You are listening to the Less Drama More Mama podcast, episode 406: Helping Anxious Kids Do Hard Things with Cynthia Coufal
This is Less Drama More Mama. The podcast for moms who want to feel calm, in control, and confident about how to handle anything life throws their way. If you’re ready to go from feeling frazzled and disrespected to feeling calm and connected, this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Pam Howard.
Hi Mama! Welcome back to the show. For Mental Health Awareness Month, I teamed up with a few other podcast hosts to share conversations around parenting, anxiety, and emotional health. Each host chose one episode they felt would be especially valuable to share with a wider audience. Today’s episode comes from Cynthia Coufal’s podcast, The Teen Anxiety Maze. Cynthia is a school counselor, teen anxiety coach, and the founder of The Anxiety Maze Navigator. She’s spent more than 25 years helping teens and young adults understand and manage anxiety while building confidence, resilience, and independence. She also works closely with parents through her membership community, Parenting Through The Maze, helping them better understand what anxiety looks like in everyday family life. Cynthia chose this episode because it’s one of her most downloaded episodes, and because it speaks to something so many parents and teens struggle with: avoidance. I especially appreciated how practical this episode is. Cynthia gives a lot of relatable examples and talks about how resilience develops when we learn to tolerate discomfort instead of constantly trying to escape it. So take a listen, and I’ll meet you back here at the end to share a few of my thoughts.
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Hi, how are you today? I am so excited to be here with you for another episode of The Teen Anxiety Maze, and we are still working on the book, Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents. We’re getting close to the seventh puzzle piece, I think we’re on six, right, the sixth puzzle piece right now, but once you have all these pieces, you can put it together and have a whole way of managing your anxiety, and what I loved the most as I was reading this book, and I just got so much out of it myself, but what I was finding is that as I was looking at each of the pieces, I thought I’m already doing all of this in my program, like it’s, it’s so validating to read something or hear something and think, oh, I’m already doing that with my clients. And so if you are interested in knowing more about my program and what I do, I would love to get on an anxiety audit call with you and we can just talk about all the things, but I, all the things that I’ve been talking about in these solo episodes are part of my program, and sometimes, I mean, of course, you can get this book and do it yourself. You can look up all sorts of stuff on the internet for free and do it yourself, but sometimes it helps to have like an accountability partner, somebody that’s going to actually work it through with you, talk it through. You can take situations that are happening in your life and see how these pieces fit into that, and so I suggest definitely working with somebody to try to get through these pieces, and not just try to do it on your own. It’ll go a lot faster, and you’ll get a lot more results by working with someone than you will doing it on your own, but please feel free to do it on your own too. I totally get it. Usually, when I want to try something new, I try to do it by myself first, but then I find out I think I need help with this, and so I’m the help, I’m the support that you can get in figuring out how to manage your anxiety.
Well what I want to ask all of you, no matter what kind of listeners, and I know I have so many different kinds of listeners, I mostly have probably parent listeners, but I also have some school counselors that listen, but they are also parents, but also working with kids, other people that are just interested in mental health for kids, I have actually teenagers and young adults who listen, so really, no matter which of these listeners you are, think right now about what’s on your to-do list. We all have a to-do list. I don’t always write my.. well, I, for my business, I always write mine down. My to-do list in my personal life, I don’t always write it down, but it’s in my head. I know the things that I’m wanting to get done in a certain amount of time, whether it’s today or this week or during this year, I want to get this done, or whatever. But think about your to-do list, things that you want to get done, and think about the things that just keep sitting there over and over, day after day. You never cross it off, but you know you need to do it, and you’re like, uh. Some of the things that could be on on your list, and are sometimes on my list are unloading the dishwasher, painting your house, the hall closet that’s stuffed, the junk drawer, or the junk room. One of the things that’s always on my list that I, I just hate doing is cleaning out my email. It’s just like this is such a time waster. Well, it isn’t, but it is. Like, I know I need to do it, but sometimes I just have to keep going on with my life and just let it pile up, which I hate also, so. Just think about those things that you are putting off, and why don’t we just get those things done?
