Ep 74: Preparing Our Kids to “Sit With Discomfort”

Moments when your child is struggling and you don’t meet them where they’re at right away are moments when your child strengthens their skills to sit with discomfort and manage stress. I know, that’s a bold statement coming from someone who has been advocating for us, grownups, to meet our children where they’re at, most of the time, for the past 20-ish years. But hear me out, you and I know that not all stress is distress; not all discomfort is harm. There’s a certain type of stress that our children need to grow. That’s why in this episode, you and I are going to explore how we teach children to tolerate stress and sit with discomfort (and one thing our culture misses about how to do this). Then, you’re going to reflect on your patterns when you witness your child struggling. Once you know your pattern, we’ll unpack one action that you can experiment with today. You’ll also hear an excerpt from the book Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting too. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started with episode 74.

[OPENING]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[INTRODUCTION]

Sitting with discomfort is a Survival & Liberation Smart Skill

Imagine your child made a mistake, felt disappointed by what they thought they could do, got rejected by their friends, or felt anxious about the upcoming visit to the dentist -- and imagine they were able to work through this stress and sit with discomfort without falling apart at the first sign of things going yikes on bikes. 

This stress tolerance and problem solving skill is important for your child to be survival smart and navigate the stress of surviving under white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy. 

It’s also a liberation smart skill necessary for coalition building and land stewardship. Say there’s a conflict happening at a mutual aid network meeting and our children have what it takes to sit with discomfort, sit with the nuances and diverse perspectives without reflexively canceling one another. It’s an important skill for all of us to stay in the struggle towards liberation. 

To say it another way, being able to sit with discomfort is one pre-requisite for us to know better, do better, and be better.

[EPISODE]

What Western culture misses

Where many of us in Western cultures go wrong when teaching kids to sit with discomfort is by emphasizing hyper-independent and individualistic learning. Individualism often shows up in logics like “kids learn by doing” and “kids need to fall and get back up.” While both are valid, you and I both know that children learn by doing when they know they’re supported by someone they trust. We know children fall and get back up when they know someone they trust has got their back. Children learn best in relationships where they feel safe enough to try things out, make mistakes, and experiment. It’s the same way you and I need psychological safety to be curious, connect the dots, or be courageous enough to think outside the box.  

Before we dive into how you can show up and support your child when they struggle, let’s reflect on your pattern, your very own reaction when you feel discomfort witnessing your child going through tough times. Most caregivers and parents in our Come Back to Care community are no strangers to their discomfort whether at work or at their community organizing. But no matter how skillful they are at sitting with discomfort around conflict resolution, deep canvassing, or calling their state representatives, they often lose their cool and curiosity when they see their own children stressed and struggling. My dear co-conspirator, if that’s you too, you’re not alone.

Invitation #1: Reflecting on your reactivity

My first invitation is for you to know your pattern so you can pivot. When you witness your child stressed and struggling and the urgency hijacks your parenting intention, which of these two patterns best describes your reaction: a) sink or swim or b) swoop in and save? 

Sink or swim looks like giving your child zero support. You might justify this unconscious decision with “well, no one was helping me when I was little and I turned out fine.” Or, “they need to struggle by themself to learn how to be tough, to have grit, to persevere, and to succeed.” 

Swoop in and save, on the other hand, looks like giving your child all the support, right away even before your child asks for it. It’s support on steroids, drinking from a fire hydrant style. It’s too much, too fast, too soon. You might justify this unconscious decision with “I will never let my child feel alone in their struggles like I did. I want to break that cycle of neglect.” 

No matter which pattern describes you, please notice that it’s done out of love, out of the legitimate desire to teach your child survival smart skills or to protect them from the pain you experienced. I’m not saying “please never use swoop in and save when physical threat is approaching your child.” Or, “please never use “sink or swim” after you’ve tried all the ways to give support to your child.” What I’m saying is “sink or swim” and “swoop in and save” are two common ways we protect our children from the world. But, just like we discussed in the previous episode, preparing our children for the world is much more effective. 

And one way to prepare our children to sit with discomfort like a champ is to be a scaffold.

Defining scaffolding

To define what it means to scaffold, let’s put it all on a spectrum. If you’ll indulge me and picture, sink or swim on one end of this spectrum perhaps to the left and swoop in and save on the other end or to the right. Sink or swim on the left, your child is struggling and has zero support from you. They’re struggling alone. Therefore, there’s no psychological safety in place for them to learn anything from this stressful experience, except learning the pain of being abandoned. Then, on the right, swoop in and save, your child hasn’t even struggled yet but they have already received way too much support from you. It’s like your child has homework due and you’re doing their homework for them. Therefore, they’re not learning anything about what they’re capable of or how to move through stress. Whether it’s sink or swim on the left or swoop in and save on the right, there’s zero learning happening for your child. The middle area of this spectrum is where scaffolding happens. Your child is struggling but with you supporting them in the background. 

So, to scaffold means to be available for support without jumping in to fix things. It looks like you stepping back and holding space for your child to try things out, solve the problem, and work through that stress using self-regulation strategies you’ve been showing them. Meanwhile, you’re there in the background ready to give them guidance that they may need to bridge the gap between what they can do now and what they need to do. You’re there to coach them up when they need it. You’re there to encourage them to take risks, to experiment, to fall, to fail, to mess up, to be messy.

