Life Actually By Kari Kampakis: 4 ways to start parenting from a place of calm

My friend’s 16-year-old daughter called her from school, panicked and stressed.

“Mom, you’ve got to check me out! Everybody is saying how hard this history test is. I know I’ll fail it. Please come get me so I don’t have to take it today!”

Immediately my friend knew that her daughter had spent time in the Mall. The Mall is our high school’s common area where the students congregate. Often, they make each other panic as they discuss the difficulty of their classes.

“I’m not going to check you out,” her mom calmly replied, “because you’re ready for this test. Get out of the Mall and go to the library to clear your head. You have studied, and you know the material. I promise you’ll do fine.”

Her daughter wasn’t convinced, but she listened to her mom. She made an A on that history test, and 2 years later, this straight-A student was named a National Merit Finalist. She won a full scholarship to the college of her choice. She graduated with top honors.

Clearly, she is an intelligent student who prepared for this test, so why did she suddenly doubt herself? And what does it say for the rest of us when even the brightest people lose sight of their ability to handle challenges?

In some way, we all relate. We all have “Malls” in our life that trigger self-doubt or panic. Even when we’ve done the work, even when we leave home feeling confident, it only takes a voice or two to stir up worry, stress, or anxiety.

The Malls in our life can make us overreact, panic or despair. They can make us catastrophize events — assume the worst and believe our future rides on a singular event (“If my son doesn’t make this team, he won’t play college ball or have the right friends,” “If my daughter doesn’t get a homecoming date, she’ll never get a date in high school.”)

Nashville counselor Sissy Goff says that anxiety is an overestimation of the problem and an underestimation of our ability to handle that problem. She has written amazing books to help girls (and their moms) develop healthy mindsets to work through it. Since we live in anxious times, her messages are super-relevant. It’s now estimated that one out of every three kids struggles with anxiety, and girls are twice as likely as boys to suffer.

So how can we, as moms, help? Here are four ways to get started:

► Address our anxiety. We can only take our children as far as we’ve come, and raising healthy kids begins with them seeing a healthy mom. We want to parent out of our wisdom, not our wounds, yet to do this, we have to work through the anxieties that spill into our family.

Taking my friend’s story, imagine if she’d panicked and checked her daughter out. Besides removing a challenge her daughter was ready for, she might have created a new dynamic of rescuing her before every scary test. Today, her daughter is thriving in college with a rigorous major, yet I doubt that’d be the case if her mother guided her differently. If her mother lacked the skills to manage her own panic, she might have fueled her daughter’s worries and deprived her of opportunities to build self-confidence.

The work we do for ourselves, as moms, benefits our family. Addressing our anxiety helps us better lead our children.

► Seek help when needed. My friend Kim Anderson is another fantastic Nashville counselor. She helps moms get “unstuck” from unhealthy thought loops, shame, and the stories (or lies) we tell ourselves.

Kim says it is amazing how quickly a mom’s mindset/perspective can change as she begins the process of healing herself. Sometimes we need professional help to replace unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones and work through trauma from our past that is negatively impacting us and our family. If we’re not careful, our stuck places will become our kids’ stuck places.

► Aim to be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kinder than our kids. One of Kim’s favorite counseling concepts is the Circle of Security — which helps parents grow healthy, intimate attachments with their children by being the bigger, stronger, wiser, and kinder one. Through this relationship, children draw strength and enjoy life.

The opposite of this is the ET Syndrome, where the parent/child attachment grows symbiotic. In the movie ET, Elliott gets sick as ET gets sick, and in parenting, this may look like us being more upset than our child over an event in their life or being so distraught over a trial our child faces that we can’t provide love and emotional support.

It’s a sign of growth when our child’s emotions blow out of proportion, yet we can lovingly tell them, “I won’t get on that emotional roller coaster with you, but I will be here at the gate, waiting for you with my arms wide open when you’re ready to get off it.” It’s also a good sign when we say, “Yes, this is a challenge, but you’ve got this — and I believe in you.”

► Give ourselves grace. Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

As parents, we need grace because we all make mistakes. We change, grow, and evolve. After parenting for 20 years, I can look back and see plenty of things I did wrong. While this self-awareness has made me better, it also can trigger regret or guilt.

It’s easy to dwell there, but God doesn’t want us to stay stuck. He created us to parent with a spirit of strength, not defeat, and to receive new mercies each morning. Who we are today matters more than who we’ve been in the past, and rather than beat ourselves up, we can move forward more wisely by asking God to bring good from our missteps.

Our children are growing up in a world full of loud Malls. They’re surrounded by voices that make them doubt themselves and want to check out. As moms, we can’t control the noise, but we can be a voice of reason. We can wisely guide them through difficult moments that build their confidence, character, and ability to meet a challenge.

Kari Kubiszyn Kampakis is a Mountain Brook mom of four girls, author, speaker and blogger. Kari’s newest book, “More Than a Mom: How Prioritizing Your Wellness Helps You (and Your Family) Thrive,” is now available on Amazon, Audible and everywhere books are sold. Kari’s bestselling other books — “Love Her Well,” “Liked” and “10 Ultimate Truths Girls Should Know” have been used widely across the country for small group studies. Join Kari on Facebook and Instagram, visit her blog at karikampakis.com, or find her on the Girl Mom Podcast.