How Worrying Shifts Parents and Their Base Camp by Susan Bauerfeld, PhD and Chris Parrott, CPsychol (Book Excerpt from Base Camp Parenting) – MotherhoodLater.com

How Worrying Shifts Parents and Their Base Camp by Susan Bauerfeld, PhD and Chris Parrott, CPsychol (Book Excerpt from Base Camp Parenting)

How Worrying Shifts Parents and Their Base Camp 

This chapter provides information about what happens to you when you worry and how that alters your goals and shifts the conditions in your Base Camp. The power of Base Camp to buffer the impact of adversity on children is unparalleled and well-documented.1 There is no better way to help kids more than to invest time, attention, and energy into building and maintaining a beneficial Base Camp. Like most parents reading this book, you probably understand that qualities like playfulness, connectedness, and calmness are desirable in your Base Camp. The value and significance of these resources are intuitive. Their importance is also emphasized in most parenting blogs, books, and podcasts. You probably strive to provide them. However, when worrying takes hold, it blocks access to these qualities and their benefits. Worrying shifts how you think, feel, and interact with your children. These shifts in you and your Base Camp are the major reason that worrying is problematic.

Worrying often enters Base Camp like a wolf in sheep’s clothing: the clothing it wears is your concern for your children. When you are concerned about your children, worrying can seem like a kindred spirit who has your kids’ best interests at heart. How could letting it in possibly be harmful? Yet allowing worry to run free in Base Camp puts children at risk. Just as the presence of a wolf creates a detrimental change in a pasture, unchecked worrying creates detrimental shifts in you and your Base Camp. When you can’t shift away from worrying, you become warped (we think of this state as an acronym: Wracked with worry, Angsty, Reactive, and Profoundly tired). Warped parents create conditions in Base Camp that are different and far less beneficial than they intend. The concerns and occasional worried thoughts that all parents naturally have are not the problem. It’s what changes when you can’t shift away from worrying that puts your children at risk.

When worrying has your full attention, it can be difficult to recognize the detrimental shifts in your Base Camp that we describe in this chapter. For that reason, we find an exercise we call “putting the situation on the mountain” to be helpful. In our experience, when you consider a situation in the context of climbing a mountain, the detrimental impact of worry is more immediately apparent. To do this exercise, imagine a situation with your child that is worrying you (e.g., your child is struggling with tying their shoes). Notice the thoughts you have about how to handle the situation when you are worrying. Next, imagine you are a Base Camp leader and one of your climbers is facing a similar situation on a mountain (e.g., a climber is struggling with their equipment). Then consider the implications of handling the situation with the climber in the same manner that you were considering for your child. Finally, evaluate whether the worry-driven approach with your child would help or hinder the climber.

To illustrate, let’s imagine the following situation: You have been teaching your child, Bobbi, to tie his shoes, yet he continues to struggle with the task. Getting ready to go out now takes a long time. You find yourself worrying: Argh! What if Bobbi never learns to tie his shoes? We’ve gone over and over how to do this a thousand times. What’s wrong with him?! Why can’t he get this? It’s so embarrassing! All the other kids can tie their shoes! In your warped state, you intervene with one of the following reactions:

• You say, “Hurry up! Everyone else is already out the door. You’ll miss everything. If you can’t tie them, just tuck in the laces and fake it so no one realizes you can’t tie your shoes.”
• You take over and tie the (*#!%) shoes yourself.
• You announce that Bobbi can no longer wear shoes that require lacing—only slip-on shoes or shoes with Velcro closures can be worn.

Now, let’s put the situation on the mountain. Imagine that you are a Base Camp leader and one of your charges, Bobbi, is struggling with the ice cleats required to safely traverse the next stretch of terrain (despite extensive training about using them ahead of time). Consider what might happen if you had one of the reactions above with the climber on the mountain, i.e., chastising, hurrying, and suggesting that Bobbi “fake it” so no one realizes there is a problem; taking over and putting the ice cleats on for Bobbi; or avoiding any situation in the future that requires ice cleats. How would each of these impact Bobbi’s current and future ability to climb?

In our experience, putting situations like this on the mountain provides valuable clarity about how and why worried thinking is unhelpful. For instance, in the example above, the negative implications of shame, blame, criticism, catastrophizing, taking over, and/or avoiding challenges on the mountain are clear. Bobbi (the climber) would have a harder time coping in the moment and moving forward on the mountain under any of those conditions. Likewise, Bobbi (the child) would have a harder time learning how to tie his shoes under such conditions. That’s the beauty of using this exercise— you gain clarity about the impact of worry. As such, we encourage you to “put situations on the mountain” as you read this chapter and strive to get your shift together.

Susan Bauerfeld, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, IFS therapist, speaker, author, parent consultant/coach, and ADHD coach. She is passionate about helping parents manage challenges related to anxiety, child-rearing, learning differences, and technology. You can find her online at susanbauerfeld.com , on LinkedIn (@DrSusanBauerfeld), on Instagram  (@drsusanbauerfeld  ), and on Facebook (@DrSusanBauerfeld).

 Chris Parrott, CPsychol, is a British Psychological Society Chartered Counseling Psychologist and a board-certified coach. In her private coaching practice, she specializes in working with emerging adults and parents. She is co-author of Reach Before You Teach: Ignite Passion and Purpose in Your Classroom and Doing Therapy Briefly. You can find her online at cparrottcoaching.com, on LinkedIn (Chris-Parrott), and on Instagram (@ChrisParrottCoaching)

You can read more about Base Camp Parenting online at basecampparents.com, on Instagram (@basecampparents), on LinkedIn (@BaseCampParenting), and on Facebook (@BaseCampParenting)