I’ll pause here and turn the microphone back to you. What do you think your child is learning about themself when they struggle and you scaffold?

Why scaffolding is important for our children’s development

Our children often learn self-efficacy aka a sense of “I got this.” They come to believe that “yes this experience is hard but I can try and work through it. I’m not a passive victim to the circumstance. I trust in my own agency to address the situation.”

Dr. Peter Gray studies children who engage in risky physical play outdoor. Think climbing tall trees or trying daring acts on the playground. When adults don’t intervene or interfere, most children can calculate risk and complete their so called Mission Impossible safely. And that’s how they learn to believe in their capacities and trust in their agency. I’ll link to some of his work in the episode show notes along with Ep 62: Mothering, Not Smothering: Power With When Your Child is Struggling where you’ll find additional studies too. 

But even without scientific studies, it already makes sense to your parenting wisdom and caregiving intuition, right? Because when we don’t step out (sink or swim) or step in to intervene right away (swoop in and save), our children step up and rise to the occasion, to exercise their potential, and therefore see what they’re made of. Agency, check! Self-trust, check!

A scaffolded or supported struggle is a stress management practice in tiny doses. It doesn’t mean that they will get through the struggle with a guaranteed zero meltdown or be disappointment proof. But your child will have enough psychological safety from your scaffolding, to try to self-regulate, to mess up, to experiment, to problem solve. With your support, your child’s sovereignty and self-trust bloom.

“But am I traumatizing my child?”

And I know that in real life, it’s not fun to just hang back and watch our precious tiny humans stressed and struggling. But for care to be radical instead of coddling, I’m going to hold your hand- with consent- when I say this: not all stress is toxic and not all discomfort is harm. Some stress is actually necessary for our children’s development. 

Here’s an excerpt I wrote in the Raising Change Agents book, quote:

“For an experience to be traumatizing –disrupting brain and overall development and causing long-term health issues –your child’s stress has to be greater than the support they feel they have over a long period of time:

Stress > Support = Trauma

The Center on Developing Child at Harvard University calls this “strong, frequent, prolonged adversity” toxic stress. However, not every discomfort is distress and not all stress is bad or “traumatizing.” When your child experiences the discomfort of struggling and figuring things out, they’re experiencing what’s called developmental stress. When children know that support from someone they trust is available while they’re solving problems, struggling, or figuring things out, this developmental stress actually prepares them to manage future stressors and builds resilience. “The single most common factor for children who develop resilience is at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult,” stressed (pun seriously intended) the Center on Developing Child:

Discomfort + Enough Support = Developmental Stress that Nurtures Resilience”

End quote.

Invitation #2: “The 17-Second-Ish Rule”

To put this idea into practice when your child is working through their developmental stress, here’s our invitation: When your child is struggling, be a scaffold. Count to 17 before you intervene.

Why 17 seconds? I’m so glad you asked. Dr. Mariana Brussoni, a lead researcher at The Outside Play Lab which studies children’s outdoor risky play and injury prevention based at the University of British Columbia, shares that if you count to 17 a) it gives you enough time discern whether you need to step in or stay put and b) by the time you get to 17, your child is likely to have sorted themselves out.

But you know me and my style by now. 17 is only a guideline. Please adapt what resonates and leave the rest. The heart of this invitation is to take a beat and take a pause when your child is struggling so that you’re not automatically reacting with sink or swim or swoop in and save. This quick pause can be a breath, three seconds, a count to ten, or whatever works for your style and your child’s development. 

One adaptation parents in our community love is communicating to their children first, letting them know that support is there when they need it, then they step back and be a scaffold for however long they decide. They communicate with words like “You’re working through it and I’m here if you need me.” Or with an expectant look and a gentle smile. 

In the Raising Change Agents book, you’ll find two concrete actions to meet your child where they’re at after you scaffold long enough. And you’ll also hear about how other families do this, like how one Puerto Rican-Pakistani family put scaffolding into action when their three-year-old was struggling with bedtime routine. I’m so excited for you to read it. Pre-order is available now anywhere you buy books.

[CLOSING]

To wrap up our episode, I just want to thank you from my whole heart for practicing liberation at home together. It’s not easy or fun to explore how you’re struggling when your child struggles. It’s hard to step back and be a scaffold when you want to help your child. I completely understand. You want to get in there and turn this struggle into a teachable moment. 

By stepping back and scaffolding, you’re actually teaching your child even without your intervention. You’re showing your child that you trust in their agency to move with and through the stress. By not meeting them where they’re at right away, you’re showing your child that “yup the situation is yikes on bikes right now. But your child is riding that bike. They can brake. They can swerve. They can pedal through. No matter what, you’re there to support them and they’re not in this stress alone.” By letting your child surprise you with what they can do first, you’re gifting them with a receipt of self-trust. And that’s how we power-with with our children by being a scaffold and lay a foundation for them to sit with discomfort without falling apart.

For more practical ways to practice social justice with your child in ordinary moments like mealtimes, play time, the morning rush, meltdown times and so on, please consider pre-ordering my upcoming book, Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting anywhere books are sold.

If this episode fills your cup, please share it with folks you love, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or join our Come Back to Care Patreon to keep our learning space advertisement free. This show is fully listener funded. I cannot thank you enough for being here with me and raising our future generations to be change agents who survive and thrive.

I’m with you, my dear co-conspirator, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.