How to Build and Sculpt a Balanced, Non-Anxious Child

several children bouncing around to illustrate non-anxious-child

Suppose you came across a well-thumbed book in the local charity shop and the title read: How to Make the Perfect Non-Anxious Child. Wouldn’t you be tempted to grab it?

I mean, it could come in so useful!

Not for your first child, of course. You of course know "how to rear a child first time round" haha!

But second or third pregnancy? When you’ve seen first-hand just how hard it is to craft a child in any way at all, let alone one who's not over-anxious too much of the time.

But you don’t buy it. Why not?

I think we all realise it’s not a question of "making a perfect child" but bringing your child up in a certain way so they have the ability to not only survive but thrive in a world that shimmies and shifts constantly.

So what’s a better way to think about ensuring your child can cope? I certainly don’t have all the answers but I’ve often thought about the difference between building and sculpting as we try to avoid bringing up an anxious, frightened child.

Let’s have a closer look and see if it helps us find a way that works quite well when living with children.

Why think "building" and "sculpting"?

I remember I was always going to be an architect – I’d read a book about a guy who studied architecture and then watched as builders made his designs a reality. Sounded wonderful – especially written as faction! Fact and fiction, riveting! 

My headmistress put an end to the idea and made me study languages!

But later in life I’ve indulged my artistic tendencies and done a bit of everything arty – except sculpture.

I ask myself now, why? And I come up with this: my brain isn’t good at seeing how to make it what it should look like by taking the other bits away.

In other words,

  • builders/architects put things in that they want there, whereas
  • sculptors take things out to reveal what they imagined.

Both end up with the design looking right!

So although building and sculpting sound like direct opposites, I do see where both are wonderful approaches to bringing up a child who will be

  • stable,
  • resilient,
  • capable of anxiety and stress in the right places and quantities but
  • not damagingly anxious.

In effect, a balanced, non-anxious child. Just what we all want.

So let’s investigate what we can do to build and sculpt as parents.

"Building" tasks for parenting a child to be generally non-anxious

I think of building as constructing – or putting together – an environment with 5 key aspects.

1 Attachment

We’ve  heard it said plenty of times now that a baby’s attachment to the main caregiver is truly essential to everything that follows.

Shall we add that it starts in the womb? Your baby isn’t going to mind if you sing out of tune or warble or upset the cats. But they will hear you and respond!

And every day and night after that, you need to bear in mind they’re depending on you to be there for them theoretically and/or practically, even after they start being more independent.

You’re effectively building an emotional safety net – or an anchor if that image suits you better. With that in place, they won't need to resort to being anxious as often.

2 Boundaries

Start on the dry stone walling from day one!

You’ll love them, encourage attachment, help them and applaud their successes – but the boundaries you build must stay firm!

You build safety by holding the line. Once they know they can nag enough to make you give in, you've lost the battle! But worse, they feel unsafe. And an unsafe child gets anxious.

So what do you say if you don’t know whether yes or no is the answer at any one time? Say: “I’ll have to think about that and I’ll let you know.”

That way, you gain time to decide where the boundary is at a particular moment, and avoid mind-changing, which your child will latch onto as a weapon – or find horribly unsettling in their immature world. Boundaries are important!

3 Consistency

This isn’t necessarily keeping everything the same. Phew! As your child gets older, of course rules change. Otherwise they’d be in a playpen at 12!

But consistency means how your family does things, how you respond emotionally to them, and what is expected for behaviour and manners. 

That’s consistency of a kind that allays their worries and fears because they know. Most worrying/anxiety stems from imagining what might happen at some future event or time. They need to know how you’ll be or respond.

In families where alcohol and drugs are a problem, you can easily imagine a child’s confusion when a parent is sometimes in charge and competent and then laid on the sofa drunk and incapable.

Bring that scenario down to size and you can imagine times when you might confuse your child by having a totally different reaction or setup! 

That’s what "consistency" is trying to avoid. Build it in to their daily lives.

4 Acceptance

I don’t need to explain this one at all really. Your child needs you to build a sense inside themselves of being acceptable to you as a little human, however they present.

That doesn’t mean accepting damaging behaviour or disobedience. You explain how the behaviour isn’t acceptable but that you still love them.

5 Opportunities to fail

Build an opportunity to fail? Yes! Life consists of learning from failures or being less successful than another person. If you always make sure they’re successful, you’re doing them a disservice!

So let them try something (suitable, of course) without telling them how or helping them. Let them experience failure and grow from it.

It builds confidence because knowing how to fail – and that failing is OK – means they're less worried about it in future.

Besides, when they achieve something by themselves, they've learnt perseverance and will grow inches! You can always applaud their efforts, of course. You built attachment for a reason, so of course they need to feel you’re on their side either way, encouraging them.

"Sculpting" approaches to parenting a child to be generally non-anxious

This means gently removing – or discounting/ignoring – tendencies in your child that will be damaging for them long-term.

1 Refusing to have new experiences

Does your child shrink away from trying anything new? Many do! You can bribe or coax, but it often doesn’t work.

What works best is to demonstrate in your own life a fun attitude to new experiences – they learn from seeing the fun. And also from seeing it doesn’t kill you try and fail, or try and succeed against the odds.

What you’re sculpting away is fear of trying, fear of not knowing, fear of failure, fear of the future.

2 Wanting their own way regularly

Allowing for age, position in the family and anything else you think of that's relevant, it’s good to make sure they don’t always have things their way.

For a start, they need to learn how to put others’ needs and choices first. But also how to deem themselves worthy of having a say some of the time – we certainly don’t want stunted kids.

So sculpt away any excess tendencies gently!

3 Disrespecting other children and adults

We tend to use throwaway comments – but unfortunately our children hear and pick up and copy! Just a reminder, then, that how we treat others will rub off on them.

But if you hear them being horrid, sculpt that away and explain why it's horrid. The disrespect is often a cover-up to make them look brave not anxious. What if they were that person? you can ask.

So – uncover their innate kindness by sculpting it.

4 Avoiding helping in the home

OK, it’s so much easier to do it ourselves. But as your child learns to be competent in many more skills and activities, anxiety – or rather, over-anxiety – falls by the wayside. And a beautiful self-confidence without ego is revealed.

5 Expecting to have everything they want

No child is going to continue getting everything they want now the economy has tanked. So it might seem easy to carve away at their “wants”.

But mostly, we need to help them not want everything they fancy – simply because so many people in the world can’t have anything.

It brings a balance in life to realise they have enough. So hard, I know, when other kids seem to have more. But it's worth it in the long run.

Feeling you have enough, being grateful, is a wonderful antidote to anxiety about what might happen. Sort of “living in the moment” living!

Did we need to buy that book??

No! We can simply build and sculpt gently throughout their growing years. They’ll never be the perfect non-anxious child. But then, we’re not the perfect non-anxious parent either!

What will happen is that instead of their primitive brain being brought into play whenever a scary thought or event happens, they will be balanced, thoughtful, kind and – well, imperfectly perfect! Just the kind of child it’s lovely to have in the family.

Give it a go?

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