On a Lifeboat

In the USA, once kids go to high school, the talk about college and scholarships is pervasive among friends, parents, teachers, potential colleagues, and school counselors. Society, colleges, parents, schools, and social media have created an unhealthy definition of success, which includes GPAs over 4.0, multiple AP classes, high-level sports, band, or other extracurricular activities pulling kids in many directions and placing unreal demands on their developing brains and bodies. Thus, it’s even more important to make our kids aware of our family’s definition of success and our core values. 

As a college and high school teacher, I have seen high-level achievement cost too many kids their mental and physical health, happiness, and even their lives. I kept my eyes and ears open for signs in my own home, and now I was confronted with the reality of unhealthy consequences affecting my daughter from society’s expectations and even my own. I knew what to look for, and I was getting a clear request for help from my own child.

We needed to redefine success by prioritizing health and happiness. Her mental and physical health and happiness are by far the most important indicators of success for her Dad and me. If health or happiness is compromised for longer than a very short period of time while pursuing an achievement, then that is not a definition of success for our family. I want my kids to always prioritize their happiness and mental and physical health above all else. It was time to address the high-stress, over-achieving path my daughter was on that was interfering with her health. 

My husband and I expect our kids to do well in school and to do their best in sports and anything else they do in life. I think we should have been clearer about the importance of being balanced with health and happiness as a priority and academic and athletic achievement being secondary. With society’s message about the importance of high achievement being reinforced by social media, including posts about what colleges kids get into as well as the commitment they have to a college sports team as early as sophomore year, inundating middle and high school student’s minds, we felt our family discussion about success and values needed to be more consistent and strong. With the outside world impacting our kids, we needed to weigh in more heavily about what we most value in our kids' lives. 

I remember trying to calm her down after she first said these words. I also remember trying to find words and actions to fix this. Undoing the pervasive thinking of ‘achievement at all costs’ would take a while. I had a therapist who often helped me with parenting advice, and she was helpful during this time. Evaluating what needed to come off my daughter’s plate was most important. Within a few months, she decided it was her competitive sport that she had loved and played for ten years. She was starting to be looked at by colleges. 

I would be lying if I said we weren’t a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be a college athlete. Before she was so clear about her overwhelm, there was some denial by all of us that the pressure was getting to her. But when you hear your child say something like she said, you can continue to deny it’s affecting them negatively, or you open your eyes and ears to hear what they are really telling you. We chose to hear her and see her. 

Parents today have a lot of pressure on them as well. Since society, schools, and other parents are so impressed with students who are high achievers both academically and athletically, there is an unspoken trophy awarded to parents whose kids go on to play college-level sports. Somehow, many of us think that parents have done something really well if their kid is a high-achieving athlete and/or student. This is reinforced in conversations at adult social events, including on the sidelines or in arenas where youth athletics take place.

I remember hearing a whole gaggle of dads at my son’s 12-year-old baseball game discussing where their older child is going to college and playing a sport, and their hopes for their 12-year-old were along the same lines. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say, “Is this what’s most important to you? Check in with your child. Are they healthy? Are they happy? What does your family truly value? My daughter paid a price for this thinking, and now she’s so happy and volunteering for a wheel-chair organization.” I didn’t hear anyone say anything about character, kindness, or giving back. 

The talk is always about achievement. Of course, I am proud of academic and athletic achievement, too, but I learned the hard way that there is too often a high price to pay for high-level achievement, so I see things differently now and can do it better with my son. 

Luckily, because my daughter voiced her pain and we were able to put aside our pride and listen, she was able to pull through this time and is now in grad school, getting her doctorate in psychology. I think as parents, based on our ability to self-regulate and see clearly what her mental and physical health needs were, we stepped up and got her therapy, allowed her to give up her sport and find other passions that aligned with her strengths that would not take away from her happiness but add to it. I think our support and role-modeling during this time helped her learn resilience, which served her well throughout college and continues to. 

The four most important steps to help your child through a mental health challenge at any age are:

1. Listen with open ears and an open mind.
2. Hear your child’s message because they may not say it as clearly as “I need help.”
3. Provide unconditional love without judgment.
4. Offer your complete presence (have no distractions when you interact with them).

I think my husband handled the initial aftermath of our daughter not playing sports better than I did. She and I were both lost in the first months after she stopped playing. My therapist told me that kids who have played sports on a fast-track college route tend to identify themselves as an athlete. I didn’t have practices and games to take her to or to socialize at. I loved watching her play. However, in those months before she stepped away, she wasn’t enjoying it as much, and it was comforting to me to know she made the right decision.

She would come home from school and sleep, and this scared me. I thought she was depressed and regretted her decision. She agreed to talk to a therapist. It took a while to find the right fit. (I encourage parents to let their children have a voice in the therapist they see. They need to connect and respect their therapist, and it can take time to find the right one. Allow this to happen.) 

