Sometimes it’s fear.
Hello friends!
In a recent reflection, I explored motivation for kids. Here, I’d like to explore a common saboteur of motivation—fear—and how it can show up for kids (and us) in surprising ways.
A story about Amy
(Note: Details about Amy and her mom have been altered to protect her family’s privacy.)
I have a client whose daughter, Amy, loves spending time with friends but is often passive when it comes to inviting her friends to hang out. Even though Amy would enjoy having a friend over after school or on a weekend, she doesn’t take the initiative to make it happen. Instead of inviting a friend to come over after school, she will curl up in a comfy chair in her living room and scroll on her phone instead.
Because her mom knows that it’s healthy for Amy to be social, her mom has historically taken the initiative when it comes to arranging playdates for Amy with friends. But now that Amy is in middle school, her mom has been trying to assertively shift the responsibility for social planning over to Amy.
As a two-week school break was approaching, it became clear to Amy’s mom that Amy was not going to have social time with friends without some sort of intervention. Ultimately Amy’s mom decided to assist with planning some friend time for Amy, but she also asked for my assistance so she could understand why Amy wasn’t taking the initiative herself.
Before this conversation, I had already introduced Amy and her mom to the idea that there are many different types of motivation, including wanting to want to do something, which we called Type W. (I explored Type W motivation in this reflection.) My conversation with Amy revealed another type of motivation: Type T for terrified.
Type T Motivation
Here’s what my conversation with Amy looked like:
Me: Do you want to spend time with your friends over break?
Amy: Yes, I want to hang out with my friends. But I don’t want to have to text my friends to ask them to come over.
Me: Do you want to want to invite your friends to spend time with you over break?
Amy: No. I don’t want to want to ask them to hang out. I want to spend time with them, but I don’t want to invite them.
Me: So you want time with your friends to just magically happen?
Amy: Yes.
Me: (Seeing if I could help her discover any tiny hidden motivation) Is there even a little part of you that wants to text your friends so that you can hang out with them?
Amy: No. No part of me wants to text my friends to invite them.
Me: What’s preventing you from wanting to text your friends?
Amy: I have type T motivation. I am terrified to text my friends to ask them to do something. (Type T for Terrified.)
I’ll summarize the rest of our conversation here: We had a lot of back and forth about whether she would be afraid to call a friend to ask them to do something, or if texting was worse. And what aspects made asking more or less scary. I remained curious and non-judgmental, seeking to understand what was going on inside of her. At first she maintained that no part of her was interested in making any social arrangements, but eventually, she thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to ask a friend to hang out.
Understanding Fear and Avoidance
The above conversation barely scratched the surface of what might be happening beneath the level of consciousness for Amy. Often when kids resist doing something outside of their comfort zone, there are a couple of things happening: 1) fear and anxiety, and 2) a voice trying to “help” them avoid fear and anxiety. My next steps for Amy included helping her understand the nature of her fears, and also helping her to see the ways that avoidance showed up for her.
In this follow-up reflection, I return to Amy’s story and share playful tools that help kids tell the difference between real danger and “false alarm” fear. You can also find them in the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids, Volume 2. And for now, I invite you to be curious about what might be happening beneath the surface when you find it hard to motivate yourself or your child.
Wishing you and your kids love, belonging, curiosity, and freedom,
Jamie Lynn
P.S. Before working directly with fear, it can be helpful to build emotional awareness and connection. If your child has a hard time with big or uncomfortable feelings, I offer my Raising Resilient Kids: Helping Kids with Big Feelings Mini-Course as a free resource. Learn more about the mini-course here.