Hi, this is Ron Huxley at the parenting toolbox calm. You know what fear stands for? It's false evidence appearing real. This is really true for our children who are dealing with fears. And children because of their active imaginations and they're developing brains will have a lot of irrational sort of fear. So it's very common for children to be afraid of monsters or you know, under their bed, or they're afraid that someone's gonna come into house and rob them.

Well, this is based on things that they have overheard or watched on the news. It was really important that we as parent really guard their hearts in their minds about what information they're taking in. But even if we do everything possible to try and keep them from being scared about things that are going on the world violence, wars, crime, what we want to do, sometimes you can't help it because what happens is the school kids right At school will talk to them or they'll hear something other grown up over, over hear them talking or they'll read something in a book that was meant to be for children even though we screened it, but they still saw it. So these things, they start to blow up in their mind and they feel very unsafe. And if it's chronic over time, they'll begin to develop various compulsive and obsessive sort of behaviors, compulsions, or behaviors, and obsessions, our thoughts and they basically feel like they have to go through certain types of behaviors or certain type of thoughts in order to feel safe, it becomes a vicious cycle like a merry go round that they're on and they can't get off.

And after a while, the anxiety inside of them says, you have to think these thoughts you have to perform these actions, these obsessive compulsive behaviors in order to feel safe, but again, this is false evidence appearing real to irrational thoughts with irrational solutions. Often some Because they are just young and immature. So what we want to do is help them help the children feel like they have a safer home. So the more safety we can provide them, the more the anxiety will come down. So I'm going to use the acronym safer home to help you as a parent, work with your children who are dealing with a lot of irrational fears. The first is for the word safer.

Now, the first word safer is going to be a lot about talking about addressing the problem that's going on the fears that the child are experiencing, and then home is going to be about how to have a solution to that problem. Another way of looking at this is that the first part for safer is going to be all about having a heart to heart connection, and then at home is going to be about how to take some action. So it's connect and then we have the redirect it's helped him have a safer home. So s and safer stands for stopping what you're doing. You're probably adding to the problem that you're Going through. Most of the times, our children are upset about robbers or something going to happen at school, they can't go to school, they don't wear the right kind of shoes, or the milk might be expired.

But trust me, these things happen all the time, or that there's a monster under the bed. When this happens, we can overreact because we're tired, we're overwhelmed. We just got to get to work, we got to get to bed, we just want to move on with our day. So stop what you're doing. You're probably reacting to the stressful situation and making it worse. Then you want to take some time to a assess the situation.

What's really going on, take a deep breath, look at the situation, look at the environment. Maybe there's a problem, some bullying going on school, maybe there's some material that they've been reading some homework assignments, I've even had parents have to deal with some of the homework books that the schools recommend, because they're actually creating fears in the child. Even though they're recommended literature. Sometimes that can create problems too. Or maybe they're talking to certain kids or you don't see Want to assess what's going on. Because if you can assess what's happening, understand the environment, the situation of your child, and the different motivations, perhaps they're just wanting to not go to bed.

Once you understand these things, you're going to have a better strategy for solving it. So F has been focused on one problem, once you've assessed the situation, focus on a problem or a prior priority that you're going to address. Don't try and tackle all the issues that are going on in that situation. For example, if your kid just doesn't want to go to bed at night, then address that issue don't address the issue about whether that there's enough stuffed animals in the room or they had a drink of water or what might be happening to them or something different to do for tomorrow. Try to help focus on the problem. Once you've done that, try to use empathy.

That's E for empathy with your child's feelings, because again, we're tired we're stressed. We don't want to deal with this right now. But the more you can connect, the more you're going To be able to redirect to the next piece. So you're going to say things to your child like I can understand how you feel this way, or I can accept that this is feels like it's a scary thing to you, or I know that you want to act in a certain way. However, so are is then respond, respond without However, it's important to distinguish that we didn't say react, we said to respond. So you want to respond by offering some solutions.

Or even better yet, ask them for a solution to the problem. Whenever a child can take ownership for a situation, you're going to have a much greater success as a parent in achieving that result. So ask them respond by asking them for what are some things that they would like to do? What would be an alternative solve the problem? And once they do it, then the problem should be solved, right? It's not always but in their minds, they have done what they've asked.

Otherwise, you're just playing 20 questions, trying to comment They come up with solutions that they just keep rejecting. So either you didn't empathize enough and connect, or you're not giving them the opportunity to think for themselves. And ultimately, what we want to do as parents is help children learn to think for themselves and solve their own problems and deal with their own fears and anxieties. So again, safer is stop, assess, focus, empathize, and respond. Once you have given those choices, and allow them an opportunity to think things through, then you want to go on to the next part, which is the redirect piece that is for home, an H stands for help children decide. So they are not going to always come up with the alternative, or the alternatives that they come up with are not going to be good ones.

So at this point, you can help them with a few suggestions of your own. You can say what if we tried this idea? What about that? What if we do X or Y so these things can be your input to the situation? Oh, it's our choices. It's always better when we do help children that we give them two choices and choices are not three or four multiple choice questions is are two choices?

Would you like to go to bed with your stuffed animals? Or would you like an extra pillow? Would you like to go to school with? chips? Or would you like to have an apple? So we give choices to kids?

What's going on with them? Would you like me to help open the milk? Or do you want to pour yourself? Do you so you just get these choices to kids over and over again. These as they feel power by making choices and the more you give them small choices frequently over time, and fearful of non physical situation just as a parenting rule. You will empower your children to experience what it feels like to make their own choices.

The next one is m or maintain your position. Once a choice has been made, this is where you're going to fight the big fight right you can't fight them all, you're not going to win all the battles of the parent victory wins, chatter, scared of feeling irrational and they're just upset about the situation and not thinking clearly. So once you have got to this point, then you want to be able to maintain the position that you've decided. And don't let them go to a third choice. If you've done X or Y, they choose z, we're not going there is X or Y, you may be a broken record for a bit. But it's important that you maintain your position here, this is your power as a parent, and you're owning this piece of it.

And you're asking your child to make a choice so that they can feel powerful and a third part of it. Finally we want to execute on that choice. E stands for execute. We want everyone to agree or take action on what's going to happen. And again, this is again placed with the M for maintain an E for execute. You do not want to be backing down.

Of course once they've done this, you want to celebrate their success, no matter how big it is. No matter how much of a fight it took to get here, once that choice has been made and you have executed, you want at this point to be able to celebrate their successes, because this will reinforce their social praise, to continue to make good choices to deal with their fears, overcome their anxieties, to not engage in those obsessive sort of compulsive behaviors. Sometimes it's good to celebrate publicly that can be more powerful for some people, sometimes that can actually create more problems for children. You kind of have to know what it is that your child needs. So how do you deal with fear false evidence appearing real, you want to create a safer home? Again, quickly those are stop, assess, focus, empathize and respond.

That is connect with your child. And then you want to use home which is help offer choices, maintain and execute, connect, and then redirect. Hope that helps