“Avoidance is not the answer”

There is no doubt students will face a range of challenges over the course of this year at MECS. This isn’t a bad thing, as it’s these challenges that allow growth and development of resilience and can build self-esteem. It is also a wonderful opportunity to overcome challenges in a safe, supportive and Christ-filled community, in readiness for future challenges in their community that may not always be so supportive.

Within the Primary School over the next few months, some students will be embarking on the following:

Cross country (colour run)
Middle Primary Camp
Senior Primary Camp
Excursions
Swimming and athletics (later in the year)

For some students, these events will be the highlight of their year. For others, there will be worry, stress and a strong desire to try and get out of participating. As a parent, it can be tempting to remove them, or give them a day off and not take part. My strong encouragement is to resist this temptation, but to help them through the thing causing them to worry.

This is described further by childhood anxiety expert Karen Young below:

"Our job is not to protect our children from the distress of anxiety or the distress of any big feelings, our job is to give them the experiences they need to help them recognise that they can handle the distress of anxiety."

She explains that the key to ensuring they can handle the distress is making sure your child doesn't feel alone in those challenging moments.

"We do that through validation; by saying 'my darling I know how hard this is, I know this is awful and I know you would rather be doing anything else than this right now … but I also know you can handle this'.

"Just to be clear, we're not saying they'll handle it well. What we're saying is they'll handle the distress or the discomfort of anxiety," Ms Young says.

Parents need to act as anchors

Ms Young says in the most acute moments of anxiety, parents should endeavour to act as 'anchors' to their children.

Kids will look to their adults for signs of safety. They are essentially asking "Do you think I'm OK? Are you OK that I'm not OK? Can you handle me not being OK?"

Even if the situation does in fact rattle you, that's something to be processed later with your support network, not in front of your child.

"On the outside, our job right now is to anchor our child and just be that solid, safe, steady presence," Ms Young says.

If Ms Young could give parents of anxious tweens and teens a mantra to live by, it would be:

"I believe you that this is hard … and I believe in you. We're going to get to the other end of this and we are going to be fine." Avoidance is not the answer "The single worst thing for anxiety is avoidance," Ms Young says.

"The more we avoid or support our kids' avoidance, the more the brain will go, 'OK, this feeling, I've got to avoid this feeling'." Instead of avoidance, she advises supporting your children to try the things that make them anxious, in small doses. And if you have supported avoidance previously, don't panic, Ms Young reassures parents that "you have not broken your kids, it is never too late; we can shift things".

Parenting in 2025 can be challenging. At MECS we value and continue to see the benefits in the partnership between parents, the school and other supports. Please chat with your child’s teacher, wellbeing staff or take advantage of the numerous resources, some of which are listed below. We look forward to supporting you and your child through a range of challenges over the coming year.

If you have any questions or would like to chat, feel free to reach out at danny.gamble@mecs.vic.edu.au or call the office.

Danny Gamble

Deputy Head of Primary/Primary Student Wellbeing Coordinator.

Helpful Resources:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/parental-as-anything-with-maggie-dent (where part of the information in this newsletter has come from)

https://www.heysigmund.com/ (Resources for parents, set up by Karen Young, referenced above)

If you are into podcasts https://www.guidinggrowingminds.com/popcultureparenting is an amazing podcast connecting most major parenting challenges and concepts to popular movies with leading paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey (and author of ‘10 things I wish you knew about your child’s mental health’).

Nurture Magazine

A Journal for Parents in Christian Schools