Love In, Love Out

Copyright

While the author of this work has made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this book is as accurate and up-to-date as possible at the time of publication, medical and pharmaceutical knowledge is constantly changing and the application of it to particular circumstances depends on many factors. Therefore it is recommended that readers always consult a qualified medical specialist for individual advice. This book should not be used as an alternative to seeking specialist medical advice which should be sought before any action is taken. The author and publishers cannot be held responsible for any errors and omissions that may be found in the text, or any actions that may be taken by a reader as a result of any reliance on the information contained in the text which is taken entirely at the reader’s own risk.

In order to protect privacy, some names, identifying characteristics and details have been changed or reconstructed.

Thorsons

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First published by Thorsons 2020

FIRST EDITION

© Malie Coyne 2020

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

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A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Malie Coyne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008332990

Ebook Edition: April 2020 ISBN: 9780008308148

Version: 2020-03-27

Note to Readers

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Dedication

To my beautiful girlies, Jessica and Aimée,

you make my heart smile.

And to my Pete xxx

Epigraph

The parent–child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind.

Bessel van der Kolk

Contents

1  Cover

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Note to Readers

5  Dedication

6  Epigraph

7  Contents

8  Epigraph II

9  Foreword

10  Introduction

11  1 What is Compassion?

12  2 What is Anxiety?

13  3 Parents

14  4 Children

15  5 Reflection

16  6 Action

17  Appendices

18  Resources

19  Notes

20  A Word of Thanks

21  Author Biography

22  About the Publisher

LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

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Epigraph II

‘We live in an age of anxiety. This book offers practical and evidence-based strategies to help parents navigate this new world. It is written by a parent for parents. Love In, Love Out: A Compassionate Approach to Parenting Your Anxious Child combines the best of psychological science with heartfelt and practical advice for parents who want to raise resilient children ready for the world.

This is one of those books to keep by the bedside; it’s a go-to resource, a beacon of light and inspiration when the going gets tough as a parent in these anxious times we live in.’

– Dr Paul D’Alton,

Head of Psychology, St Vincent’s University Hospital Dublin

Associate Professor of Psychology, University College Dublin

Fellow and former president, Psychological Society of Ireland

Foreword

Childhood is often referred to as the ‘best years of your life’, and children are often described as not having a care in the world – but that simply isn’t true. Many children experience significant anxiety growing up. Sometimes it’s rooted in their or their family’s circumstances, but often a child’s emotional maturity just isn’t developed enough to process their little fears, be they rational or irrational. And anxiety can consume a child and limit their enjoyment of activities, their participation in school or social events and their quality of life.

Parents can struggle to understand or deal with their children’s anxiety – sometimes allowing their own anxiety about their child’s anxiety to make the situation worse.

Malie has created a road map for parents who are feeling lost or overwhelmed trying to help a child who is anxious. A clinical psychologist and parent who herself suffered with anxiety as a child, Malie has a warm, practical approach to dealing with the issue. She focuses on the use of calmness and compassion, which allow children to reason their way out of anxiety and to develop resilience. Her emphasis is on making an anxious child feel safe, secure and able to express their fear whilst empowering them to overcome it.

Using mindfulness and kindfulness, the benefits of play and cognitive-behaviour therapy this book will demonstrate to children and their parents that struggles in life are normal – and that they are necessary. Learning to master your anxiety and overcome its hold on you helps you to grow up stronger, more resilient and better capable of dealing with other struggles in life.

With simple, clear examples from her personal and professional experience throughout, Love In, Love Out is an invaluable aid to any family wanting their child to move beyond anxiety.

– Dr Ciara Kelly MB

Journalist, radio broadcaster and medical doctor

Introduction

What are your hopes for your children?

I’d like you to take a moment and ask yourself, ‘What three qualities would I like my child to have?’

