This article is the second in a series on “Positive Discomfort," the concept that the stress kids experience when facing a challenge is not something to be feared or avoided, but to be expected and embraced. It is muscling through the difficulty or fear that builds skills, competence, resilience and perseverance—attributes we all want for our children. It requires the adults who are supporting children to have high expectations with high support. (Check out Part One.)

In this follow up, I tell the story of my work with one family that involved collaboration with the child’s school, so you can see the positive changes that can be made when all the adults in the child's world work together to help them overcome their fears and their resistance to transition and change. 

This blog was inspired by the response to a video I posted on Instagram that went viral. In three days, it has more than 850K views and thousands of likes and shares. The video (which I encourage you to watch—it's a gem) was made by a very close friend who was watching her adorable 7-month-old grandson and caught him making his first attempts at crawling. I asked for permission to share it because it is such a powerful illustration of “positive discomfort," my new favorite concept because it so perfectly captures a critical mindshift: that the discomfort kids experience when facing a challenge is not something to be feared or avoided, but to be expected and embraced. It is muscling through the difficulty or fear that builds skills, competence, resilience and perseverance—attributes we all want for our children.

In the video, even as the baby is making progress, he is crying and at one point collapses, putting his head in his hands as if he just can't go on. But my friend/grandma doesn't swoop in to pick him and comfort him—the knee-jerk reaction most of us might have at seeing our children in distress. Instead, she remains a calm and supportive presence with her tone and words, communicating to him that she believes he can muscle through. And he does! He calms, gets back on all fours, smiles, and perseveres. Had grandma picked him up, that beautiful moment of triumph would have been thwarted. The message to this clearly competent guy would have been that she didn’t believe he had it in him to keep trying and prevail.

To give credit where due, I discovered "positive discomfort" in an article in the Washington Post, "A Winning Mix: High standards, high support," about the approach Emma Hayes, the US Women's Soccer Coach, takes to support her players. The article includes research by David Yeager, a developmental psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin who explains: "Intense stressors are a normal part of performing well, of learning, growing and developing new skills...Our stress response — what’s happening in our bodies and minds when we experience a stressful situation — prepares us to take action....When the mind expects to meet the challenge, breathing increases to send more oxygen to the blood, the heart pumps faster and blood vasculature dilates to spread the blood to the muscles and brain. Motivation and performance go up. The opposite happens when a threat is viewed as insurmountable and the body moves to protect itself. In such cases, the heart may pump fast, but blood vasculature constricts, keeping blood central in the chest cavity, essentially preparing for upcoming defeat." 

In short, it's all about expectations and mindset. When we see challenges through a positive lens, as opportunities for growth and learning that will take hard work to master, we are much more likely to persevere and succeed. The way we instill this mindset in our kids is by holding high expectations while giving them the tools and support they need to stay the course, which is exactly what these stories from the parenting trenches show. 

Jacob (6) loves swimming and joins a swim team that he is really enjoying. Then he has a series of illnesses that keep him out of this activity for over a month, after which he starts refusing to go to practices. When his parents ask why, he says he doesn't like swimming anymore—that it is "stupid”—which is perplexing and worrying to them. They know how fortifying this activity is for Jacob and that giving it up would be a real loss.

Accordingly, they respond: "But you love swimming, and are great at it! Why would you stop going?" They also start cheerleading—encouraging him and offering rewards if he agrees to return. Jacob only digs in his heels further. He refutes all of their talking points and doubles down on his position that he is quitting swimming.

This is a very common response from kids when parents try to convince them to keep at something they are anxious about. While you intend/hope it will be motivating, it can backfire, especially for highly sensitive kids who are very tuned into the underlying motives of their parents. They are already coping with difficult feelings about the situation. When they sense that you are disappointed or unhappy with their non-participation—when they won't jump into the pool to join the class with the other kids, or when they resist joining in the scrum at the birthday—it adds to their stress and makes it less likely they will feel confident to persevere through the challenge.

When we meet, Jacob's parents are feeling very distressed that their son is giving up something that was so important and healthy for him, and feel helpless to get him to change his mind. They are particularly concerned because this is a pattern for Jacob. He tends to give up easily and avoid things that are hard or that he isn't perfect at. His parents worry that he is missing out on important experiences that could potentially bring him a lot of pleasure. 

Having a child who is slow-to-warm-up and hesitant to try new things can be very challenging for parents. It triggers your own anxiety—especially if you are more extroverted by nature and admire kids who are "go-getters."

⁠A common reaction is to act as a cheerleader to convince your child he can do it. You know that your child would love soccer but he resists participating, so you regale him with, “But you're great at soccer. You will love the class.” Your child shows hesitation about going to school, so you try to persuade him with: “The teachers in this school are so nice. And the room has so many amazing toys. You are going to have so much fun!” 

The problem is that while you have the best of intentions, trying to cajole kids to participate when they are feeling anxious often makes them feel worse. It amplifies the shame they are already experiencing about not doing the activity other kids are enjoying. This is especially true for highly sensitive children (HSC) who tend to be more self-conscious. Having attention focused on them, especially when they feel they are being evaluated or judged, can be uncomfortable and exacerbate their stress.

