Kathryn Hecht

In my eldest daughter's four short years of life, I have become a one-woman emotional SWAT team more times than I can count.

I've answered questions for my daughter when she clams up with a new adult.

I've sacrificed my sleep and allowed our little human space heater into the big bed for the night.

I have forfeited all privacy while peeing.

because even that closed bathroom door feels too far away.

Now, all of this is what I call parenting for comfort, and it is the single most natural and well-meaning and deeply flawed thing that we do.

In the anxiety treatment world, parenting for comfort has another name, accommodation.

In my office, it looks like the parents who removed everything green from the house, because green meant vomit.

In Sammy's case, it looked like kind, loving parents who altered family plans from outdoor fun to indoor fun.

No picnics at the park, no meals on the deck at the cabin.

Parenting for comfort is not limited to the parents of anxious kids.

It's also the common thread in the last 30 years of parenting trends, from the helicopter parenting of yore to the gentle parenting of today.

All of it is rooted in this idea that healthy is a synonym for happy.

I have watched this approach play out hundreds of times in my office, and I can tell you there are three big problems with parenting for comfort.

First, it places an incredible burden on parents.

It turns us into this stressed-out member of the feeling-secret service, tasked with controlling something we just can't, another person's emotional experience.

Second, it teaches kids that hard feelings are an emergency.

When we cancel that picnic in July or open the bathroom door midstream, we may not say it, but our actions shout, this feeling is a problem.

Third, it doesn't work.

We can't eliminate the pain or mistakes of childhood.