and allowing them to live with and learn from the consequences, Both positive and negative, Right? So once again, Connecting their results to their action or inaction. As they get older, Taking over some financial responsibility. Obviously, We have to take into account any developmental challenges, Mental health conditions, Or other abnormal stressors. But I also caution you to be very careful about ways we may be inadvertently feeding learned helplessness. And perpetuating symptoms of something like anxiety by stepping in and doing because our child says they are anxious. Some anxiety is part of the human condition. We all have to learn to navigate anxiety. There is a study out of the Yale Child Study Center that found that the more accommodations we put in place for conditions our child might be experiencing, Such as anxiety, The worse the symptoms get. So we may inadvertently be feeding the anxiety cycle. And there's another program that comes out of Yale called the SPACE program, And that's an acronym for Supportive Parenting of Anxious Childhood Emotions. And they've come up with a formula for support. And it is support equals validation. Plus expressing your confidence in your child's ability to handle the distress, To handle the situation. So a phrase that kind of captures this formula might be something like this. I can see this is really challenging and I'm confident in your ability to handle the distress. So once again, Walk beside your child. Get help or help when they need it, But allow them to try first. Normalize normal life suffering. Normal life stress, Anxiety is normal, Being nervous is normal. We aren't leaving our children alone in times of distress. We can certainly validate their feelings and do so with warmth. We can acknowledge their distress, Their nervousness, Their disappointment. We can name it when they are in their challenger learning zone. And that's different from greeting whatever they're going through with panic and overwhelm. So labeling much of it as normal, Right? Universal normal suffering, Normal human experiences of peaks and valleys and plateaus that will be repeated and experienced throughout the lifespan. Naming that is part of it, Right? And then once again, Expressing our confidence in their ability to navigate it and then being an assistant, Right? Not just taking over and doing it. So some questions you can ask yourself to make sure you're staying in a supportive role and out of the lane of enabling. One, Is my child capable of doing this by themselves? If the answer is yes, Stay out of it. If it is no, How do you act as a guide and a support and avoid doing all of it? The second question. Is my child respecting my boundaries? If your child is doing something where you've laid down a boundary and they're acting out as an attempt to manipulate or get out of doing something that they don't like, They don't want to do, Or it is hard, Then you stepping in and doing is enabling the behavior and likely not supporting growth. Third question. Does my doing this for my child support unhealthy behaviors? If your doing is supporting procrastination, Enabling your child to avoid situations or conversations, Or helping them avoid a consequence, Then you are enabling and not creating conditions that support growth. And the last question. Is my child moving forward with the skill building, With learning the building blocks needed for independence and capability? If you aren't seeing growth. And seeing their sense of capability growing. If you aren't seeing increasing independence and self-management and a decrease in dependence on you, At each stage in age as they get older, You are likely doing too much. So what are the things within our control? When we decide to take a step back and not be in that problem solving mode, That doing everything mode. Well, Some things in our control. We can model healthy coping skills for managing stress and overcoming challenges. We can be consistent with how we are handling our own anxiety as it ebbs and flows. And especially as it ebbs and flows related to situations going on with them, We can be sturdy. We can be unflappable. We can send the message that, Hey, We're assuming capability. We're here to help, But you can do a lot of that heavy lifting, That heavy thinking. Being clear, We can be clear, Calm, Consistent, And concise. We can be predictable in a way that makes our kids feel safe, Makes them feel safe as they hit these peaks, Valleys, And plateaus in their life. We can hold appropriate boundaries that we can connect to our end goal of raising a capable, Independent, Resilient, Compassionate adult. You can coach and be a thinking partner, But don't do it for them, Especially something they can do for themselves or they at least need to try. Allow them to try first. And ask questions. Okay, You learned what didn't work. What else can you try? What other ideas do you have? What else? Tell me more. So getting in the habit of using these sorts of guiding questions. We can praise effort and small steps and connect to a character trait that helps build their self-narrative, Their positive self-identity, Their self-confidence and sense of capability. We can say things like, I noticed what a creative problem solver you are. I noticed how calmly you handled that disappointment or that failure. You learned from it and picked yourself back up. I noticed how you were able to manage your thoughts and emotions and not get stuck in a cycle of worrying and beating yourself up and wishing things were different. I noticed how you were able to persevere and continue taking small steps to move forward. I noticed how strong you are. I noticed how you showed yourself compassion. I noticed how you didn't take your stress out on those around you, Right? These are little statements that we can make to praise small efforts that will really help feed their sense of capability and identity and confidence. So. I want to just leave with just this reminder, Avoid stepping in with a short-term fix with you as the fixer. In ways that are actually hindering long-term progress. You can do this.