The reason that we don’t get those things done is that we feel an uncomfortable sensation inside of our body about it, because it’s like, ooo, I don’t want to do it, and that feeling, and saying to yourself, I don’t want to do it, and then that feeling of ich, for whatever reason, we just avoid the task, because for a short period of time we can avoid that feeling. If I say I’m not going to worry about my email today, I feel a sense of relief, like, okay, good, I’m not even going to think about it, but the next day, when I know I need to do it, or the next time I look at how many emails I have in there, and then I just feel sick, or like anxious, or angry, or frustrated, or whatever it is again, and then I have to decide, am I going to do it? Am I not going to do it? All the stuff. We all do this. This is not. Now, some people are better at working through that, and that’s something I’ve learned, and I’m much better at if it’s on my list, especially like I have a list of like stuff, and then I have like this priority, like these three things are going to get done today. Those things will get done, because I now have a relationship with myself that even when I feel uncomfortable, and even when I don’t want to do it, and even when it’s annoying, I do it anyway. And then I feel so much better, because when you like allow yourself to not do the task because you feel yucky about it, you’re just going to feel yucky again, like it doesn’t really make it go away. It makes it go away for that short period of time, but it doesn’t make it go away long term.
So I really want you to think about that if you’re avoiding an emotion, it’s going to come back. You can’t avoid, resist, or get angry at those feelings. You have to allow them to flow through, and sometimes you have to do the task while you’re feeling yucky, and just get it done. And that’s what our kids are doing when they are avoiding things that they feel anxious about, and maybe that’s school, or driving, or doing their homework, or lots of things can create anxiety in people, and then if they get into this habit of avoiding it, because it feels better at the time when you’re avoiding it, it just really gets out of control, and I want you to just be really aware of that.
You know, sometimes I would notice kids that would say they don’t ever want to do anything, like they’re glad to not do anything, they’re glad to not go to school, they’re glad to not ever be involved with friends, like they just sat isolated by themselves all the time. And here’s what is really going on with that, like, so if you say to your child, you know, don’t you want to talk to these people, or don’t you want to go here, go to school, or whatever, they’re probably going to say they don’t, and a lot of that is because it’s so, it’s so frustrating for them, and so, like, exhausting to fight these and resist and ignore these feelings, and these uncomfortable feelings about going to school, or talking to people, or going to the party, or being with the friends, that it’s just easier for them to avoid it, and say they don’t want to do it, like, if they don’t want to do it, then they’re not going to feel as bad about not doing it. So the worry actually kind of convinces them that it’s not worth all of the work it’s going to take to actually go to it, and they do believe that. But the truth is, we as humans, we are wired to be connected to people and have relationships and be in groups and do the things, and I always, I always felt, but I didn’t really have the words for it before, but I always thought I know those kids that are sitting off by themselves and saying they don’t care that they don’t have any friends, and they don’t care that they don’t go anywhere. It was a protection, it’s a, it’s a like a protective armor around them, where if I don’t go, I don’t have to worry about it. If I don’t go, I don’t have to think about if kids are going to like me or not.
So, if we, if we know what we really want in life, then it will help us to push through that uncomfortableness, so that we can go and do those things. So, a lot of kids would tell me, I really want to go to the party, but I’m too worried about what’s going to happen, and so I’ll just stay home, because I don’t want to deal with it, and so we need to help them look at what have they already accomplished in their life, what kinds of things have they done, and how did they get there?
So like to get your mind in this frame, think about what is something that you’ve accomplished that you didn’t think you would ever get to, but you have done it? And I think about my podcast. You know, I started my podcast four years ago, and when I started it four years ago, I mean, I wanted it to, I wanted to have 212 episodes. I wanted to know that people were listening, but when I started, I had no idea that how long it would last or who would be listening, or if anyone would listen. There were many times over the years I was like I can’t stand this anymore. I don’t want to do it. I, this is too hard, crying about it and worrying about it. Like, is this even going to be a thing? And now I can look back and say, look at all this I’ve accomplished. Like, I have literally written a book, even though I didn’t actually write a book, but when you think about all the episodes that I wrote, 212 episodes, that’s a lot of content, that’s a lot of things, and I could not have pictured that at the beginning. And so I can really like pat myself on the back, that look at me, I did this, and I’m still working at it, and I’m still having fun, and I still have stuff I want to tell you about, and I would have never guessed that at the beginning.
