Consider this familiar scene: an eight-year-old does not want to do his piano practice. He would rather play an Imagine Dragons song. Observing this lack of perseverance, his mum activates phase 1: zoom in. The child, sensing the watchful eyes, avoids making contact, loses focus, plays the wrong notes and freezes. His mum frowns. It’s worse than she thought. She spends the next two and half seconds picturing his future. Will he stick at anything? Will he give up on basketball? On school? On Jesus? It’s time for phase 2. She asks for eye contact, writes a step-by-step practice plan and requires that he play for her now as a demonstration of compliance. She gives a sincere lecture about the value of sticking at something (being sure to keep a warm, happy tone to veil her sense of utter helplessness). Her son becomes mute and unable to locate middle C.
In my defence he started it. Or did he? It is a classic chicken-and-egg scenario. In my medical practice I’ve seen a rise in the number of consultations where anxiety is not only an individual’s experience but a broader family dynamic. This has been extensively observed and studied in paediatric psychology. And yes, like all other anxiety-related stats, this is on the rise.
If you are a parent you will know the experience. Your child might express fear or reluctance. And you, moved with loving concern, zoom in to better monitor your child’s behaviour and mental state. The child senses this anxious attention and is now faced with two stressors. First, their original fear has now been legitimised by a another. Second, they now take on a new burden of placating their parent. Ironically, this well-intentioned moment leads to a spiralling of anxiety in both.
The parenting instinct is strong—fix, heal, rescue, change, comfort—and this instinct can be easily stirred when a child is anxious. What can we do? Anxiety is cognitive, physiological and spiritual. There are many things we can do. From a spiritual perspective, the following is a good start.
Zoom Out: God Is in Control
The first thing we can do is adopt a shift in perspective: zoom out from the intense anxious interplay. Do you see your child getting stuck and scared? Zoom out: yours aren’t the only eyes watching. Consider how the verbs of Psalm 139 show God’s view on the subject. Your child’s heavenly Father searches, knows, sees, perceives, discerns, is familiar and knows completely. Even before you could see your child as a speck on an ultrasound, God was watching, and he has been watching ever since (Ps 139:13–16).
Do you wish your child could be free from harm and that everything would turn out well for them? Zoom out: you are not the only one planning your child’s future. Consider God’s plans from Ephesians 1. God’s people are chosen to be holy and blameless, predestined to sonship, inheritors of the kingdom, being brought to unity under Christ, awaiting a certain redemption. Sometimes our plans for our kids are good, but just a little too small. He’s got plans too. Good ones.
Do you wish you could control your child’s experience in the world and guarantee the outcome? Zoom out: that’s not on you. Sometimes it sounds trite to say God is sovereign, but not so here. Here it makes all the difference to a concerned parent. You are freed to steward your household without assuming the ultimate responsibility to fix, heal, rescue, change or comfort your child. That is your heavenly Father’s domain. And he’s a good dad.
Anxiety as Opportunity
Our brains are wired to avoid pain. It’s why we put shoes on, use oven mitts, and weed the bindis from the lawn. Anxiety is a kind of pain. It has a chemical effect that reaches the whole body. When we sense it approaching, our defensive system (known as the HPA axis) engages—a rudimentary system that does not discern between pain and harm. The HPA parenting alarm rings loudly in the presence of anxiety. As parents we understandably respond to the alarm— equating the anxiety our child is experiencing to harm.
Thankfully God gives us other parts of our brain for more nuanced reasoning. We can shift our perspective to zoom out and see that God’s eyes are on our kids. We can also shift our posture from avoiding pain to considering it an essential part of sanctification. Suffering plays a surprising role in the Bible’s unfolding story. It’s the necessary path that Jesus walked before entering his glory (Lk 24:26) and it is necessary that we follow, knowing that “we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom 8:17). If this is true for us, it is also true for our kids.
C. S. Lewis writes:
pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.[1]
John Calvin makes a similar point:
the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing we may thence ask what we want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility.[2]
Suffering wakes us up. An implication of the gospel is that pain does not merely equate to harm. Pain, including the pain of anxiety, need not be a threat to your child’s future happiness, spiritual vitality or capacity. It can be the very experience that rouses them to seek Christ.
As they then walk with him through suffering, they can learn perseverance, experience the character formation that only suffering can bring and, wonderfully, grow to hope in Christ more fervently (Rom 5:3–5). We can, in great confidence, allow our children to step into discomfort. Suffering affords a good vantage point to see Jesus most clearly and to be formed in his likeness.
Resisting the urge to swoop in to protect our kids from every anxiety does not mean that we must passively watch on. We can warmly coach them to face pain and anxiety in wise and godly ways. This will, of course, require doing the same for ourselves.
Work on Your Own Anxiety
What came first in your household, the anxious parent or the anxious child? It doesn’t matter. It’s the next move that counts. Your instinct will be to avoid facing your own discomfort. Shift the attention from your child to yourself. Try being watchful and curious about your own anxious thoughts. Calm yourself. Preach the gospel to yourself.
This is good for your child. It gives them the space they need to engage with their fears without the added complexity of needing to reassure you or stabilise the relationship.[3] This is also good for you. In your household you’re the parent wanting to fix, heal, rescue, change and comfort. Zoom out. In God’s household you’re also the child. His eyes are on you, his plans are for your good, his sovereign hand secures your way. In his mysterious way and according to his timing, he will not fail to fix, heal, rescue, change, and comfort. This is your heavenly Father’s steadfast parenting over you. He’s your good dad.
[1] C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan) 1944.
[2] John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion translated by Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).
[3] The Parent Hope Project offers some clear thinking and support in making this shift.
