COME ON NOW, don't be silly...

When someone we love is anxious, often the first thing we do is to try and make it better. Sometimes that means we try to jolly them along and make them see that there is nothing to worry about, or we throw them a solution.

- By TED BRADSHAW

You know what I mean. It might be ‘Don’t be silly,’ or ‘It’s okay, you don’t need to be worried,’ or maybe ‘Why don’t you just…’

There is nothing wrong with this instinct, it comes from a good place: we just want them to feel better, so of course we are going to try to offer something to make it all go away. This is even more the case with a child.

However, have you ever had someone say those things to you?

When you tell your partner or a friend about something you have been stressed or worried about and they point out all the reasons why you don’t need to be worried, or give you what they think is a simple solution, does it make your anxiety go away? Does it make you feel good? Sometimes when this happens, we come away feeling frustrated, or perhaps worse: that we are being 'silly' or 'stupid' for feeling anxious in the first place. The same can happen for a child.

As adults, when we judge our moments of anxiety as 'irrational' or 'silly' then it tends to make the whole thing worse. Now we are not only anxious but also frustrated and critical of ourselves, which tends to add to the tension in our bodies.