Also keep in mind that children (especially HSC) are very tuned into the underlying motives of their parents. They see right through you. They are keenly tuned in to what you want from them—what will make you happy. Looking at it through the lens of logic, you might think that your child would be motivated by wanting to please you and would change his behavior accordingly.

Instead, what I find is that the pressure kids experiences when they sense how invested you are in their performance is stifling, not motivating. They have to cope with the risk of disappointing you when they won't jump into the pool to join the class with the other kids, or when they resist joining in the scrum at the birthday party. It becomes a relationship issue that is fraught with tension. This makes it less likely your child will feel confident to take a risk and tackle a new challenge.⁠ ⁠

5 Steps That Support Kids To Try New Things

For many parents, having a child who is slow-to-warm-up and hesitant to try new things triggers your own anxiety—especially if you are more extroverted by nature and admire kids who are "go-getters." ⁠A common reaction is to act as a cheerleader to convince your child he can do it. You know that your child would love soccer but he resists participating, so you regale him with, “But you're great at soccer. You will love the class.” Your child shows hesitation about going to school, so you try to persuade him with: “The teachers in this school are so nice. And the room has so many amazing toys. You are going to have so much fun!” 

The problem is that while you have the best of intentions, trying to cajole kids to participate when they are feeling anxious often makes them feel worse. It amplifies the shame they are already experiencing about not doing the activity other kids are enjoying. This is especially true for highly sensitive (HS) kids who tend to be more self-conscious. Having attention focused on them, especially when they feel they are being evaluated or judged, can be uncomfortable and exacerbate their stress.

I had this "aha" moment while viewing a video parents sent me last week that showed their 2-year-old (whom I'll call Bella) melting down because her mom, Jenny, wouldn't take her hair out of a braid. ⁠Yes, you read that right. Fierce little ones like Bella are so keenly tuned into everything. It's like they don't have a filter. They get flooded trying to make sense of everything they are taking in and processing so they create strict rules to impose order on and feel in control of a world that can feel overwhelming. They may dictate where people can sit, how loud the music can be, what color bowl their cereal should come in, what clothes they will and will not wear, or how close the chicken can be to the carrots on their dinner plate—seemingly irrational demands—that are all coping mechanisms these kids use to control their environment.

Lucas (4) just got a new scooter which he has wanted for a very long time. He hops on it, but as soon as he has trouble balancing, he tosses it to the ground. He pronounces that he hates scooters, that he really never wanted one, and runs inside.

Highly sensitive (HS) children tend to experience more distress and give up more easily when they confront a challenging task or can’t master a new skill right away. The root cause, once again, is the vulnerability and loss of control that gets triggered very quickly in these kids. HS children need more support to build resilience—to see that they can muscle through challenges.

What you can do:

Three-year-old Marcus is trying to find where the pieces fit in a challenging puzzle. Four-year-old Ruby is working on how to keep her block tower from falling down. Omar and Zoey are looking for what they can use as superhero capes when Omar’s mom won’t let them use her scarves. These are all examples of kids hard at work solving problems.

This ability—to face a challenge and come up with effective solutions—is the key to developing resilience and is one of the most important skills for success in school, in relationships, and in navigating life. It is also an important component of building strong “executive functioning”, which is a child’s ability to manage his emotions and control his impulses so he can focus and maintain attention on the task at hand, draw on knowledge gained from past experiences, and to think creatively—to fix mistakes and try another strategy when the one he is using is not working.

You see this in real life when a child faces an obstacle, like not being able to fit the square block in the round space on the shape-sorter. Despite his frustration, he does not give up and toss the block across the room. Instead, he is able to stay calm enough to keep focusing on the task. He has done shape-sorters before and knows that he has to keep trying different spaces until he finds the correct one. Through this process of trial-and-error he successfully finds the right space for all the shapes. Solving the problem results in a powerful sense of mastery. 

Here’s how you can support your child’s ability to become a master problem-solver:

On a recent visit to a preschool, I was working with the teachers to come up with strategies to help the children learn to become good problem-solvers. The greatest obstacle to this, the teachers noted, was helping the children remain calm when facing a challenge so they can persevere to solve a problem. They find this is especially difficult for the “big reactors” who tend to go from 0-60 in the blink of an eye. Common tactics, such as deep belly breathing, weren't working as well as the teachers would have liked. They couldn’t get the kids calm enough to even use this soothing tool.

Since I have had some success with the use of cues or mantras for children—a phrase you use repeatedly to throw a monkey-wrench into a detrimental dynamic—I decided to try a new one out with a class of four-year-olds. It is designed to help build self-regulation. I call it Pause-and-Problem-Solve, and it has proven to be quite powerful for helping children regroup in a positive way when a breakdown is brewing. In this newsletter, I share how you might use this tool to encourage your children to become good problem-solvers. Here are the key steps: