Weekly Wellbeing 

Agency and Anxiety

Kids who have a sense of agency are less anxious. A sense of agency means that you feel that you are capable and can achieve things.  Kids are very capable, often a lot more than we give them credit for.  The other day I was at a café and in the line for putting in your order there was a young girl (approx. 8 years, definitely no older) before me with a sheet of paper reading over what she had written (I could also see that it was in a child’s handwriting) standing up very straight and looking pretty pleased with herself.  I took notice because I thought to myself, ‘You don’t see this very often’ … at the young girl's turn she carefully read out several orders with detail down to exactly how they wanted the eggs done etc and even asked ‘Do you have soy milk?...well in that case we will have skinny milk!’.  I was completely enthralled!  I could see a proud Mum looking over from a table at which there were 7 other people.  She had taken the detailed orders of all 7 and executed them perfectly on their behalf!  Now how tempting would it be as an adult to just say, ‘I will order, it will be quicker and easier!’.  No, that young girl got to experience pride, communication skills and a sense of agency.  So often as adults we are in such a rush or are so tired or stressed that we do and say things for our kids and don’t even give them the chance to use and develop their frontal lobes.  I often say to parents ‘don’t let them hijack your frontal lobes, they will never learn to use theirs’.  It is the frontal lobes they need for calming their anxiety too, so this is a muscle that needs to be strengthened.  For parents, try to resist the urge to jump in and instead put everything back on them:  ‘Do you want to do anything about that?’  ‘What do you think you could do?’  ‘Do you want to have a go at that?’. 

Here is a great article by Michael Grose on Problem Solving:

A few years ago we had the wonderful Georgina Manning (Peaceful Kids/Peaceful Parents) deliver a Seminar to our parents and here is one of the take homes:

Julie & Mia  -  Student Wellbeing Team