Three Pointers: How to Help Your Kid Face Their Fears

I want to share a pep talk that Amber, a mom of two from Tennessee, gave to her 7-year-old daughter, who was afraid to try a tricky balance beam exercise at gymnastics. Then I want to tell you why it worked.

Here’s what Amber said:

The talk worked even better than you might imagine: Amber’s daughter was up on the balance beam, and, the next week, decided out of nowhere that she was ready to conquer her fear of swimming, too. “She’s decided she’s brave,” Amber told me. So what did she do in her pep talk that worked so well?

It can be tempting to try to talk our kids out of their fear: “That’s nothing to be afraid of!” But that’s more likely to tee off a debate than anything else - and experts suggest it could have the effect of training kids not to trust their gut feelings. Research indicates that you should validate the fear - “Yeah, that can be scary” - as briefly as you can, then pivot to making a plan for dealing with it.

Throwing a kid in the deep end only teaches them to be scared of the water. (If they jump in on their own, that’s another story.) For kids who are nervous about trying something new or scary, experts recommend easing them into it. In this case, Amber pointed out the supports that would keep her daughter from getting hurt as she learned to use the balance beam - and explained the way (muscle memory) she would be able to get better over time.

We know that kids are profoundly influenced by their parents’ expectations. There’s a dark side to this - when parents’ expectations are unreasonably high (causing perfectionism) or unreasonably low (causing learned helplessness). But in this case, Amber’s expectation for her daughter was just right - she was capable of learning how to use the balance beam, not perfectly, not immediately, but over time, at least well enough to keep herself safe. Amber told her daughter this - and gave evidence for why she believed it. Research shows us that verbal persuasion is one of the things that helps us build self-efficacy: In plain language, telling someone they can do something does help them believe they can do it.

Amber is a member of Legends Insiders, our online community of parents + educators who are helping us build Legends. She shared this story in one of our first Insider Zoom meetups.

If you want direct access to our team of educators, sneak peeks at Legends products, and the opportunity to participate in what we’re building— plus a community of parents and educators who care about transforming education and building confident kids—email [email protected] and we’ll add you to Insiders.