______________________________

______________________________

______________________________

If I only have one hope for my children, it’s that they’ll be compassionate. I’ve come to realise that being compassionate incorporates a lot of the qualities that many of us would wish for. This includes treating ourselves with kindness, having empathy towards others, engaging in meaningful and supportive relationships, showing gratitude, topped off by the icing on the cake commonly known as resilience.

Researchers are increasingly finding that the key to an emotionally healthy life is resilience. Resilience means learning to cope with manageable threats, while having the ability to rebound in the face of difficulties. Ultimately, it’s about accepting life’s colourful rainbow of emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them. The single most important factor that nurtures resilience in children is having a stable and committed relationship with a trusted adult, to whom the child can turn in times of challenge or need.

So, in building a child’s resilience, the two primary ingredients are: facing a manageable threat and a secure child–parent relationship. Food for thought, isn’t it?

As for the three qualities you picked for your children, I expect you came up with three words that match your values, background and current circumstances. There are no right or wrong answers to what you want for your children. But the fact remains that most parents have a rough idea of the qualities they would like to nurture in their kids.

An interesting follow-up question is:

Now think about what percentage of your time you spend intentionally developing these qualities in your children.

Don’t worry – this question is not an attempt to make parents feel bad. Many parents spend much of their day just trying to survive, never mind putting effort into intentionally developing qualities in their children. For what it’s worth, I don’t wake up every morning thinking about the sorts of people I’d like my girlies to grow into, either!

What’s important is learning to use precisely those occasions when you’re trying to survive as a parent. These tough times will provide you with opportunities to help your children to thrive, giving you the chance to show them how to come out the other side when they’re struggling with their worries. It’s about trying to reframe these basic survival moments as times when the most important and most meaningful work of parenting actually takes place. This is called ‘survive and thrive’.1

Any busy, stressed-out or disastrous episode in your week can become an opportunity for connection with your child. It’s by connecting with you – rather than by having a perfect home life – that they can feel soothed, safe and cared for, and can begin to develop ways of soothing themselves. Similarly, every moment you invest in giving yourself time to reflect on your life and what influences you as a parent can become an opportunity for connection with your inner self and with those around you. Human connection heals adversity. It’s as simple as that.

How to use this book

You’ve sought out this book to help you with your anxious child. But first, recognise what a worthy job you’re already doing by being there for them, and how the relationship you’ve nurtured since the day they were born will be your greatest tool to see them through. I refer to ‘parents’ throughout the book, but the strategies presented are for any caregiver, or anyone who works with children. What’s important to remember is that our role is crucial in preparing kids to live as human beings in this world, and managing life’s inevitable highs and lows.

In looking at our role as parents, we’ll kill off a couple of parenting myths. We’ll firmly put to bed the idea of ‘ideal’ parenting – believe me, there ain’t no such thing. Rather than see our kids as miniature versions of ourselves, we’ll find a way of raising them without projecting our own problems and emotional baggage onto them. By doing this we’ll learn to parent them without so much fear. I know it’s a tall ask in this modern day, when fear is palpable all around us, but it’s possible one step at a time.

When we understand our own and our children’s anxiety, we realise that we’re not alone in how we feel, that it’s not our fault, and that it can get better with some help. It’s not that we expect anxiety to go away completely, we just don’t want it to stop us from doing the things we really enjoy doing to enable us to grow into emotionally healthy people.

The ‘Anxiety made simple’ sections throughout the book include answers to some of the questions I’ve been asked the most by children and parents. These provide simple explanations of some of the big questions about anxiety for you to share with your child as starting points for conversation.

Why you should talk to your child about anxiety

If you’ve opened this book because you’re overwhelmed by your child’s anxiety and want some practical ways of understanding and coping with it, that’s exactly what this book is going to give you. But before we talk about the mechanics of anxiety, I need to make the following point loud and clear:

Talking to your child about anxiety will not make them more anxious.

The reason I have a bee in my bonnet about this is that I’ve heard of several occasions in the past year when professional therapists have discouraged parents from broaching the subject of mental health with their teenage children. Some worry that by discussing stress and anxiety – or mental health more broadly – we’ll make a bigger deal out of a small problem. Adults can have a tendency to shrug off children’s concerns as being something they’re picking up from their friends at school, and that by paying any attention to these concerns they might simply be giving them more traction.