So, when you think about this, know what you want, you need to find a goal that you really want. You need to find a goal that your child really wants, and just asking them, what is what are the things that are super important to you? Like, take anxiety off the table. If you were never anxious, which, of course, remember that never happens, but like, let’s just pretend in this fantasy pretend world you were never anxious about anything, you never had to worry about anything. What do you really want to do? And I know that for many of you as parents, you want your child to go to school, and that might be the one thing that they’re fighting you about, like they don’t want to go to school, and they don’t care if they ever go to school, and there’s so much truth to that, because I don’t think there’s any teenager that likes high school, like that’s like, I cannot wait to go to high school, like I don’t think anyone thinks that, and so it makes school a hard want because it’s like I don’t really want to go there, but we as parents want them to go because we need them to be productive people, and we need them to get out of our house, and we need them to do other things. And so we need to either help the child find school to be their priority and be motivating, or we need to talk to them about our family goal is that you’re going to go to school, and let’s think of the things that will that you can tolerate about school that can get you there, and I used to talk to well, clients and students at school that didn’t want to go to school, like you know, they’d come every once in a while to like be able to grab a med real quick and be like, what is going on, why are you not coming here? And there was, well, every time I would just say what they would show up for most of the time, I would say, so why do you come to school? And they’re like, well, my parents make me, or you know, I have to come here. And I was like, you don’t really have to come to school, like, you know, there is a compulsory rule, at least in the States, that you have to take school as your parents hang out, but there’s, I mean, that that rule has been around for a while, and there’s plenty of people who don’t show up for school ever. And I said so Why are you doing it? And they said, well, I don’t want to get truancy. Okay, well, that’s fair. You don’t want truancy called on your parents, and you don’t want to have to go to court because you’re truant, so you’re choosing to come to school. And there, I mean, like, it takes a while sometimes to get that going, but they’re like, okay, I guess I am choosing to go to school, even though I don’t want to. I’m like, okay, that’s that’s a start, like you are choosing to go because you don’t want to be truant. Sometimes kids are like, well, I choose to come because I want to be with my friends, or I choose to come to see people that I’m interested in romantically. Okay, well, that’s fair, like that’s at least enough reason, or maybe I just want to get my diploma so I can move on with my life. Okay. Well, let’s do that. And so, when we, when we know that there, you really do want to go to school, even though it’s not fun, and you’re not motivated, you do want to come here. So, let’s think about ways that we can get you here, like thinking to yourself every day, people are forcing me to go, I have to go, school is prison, all these like negative things, of course when someone wakes up in the morning and they’re like, Oh, I have to go to this thing and I hate it, and the people are terrible, and my parents are making me or whatever. That doesn’t feel good. Nobody gets excited about going for those reasons. Let’s make school at least neutral.
School is okay. School is where I see my friends. School is where I’m going to get my diploma. School is keeping me out of truancy. Whatever it is, just say that. That’s at least that feels better, and that’s going to help you get up and go, versus this sucks, and it’s terrible, and it’s really just a mindset shift. It’s like the way you talk about it. So, I’m choosing to go to school instead of I have to go to school. And you can use this in anything that you don’t want to do. Unloading the dishwasher. I don’t want to do it. It’s boring, stupid, whatever, but I am going to do it because I need my dishes back in the cabinet, and I need it open so I can put more dirty dishes in it, and so I’m going to do it, and so I just have to think about how do I want to talk about it to myself? Am I going to say this sucks, so stupid, and throwing things around the whole time doing it? Or am I going to say I’m emptying the dishwasher, so it’s open for the next set of dishes? So I want to get my counter cleaned off, so I want to get this unloaded, put away, so that the next dishes can go in there, and that feels better than this sucks, and it’s terrible, and I’m just like furious about it. And this took me a while to get to this point, like I was in my late adulthood before I could make myself do things without being angry about it, and it really does help, like I don’t get upset about any of those things anymore. Like I don’t like it, and I might have to take a few deep breaths, and I might have to like reframe the thinking before I get started, but I can do it, and I get so many things done.
If I would have been the person before that couldn’t rely on myself to get anything done, this podcast wouldn’t exist, at least not for very long, because you have to make yourself be able to do things you don’t want to do. And I really thought when I was a teenager that adults just went around the world and did whatever they wanted to do, and no one told them what to do. It’s so not true. So, if you are a young person and you think that adults just do whatever they want, that is not true. We have to do as much or more stuff that we don’t want to do, and just get it done. And so for my kids that really hate school, and they’re coming, but they hate it with a passion, I just tell them, just think about school as your, your practice for doing things you don’t want to do, so you’re just going to come to school anyway, even though you don’t want to do it, because the most successful people in the world, no matter what they’re successful at, they’re successful in their jobs, they’re successful in weight training, they’re successful in the Olympics, they’re successful in weight loss, whatever it is, successful in practicing and playing a new instrument, it requires you to do things you don’t want to do. It requires you to practice when you don’t want to practice. It requires you to eat things you don’t want to eat or not eat things you do want to eat, because that’s just the way it is. So, if you want to be successful in life, and I would guess everyone would say they want to be successful, then we need to do things that we don’t want to do, and that could be going to school, it could be any amount of things.