After the first few months, I could see more joy and less stress in my daughter. She had more time to connect with friends and to just hang out. I learned to let go of my dreams for her. I watched her figure life out for herself and go off to college, where she started playing her sport again just for fun.

I didn’t become a parent coach until six years after this experience. While I was going through the Jai Parenting Coach Certification, my daughter said to me, “Mom. Something is different about you. You listen more and give me less advice.” I told her I was doing a parenting coaching program to help other parents and wished that I had learned the material so it had benefited her and her sister earlier in their lives. Their younger brother was getting better parenting from me at a younger age. I learned that my young adults are also benefiting from Jai's parenting and strategies, such as learning to regulate myself before reacting and interacting with them. 

My favorite Jai parent coaching tool is how to ANCHOR yourself to be a safe HARBOR for your child. If I could have done this a bit more during my daughter’s distress, I could have focused more on her pain and less on my fear of failing as a parent if she quit a sport or couldn’t seem to “handle” all the pressure she was under. This phrase alone says it all and is a great reminder to parents to find a coping tool for their own self-regulation in order to support their child through a distressing time.

As an older mom with two adult children and one teenager, I look back and wish I had also prioritized my own health and self-care more. I always exercised. But I was anxious, and I didn’t self-regulate or deal with my stress enough. I learned the importance of being less busy and more present in the moment, which benefited both my mental and physical health and directly impacted my parenting and, ultimately, my children’s well-being. I think a lot of young moms don’t do enough self-care, especially without guilt. 

Through Jai, I learned the value of practicing mindfulness as self-care for me. It helps me be more aware of the present moment and is one of my daily coping techniques, especially during tense times. Teaching my kids mindfulness at an early age could have been an excellent coping, too. 

I mentioned that parental presence is one of the most important tools to help your child through a mental health challenge. Jai introduced me to Dr. Daniel Siegel and his book, “The Power of Showing Up.” As a mental health coach and a parent who has supported students and kids through mental health challenges, I find his book to be extremely helpful.

As bestselling authors Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson explain, “Showing up is about providing a genuine quality of presence. It's easy to offer once you grasp the four essential building blocks of a child's healthy development.”  Siegel and Bryson say the Four S’s are what every child needs to feel secure.

• Safe: We can’t always insulate a child from injury or avoid doing something that leads to hurt feelings. But when we give a child a sense of safe harbor, she will be able to take the needed risks for growth and change.

• Seen: Truly seeing a child means we pay attention to his emotions—both positive and negative—and strive to attune to what’s happening in his mind beneath his behavior.

• Soothed: Soothing isn’t about providing a life of ease; it’s about teaching your child how to cope when life gets hard and showing him that you’ll be there with him along the way. A soothed child knows that he’ll never have to suffer alone.

• Secure: When a child knows she can count on you, time and again, to show up—when you reliably provide safety, focus on seeing her, and soothe her in times of need, she will trust in a feeling of secure attachment. And thrive!

Hearing my daughter say she felt she was in the middle of the ocean and all we were doing was offering her a life jacket was a turning point in my parenting. It was also one of the hardest moments in my life. When I share this moment with others, I respond to some pity in their voice and sympathy in their eyes by saying as hard as that moment was, we must have done something right because she was able to vocalize her inner pain and for that, I am so grateful although it was so hard to hear. 

My training to become a certified Jai Parenting Coach enlightened me with amazing parenting tools. I apologized to all of my kids and told them that Jai had taught me so many wonderful parenting ideas that I wish I had known and done better as a younger parent to them. I wish I had the parenting strategies and tools I learned through the Jai parent coaching program, such as being an emotionally regulated parent, using ANCHOR and HARBOR tools, and practicing mindfulness and the 4 S’s for the toughest parenting moments I had with them. 

Awareness of my emotions and the need to self-regulate would have allowed me to be more in tune with my children by listening to their needs and desires with eyes and ears wide open throughout their lives. I could have seen my daughter’s stress and pain and addressed it earlier. 

Among all my kids, many arguments, unregulated emotions, and unnecessary pain could have been prevented if I had had such tools. I envied the younger parents in my Jai coach training cohort because they were seeing the magic of using these wonderful tools with their own children at an early age. 

I shared this with my young adult and teen kids, who forgave me for not knowing better. I shared with them ways in which ANCHOR and HARBOR could have helped all of us. I taught them mindfulness immediately upon learning the benefits. They reassured me that they knew I did my best and appreciated that I was always present, available, and loving. I guess I did get some things right. My kids will always tell it to me straight.

Although I didn’t have the chance to use these powerful strategies as a young, emotionally dysregulated parent with my own small children, the information and tools I learned through Jai have allowed me as a Jai parent coach to share these important gems with numerous families who are eager to have such valuable information. I have also discovered it is never too late to become a better parent, and I have implemented these tools with my young adults and teen as well. I am a more enlightened parent and enriched parent coach, thanks to Jai.