A case in point: Teresa

Teresa followed her previous therapist’s advice and did not talk to her anxious teenage daughter, believing that she had caught this ‘mental health’ talk from her friends at school. Teresa was in a sense relieved, as she felt uncomfortable asking her daughter about her feelings. She was also afraid that asking about it might cause her daughter more anxiety and feared that her answer might be ‘not good’. And what would she do then? But Teresa ultimately realised that in not asking the question, she was merely avoiding her own and her daughter’s pain.

When we further explored Teresa’s feelings and outlined the benefits of communicating versus not communicating her concerns, she felt more confident in broaching the issue with her daughter. She was also armed with the knowledge that teenagers are a special breed of people who do not like feeling under pressure to talk face to face. Bringing up concerns with teenagers is best done alone, side by side, in a car or when engaged in an activity, talking through the specifics of what the parent has noticed about the child’s mood or behaviour:

‘I’ve noticed you’ve been feeling sick before going to football the last few times, and that you have some scary thoughts about what might happen there. You also seem a bit frustrated about your school work, which is a new thing. Things seem tough for you at the moment. Is everything OK? Maybe talking would help, when you’re ready. I’m here for you any time.’

By her next session with me, Teresa came in looking like a different woman. It was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She said that it was only when she asked her daughter directly about her feelings that she had opened up:

‘Unless I’d asked her directly how she was feeling, there’s no way she would have opened up to me like she has this week. I knew there was something bothering her, but I didn’t realise the extent of it. Now we can keep talking and figure out a way forward together.’

Teresa and her daughter still had a way to go from there, but she had made the first crucial step in letting her know that a) she had noticed her distress, that b) she was willing to sit with her daughter’s pain and c) she wanted to help her through it.

Some may think that it’s best to leave it up to the child to bring up how they feel. The problem is that many kids – teenagers included – don’t know how they feel or might not have the words to express it. They also don’t have the benefit of your wisdom in detecting a change in their mood or behaviour, or connecting disparate events over time.

A child could also have caught on to the parent’s reluctance to talk about feelings, and this might be preventing the child from being the first to speak up. Alternatively, a child might think a parent has enough on their plate as it is without them adding on their jumbled-up worries.

Consider this: what’s the worst that can happen if you ask your child how they’re feeling? You either hit the mark (they share what’s going on) or you miss the mark (they tell you everything is fine – perhaps in their own unique way).

Whether it’s a hit or a miss, by gently asking your child about what’s going on inside them, you’re opening up an important channel of communication. Sure, they may not use the opportunity today or even tomorrow, but keeping this channel open is vital for their emotional well-being. I call this ‘speaking the language of feelings’. It can also involve you sharing your own experience of managing difficult feelings, so your child feels less alone with theirs.

I do appreciate that this and many of the ideas in this book will come more easily to some parents than others, but working through the steps in this book should help both you and your child. This book is intended as a source of ideas and encouragement, one that can be dipped into in anxious times, but each section can also be read in turn. By first introducing compassion followed by anxiety I intend to give us a shared understanding of what we’re dealing with. Then, by focusing on parents, I’m acknowledging the importance of parents stepping back, taking a breath and reflecting on themselves and their own stresses. From there, we can then take a look at what your anxious child might be feeling, and move on to real, practical exercises for everyday life with a compassionate and hopeful approach to managing anxiety for both you and your child.

1

What is Compassion?

Love in, love out

My friend Ruth is just like you and me. She loves her kids to bits. Tries her best. Feels overwhelmed by their needs sometimes, reacts in frustration, wishes she hadn’t, feels guilty, tries to learn from it, gets back up again and tries her best all over again. Rinse and repeat.