Don’t agree with your kids when they say that they don’t want to go to the party, or they don’t. I mean, yes, there are some things I had a lot of friends who didn’t care about going to the prom or didn’t care about homecoming or something like that, and so that’s not that big of a deal, but if you, if they’re never doing any activities, you need to sit down with them and pick some activities that they’re willing to go to and be with, and then you need to help them work through that uncomfortableness of doing it because they may want to go and I’ve had many of my clients tell me I want to go to the party, but I’m so anxious about what’s going to happen when I go there. Or are people going to talk to me? Or is that person that’s mean to me going to be there or whatever? And we have to help them work through that uncomfortableness and go anyway, don’t create a separate activity. Oh, I know you’re too anxious to go to the party. Let’s just have our own party at home, because that helps them to avoid the things that make them uncomfortable and that they don’t want to do, and that does not set them up for success in life, and it doesn’t set them up to be independent human beings outside of us, and I know sometimes it’s like we just want to keep them safe and comfortable and happy, and I get it. I’m a parent, I want that too. I have grandkids, I want them to be safe and happy and comfortable all the time, and it’s really hard for me to push them into uncomfortableness, because I don’t like that, but I also know that that’s how they’re going to be those beautiful adults someday that we want them to be. You know, I saw this quote the other day, and I, and it took me aback because I didn’t realize it, but I should have. But we have, we know our kids as adults far longer than we ever know them as kids, and I, and so think about that. If your kids, you’re going to know them as adults for many more years than you know them in your home. We need to be preparing them for all those years.
We don’t want to be taking care of them when they’re adults. We don’t want to be, we don’t want them to be in our basement or not working or on the streets or whatever, and if you take care of everything for them, and you never make them do anything uncomfortable, or never make them do anything they don’t want to do, they’re not going to be able to handle college or jobs or relationships or anything outside of our home, so we need to really be thinking about we’re preparing them for this uncomfortable world, and we can, we can help support them, and and love them through these things, but we need to be teaching them to get uncomfortable, and we need to be helping them do it.
Now, I’m not talking about pushing them into things that create panic without all these skills we’ve been talking about. If you just recently started listening to me, definitely go back and get more skills than just this lesson today, because I’m talking about pushing people into uncomfortableness when they have some things in their toolbox that they need to try to use on their own. I’m not talking about pushing them out when they have no idea what to do about it, so go back and, like, shore up some of these other skills and ideas and things that we need them to do, and then we’re going to push them to be uncomfortable and do those things, and if you’re having a hard time teaching these skills, I do this for a living. I work with teenagers one on one teaching these skills and pushing them into uncomfortableness, and you would need to work with me on that. I can’t do all the work, and then you just let them stay home, but if you want them to hear this stuff from someone else, and I do think that I’m a voice that teenagers listen to versus from their parents, and I’m just telling them the same things you would tell them, but they’re going to hear it from me differently, and maybe better. So, if you’re having trouble teaching these things, definitely contact me.
So, if it’s not their goal to go to school, or ride the bus, or go to the party, or whatever, you can make it your kind of like your goal, along with them, like my goal as a parent is to get you to do uncomfortable things, and so I know you don’t want to go to school, or you don’t want to ride the bus, but that’s what we’re going to do, because that’s the goal that we’re going to set, and I’m going to help you come up with ways to make that happen, and I’m going to support you in trying these new skills, but I’m not going to let you stay home anymore, or I’m not going to let you not ride the bus anymore, whatever it is that you need them to do that they don’t want to do. So I really want you to think about changing that language from I have to do this to I choose to do this. Think about how you could use that in wanting to eat healthier. Your goal is I want to eat healthier, and when somebody offers you a piece of cake, you can say, well, I can’t have that, so forget about it, because I’m on stupid diet, or whatever, or you could say I’m choosing health, healthier foods now, so I’m going to choose not to eat that cake. That feels a lot better. Now, it doesn’t mean that you don’t still want the cake, it doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be fun to eat the cake, but you’re just choosing a different choice than what you would normally have done, and that feels better than well, I have to do the stupid thing. Because if you really want to eat healthier, then it’s not a stupid thing, like you want to do it, even if you might have to make some difficult decisions about it. So if you’re choosing to do something in a difficult situation instead of have to, it just feels better, it feels less painful, so definitely try it. Like, change every time you hear your brain or you say out loud, I have to do something, just say, I choose to do it. I choose to go to school. I choose to ride the bus. I choose to eat salad. I choose to. I don’t know. Whatever, whatever your goals are.
