Kathryn Hecht

They're a part of the process of growing up.

We cannot guarantee emotional comfort when discomfort is a side effect of being alive.

If life won't promise comfort, our parenting can't either.

Instead of parenting for comfort, we need to be parenting for confidence.

When you parent for confidence, you flip the script.

Our goal is not to get rid of anxiety, uncertainty or distress.

Our goal is to build coping efficacy, what I call handleability, this deep-in-your-bones belief, I can handle it.

That is the heart of exposure therapy and the key to raising kids that thrive.

Not avoiding hard feelings, but experiencing them and still saying, I can do this.

Our kids don't require a comfortable life.

They need comfort with discomfort.

So how do you do this?

How do you parent for handleability?

When Sammy got to me, all that he and his parents had tried hadn't really worked, and he was waiting to see if I would waste his time too.

But I surprised him.

Rather than reassurance or relaxation or distraction, with Sammy and with hundreds of other kids, I used the recipe that exposure therapists have relied on for decades.

A plus B equals C. Anxiety plus bravery

equals confidence.

Notice, anxiety is not the problem.

It's a core ingredient.