What I love about Ruth is how she makes me feel OK to be a full of love, imperfect mama. Because that’s what she is and I love her for it. I first met her when we were lying in beds across from each other in the postnatal ward right after having our second babies. There we were, complete strangers struggling with pure exhaustion, rollercoaster emotions, and feeling very vulnerable. Isn’t it amazing how vulnerability opens us up to human connection like that?

Ruth and I often talk about our many parenting challenges and mess-ups. One day she shared this beautiful affirmation with me, which she uses to ground herself during really tough moments with her children. It goes:

Love in (take a deep breath in) …

(pause, hold your breath) …

Love out (deep breath out)

When I first heard her affirmation I was instantly drawn to it. I thought, ‘Well, if Ruth finds it helpful, then maybe I could use it too when I’m having a shit-hard parenting moment.’ Times like these are so overwhelming, surely anything is worth a try!

Inhaling Love in and exhaling Love out makes us press pause. We take a moment to recognise how hard it is to be a parent, before we press play again to respond to our children’s feelings. Being kind to ourselves makes us better able to be kind to those we love the most.

The importance of compassion comes through loud and clear – we need to give ourselves a break, so that we can give our kids a break. Take a moment for ourselves so that we can give our child the warmth and understanding that he or she needs. If we take that step back – remembering that we all experience stressful times with children – we can refocus our attention on being supportive and caring towards them.

Better still, when you accompany the deep breath in and out with a physical gesture of warmth and care, like putting your hands over your heart or over your belly, your bonding hormone (oxytocin) is released with your touch and the toxic stress hormone (cortisol) is reduced.

It struck me that Love in, love out could be an affirmation that any parent could use, especially those struggling to manage their children’s big feelings – and their own.

Of course, that’s not to say that we’ll always have it in us to take a breath, let alone pause and reflect during those really overwhelming moments, but it may just remind us that if a moment is really hard, it will pass – and that we all deserve compassion, most of all from ourselves.

Our own worst critics

We all have it in ourselves to be very self-critical, especially when things aren’t going well: ‘Why is this happening to us?’; ‘My kid shouldn’t do this’; ‘I ought to be able to handle this.’ Thinking like this – which we all do at times – doesn’t accept the reality of the situation and places unhelpful expectations on everyone. Difficult times do happen. It’s how we deal with them that counts.

So, when we hear that critical voice, we calmly acknowledge its presence and allow a kinder voice to gently break through the surface. Just as we would comfort a close friend going through a tough moment, if we can learn to treat ourselves kindly through our parenting struggles, then everything else becomes a lot easier.

Like a hug from a friend, being kinder to ourselves helps us to combat stress and to release our brain’s feel-good chemical, serotonin. This helps to lift our mood and activate our coping skills, increasing the likelihood that we’ll reach out to others for support.

This ‘self-compassion’ has been dubbed the ‘newest parenting skill’, though in truth there’s nothing very new about it, as it’s based on age-old scientific evidence as to how we, as mammals, react to comfort:

One of the things unique to mammals is that we are programmed to respond to warmth, gentle touch and soft vocalisations. That’s what keeps vulnerable infants close to their mothers and safe from harm. So when we provide that kind of touch and calm reassurance to ourselves, we actually reduce levels of stress hormones and boost the feel-good ones. Then we feel safe, comforted and in the optimal frame of mind to do our best.2

So there you go. Love in, love out – spoken softly with warmth, accompanied by gentle in-and-out breathing and soothing touch – could be our gift of kindness to ourselves. Breathing in and out of the place of frustration, grounding ourselves before choosing our response, is both kind to ourselves and, ultimately, kind to others.3

Self-compassion is helpful for parents when we find ourselves struggling with our children’s emotions because:

 It helps us to face up to what’s happening in the tougher moments and acknowledge that we’re having trouble coping: ‘This is a moment of struggle with my child. This is really hard right now. But it’s OK.’

 It helps us to be kind in how we think about the situation and acknowledge our common experience in facing difficulties: ‘Struggles with our kids are a part of life. Many children have worries. Other parents find it hard to manage, and they feel the same way as I do.’