What Are You Afraid Of?
You couldn't miss it, the entire rink heard it. A dad yelling, a soaked child crying. His jacket, pants and boots were discarded by the bench.
"You could have been killed!" yelled the dad. "What were you thinking? Do you have a brain in your head?" The dad kept yelling, the kid kept crying and the emotional tone kept heightening. It was an ugly scene, but not that unusual.
Fear for our children makes us act in ways that we don't expect, it gives us temper tantrums and crying fits, it can limit us to our homes, or make us put strict boundaries on our kids. Being anxious is part of parenting, it can motivate us to our best and our worst.
Dealing with the anxiety isn't easy because we all worry about different things. I don't sweat the small stuff. My personal anxieties are focused on worrying when my luck will run out: three healthy kids, nice husband - it's too much. When will the day come that will change our family's life forever?
I think that every parent finds the anxiety crushing at some point. The best way to know that you are not going crazy with anxiety is to talk to other parents about their fears. I have a friend who has a fear of a stranger abducting her child; another who fears that every illness is "the one" that will take her child away from her.
We are collectively riddled with anxiety. And so when we see a dad reaming out their kid for playing on the ice at a creek, we get it. We would have done the same thing.
What are you afraid of? What makes you lose it with anxiety?
Want more? Last year I wrote about feeling the Canadian spirit.
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