Think your way anxious

Where do our emotions come from?

Many people think that events cause emotions. If you lose control of your bicycle that will make you scared. If a colleague compliments your clothes that will make you happy. If your boss calls you for an unexpected meeting with Human Resources, that will make you worried. But are these sentences true? Do events actually cause emotions?

The first clue that events might not be the cause of emotions will come from how you may have interpreted the scenarios above. Perhaps you thought “no, I wouldn’t be anxious about a meeting with HR, I’d be excited because they might want to give me a promotion”. Or perhaps you would have found the compliment from a colleague inappropriate and slightly worrying, and not felt happiness but rather shame, or even anger.

So what is going on with our emotions? Why can the same event generate different emotions in different people, or in different situations? The answer lies in the way we think about events.

Psychology tells us that emotion is a consequence of the way we think, not a cause of it. That means that if someone comments that “you look tired today”, your emotional reaction will depend on what you think about their comment. If you think “Oh god, they noticed! This is awful, I wonder if they’ll know I’ve come into work hung over.” you will be upset by the comment. If however you think “Finally they noticed – I’ve been working like a mule for the past two weeks!” then you will be pleased by their comment. What you think about an event affects how you feel about that event.

Our children are no different: it is not the bad mark, or the homework in itself that makes them anxious, but what they think about these things. If Jack gets a bad mark in a test he can think “Oh no! I’ve failed! I’m so dumb!” or he can think “I really need to revise this topic more and practise some relevant questions next time”, and these two thoughts will lead to very different emotional reactions. When Amy is faced with science homework she could think “I hate this; I’m only going to fail again.” or she could think “I didn’t do well last time because I left it too late; I’ll start early this time so I can spend more time on it and do better.” In both cases, the first thought creates self-doubt and anxiety, whilst the second helps the child improve.

As parents, we should try to understand what thoughts are going on in our children’s mind in situations that make them anxious, because only by understanding, challenging, and modifying these thoughts can our children work towards a less stressful school life.

Most thoughts that make children anxious are not realistic and do not reflect reality. When Jack thinks that he is dumb for getting a bad mark in his homework, he is being far too harsh on himself. When Amy is certain she will fail at science she is similarly drawing conclusions which cannot be drawn with certainty. It’s important to get our children to understand their own thoughts, and to give them practice at identifying where their thought processes are going wrong and creating emotional reactions which will lead them into downward spirals.

Sometimes however it is hard to make out what our own children are thinking. Our own emotions get in the way, clouding our judgement and rationality. On the other hand, sometimes we can see exactly where our children’s thinking is going wrong, but we can’t seem to make our child realise their error. In those situations it may be useful to seek outside help, and that is where Academic Coaching can help. At YouCan.Education we have helped dozens of children to identify where their own thought patterns were holding them back. Once identified, we have many tried-and-tested techniques to help children realise that their thinking is counterproductive. A good Academic Coach will be able to resolve the vast majority of school anxiety-related problems within a few sessions, and in so doing help to ‘vaccinate’ your child against falling into these vicious cycles in the future.