During the years between finishing high school, moving out and starting a family, your child will form valuable friendships and make lasting connections that will lead to personal and professional success. But for many emerging adults, social anxiety seriously hinders their ability to manage their own affairs. For these individuals, overcoming anxiety will lead to a longer, happier, healthier and independent life.
Anxiety is a natural and necessary experience. It keeps us safe from harm and connected to others. Without anxiety, we might not look both ways before crossing the street. We might say something embarrassing in front of our boss or to our in-laws. We might keep partying when there’s a report or paper to write.
On the other hand, anxiety run amok shrinks your life. It keeps you from taking appropriate risks. It causes you to avoid people and important situations, such as job interviews and doctor visits. It leads you to keep on partying because you’re afraid to write that paper or report.
[Read: How Parents Can Identify Mental Health Problems in Their College Kids.]
The best way to overcome an anxiety disorder is to face fear-provoking situations as early and as often as possible. For emerging adults, it’s important that they be allowed to face anxiety on their own.
A parent’s part in this process can be very difficult. Staying out of the way as your kid faces anxiety — which can be very painful — runs counter to the parental instinct to protect kids from harm. But you must. You can’t rescue your child or provide reassurance that everything will be all right.
That’s because putting yourself between your kid and his anxiety reinforces avoidance and escape. People who are anxious look for rescue from discomfort, and when you step in, you provide that negative reinforcement. Providing safety when your child is experiencing anxiety will make it less likely that he will try new and scary things on his own.
What’s more, becoming involved when your kid feels anxious keeps her from learning skills required to manage on her own. She did not learn to ride a bike by having you hold the seat the whole time, and she will not learn to manage anxiety if you are doing it for her.
Finally, you can’t guarantee that nothing bad will happen. Something bad might happen. Reassuring her will reinforce her fear that she’s facing an insurmountable problem. Even if something terrible happens, she must and will manage it herself.
[Read: What Parents Should Know About Teen Depression.]
The following are some important tasks and interactions that many people — especially college students and emerging adults — find difficult. For people with a predisposition to social anxiety, doing simple things like scheduling appointments can be downright terrifying. Practicing these things will help your child overcome anxiety.
— Asking for help from a customer service representative
— Ordering food on the phone
— Calling back and changing the order
— Making an appointment with a doctor
— Canceling an appointment with a doctor
— If attending college, reaching out to an advisor or professor via email or setting an appointment to meet with a professor face-to-face
— If living on campus, reaching out to a roommate on social media or via text or talking to a new roommate on the phone
If you know your kid finds something that’s not on this list to be particularly difficult, add that and practice it as well.
Allowing your child to face situations he finds difficult will put him on a path toward independence. By facing his anxiety alone, he will learn to master it.
[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids’ Health.]
If your child appears to have great difficulty with any of these things and is headed off to college or to work, consider assisting her in seeking help from a psychologist or another mental health professional who specializes in anxiety disorders. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America can help you find a professional in your area.
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Helping Your Child Overcome Social Anxiety originally appeared on usnews.com
