Most parents, when they see children not terrorized by the things that terrorize them, they work very hard until they’ve finally got you terrorized. They teach you those irrational fears. Well-meaning, but they do just the same.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in San Antonio, TX on Saturday, April 20th, 2002 #474

As you well know, I love the wisdom of Abe. And they are ‘spot on’ when they talk about how insidiously we work at teaching our children to fear the things WE fear. The fear we were taught by all those ‘well-meaning’ adults in our life when we were kids!

Oh… I’m not immune to it… I can come up with all sorts of arguments defending why it’s important to teach children to be cautious….

BUT…

I also know what a fool’s errand that is!

Teaching our kids to be terrorized is definitely UPSTREAM parenting… and it kind of turns us into ‘terrorists’… doesn’t it?

Now… getting instantly rid of a lifetime accumulation of fears and cautions is highly unlikely to happen overnight, so I have a suggestions…

how about we just get more honest with ourselves and our children?

In other words, instead of trying to impose our fear on our child, let’s just own it for ourselves and see how our child responds. I’ve tried it… and it was a very powerful learning for me.

In other words… when/if your child is playing too close to the street… don’t start shrieking and screaming at them to get away from the stream… calmly and firmly tell them that YOU are afraid they’re playing too close to the street. Then give them a choice to move away from the street by going to another location outside or going instead.

Here’s something I want to caution you about though… you don’t want to be teaching them that YOUR feelings of safety are dependent on THEIR actions. That’s too much of a burden to put on a child… plus it’s simply not their responsibility.

So, in order to make this change successfully… (the change from teaching them fear to simply owning your own fears) you really have to be willing to OWN it. That means taking a look at what is so about your fear… and being open to having your child challenge your fear. Sometimes, when we shed some light on our fears we see that they are built on a foundation of sand. Full of imagination… and worry about things that aren’t even happening!

Isn’t it ironic when your kids turn the tables on you? Yesterday, my daughter-in-law was home alone with the six-year-old when she decided to go up on the roof to clean the gutters. So, she got out the ladder, told her son what she was about to do and talked with him about what he should do if, for some reason, she hurt herself.

Naturally, he wanted to join her on the roof as he agreed to run to the neighbor’s house if anything happened. Mom didn’t think that was a very good idea as she explained she just needed him waiting by ladder until she was finished and then she promised they would have a picnic on the roof.

That was a great idea to him. However, it wasn’t very long before this boy (well trained by his grownups LOL) shouted out,

“Mom, Are you almost done? I’m getting scared for you and thinking you should come down now!”