What happens if you want to make the team at school, but you don’t ever practice, because practicing is annoying and boring and hard and tiring? You’re probably not going to make the team, so if you have this goal of this thing, you need to do something else in order for that goal to happen. If you want to buy a car, then you need to be willing to do chores or get a job, or whatever you need to do to make the money to get the car. If you want to bake a cake, you’re probably going to have to go to the store and pay money for ingredients to make a cake, you’re not just going to, it’s not just going to happen out of nowhere. If you want to start dating, you’re going to have to be willing to ask different people out on a date and see what happens if they say yes or no, you have to be willing to do that.
So think about this formula: since I want blank, then I am willing and choosing to do blank to get there, and just everything that you feel uncomfortable about, or you don’t want to do right now, the one thing on our list that my husband and I both are avoiding are painting the house, so since I want the house painted, then I’m going to have to schedule time and save money, or get, you know, whatever, to get the house painted, if I don’t want to pay for it to be done, which right now I don’t. So I’m gonna have to make sure that that happens. So just role model this behavior, like I just role modeled my own situation in my old person life, that I still have to do this. So, when you are working with kids, whether it’s in school, I used to tell kids all the time, you know, they would say, “Well, I hate homework, I’m not going to do homework.” I’m like, “You know what, I need homework too. I, when I leave this building, I want to go home and do whatever I want to do, and so guess what I do? I stay later after school, and the 3:30 bell rings, or the 3 o’clock bell, or whatever, when it rings, and I have work to do that I’m not going to do at home, even if I tell myself I’m going to do it, I’m not going to do it. I stay here later, and I work on it, I get it done, and then I’d leave. So I would just tell kids, if you don’t want to do homework, I get it, I don’t do homework either, but what are you going to do to get your homework done? If you’re not going to do it at home, then let’s stay after school and get stuff done, and then go home.
So just think about how can you role model like your own situation to them, because it helps them to see that, oh, other people have these problems too. It’s not just me, it’s not just a teenager problem that I have to do things I don’t want to do. It’s everyone’s problem. So, let’s help our kids be successful, or let’s help ourselves be successful and choose to do things instead of saying you have to do them, and really think about, is this goal worth it? If this goal is worth it, then it’s worth it to do this, and I’m going to make myself do it when the time comes, even when I don’t feel like it, even when it’s uncomfortable. I’ll talk to you soon.
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Alright, thank you to Cynthia for sharing that with us. One thing I appreciated is how clearly she explained the connection between anxiety and avoidance. Sometimes parents assume that their child is lazy, unmotivated, difficult, or unwilling to try, when underneath it, they’re often just trying to escape uncomfortable feelings. What Cynthia points out so well is that avoidance may bring temporary relief, but it usually strengthens anxiety and creates bigger problems over time.
I also loved that she referenced the book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents by Reid Wilson and Lynn Lyons. I’m a big fan of that book too. I agree that we can’t help anxious kids by letting them avoid everything that makes them uncomfortable. At the same time, it’s important not to push kids too much, too soon, or too fast. There’s a difference between supporting a child through discomfort and overwhelming their nervous system. We want to help them gradually build the capacity to tolerate discomfort and realize that they can handle more than they think. That’s true for us as parents, too. A big part of the work we do inside Damn Good Mama is helping moms build the capacity to stay present with discomfort instead of immediately reacting, avoiding, rescuing, or trying to make it go away as quickly as possible. The more you learn how to regulate yourself and tolerate discomfort, the more you’re able to co-regulate with your kids, model resilience, and help them move through hard things instead of avoiding them. Go to my website, lessdramamoremama.com to learn more about Damn Good Mama and apply for a spot. Our next kickoff call is June 1.
Now, as Cynthia pointed out, success in almost any area of life requires discomfort. Confidence is built by feeling fear and doing hard things, not by avoiding them. I also liked Cynthia’s point about shifting from “I have to” to “I choose to.” That’s always such a powerful mindset shift because it moves us out of feeling trapped and into a sense of empowerment and agency.
Spend a little time this week noticing where avoidance shows up in your own life or in your parenting. Where are you helping your child avoid discomfort because it’s hard for you to tolerate theirs? And where might there be an opportunity to support them in building resilience instead? If you want to hear more from Cynthia, you can find her podcast, The Teen Anxiety Maze, wherever you listen to podcasts. I’ll link to it in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening today, and I’ll talk to you again next week. Bye.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, and you’re ready to feel calmer, more confident and more at peace in your family and life, I invite you to sign up for a free consultation with me to learn about how my coaching can help you achieve the exact life you want. You’ll take the concepts and tools I share in the podcast and apply them to your own life, and as your coach I’ll be there to support you every step of the way. Go to lessdramamoremama.com/mini and sign up now.
