Viva Brighton Issue #66 August 2018

FEATURE
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Confidence tricks
How not to pass your anxieties on to your children
Climbing trees,
swimming in lakes,
getting lost on bicycles…
those unsupervised
adventures we have in
childhood often create
the best memories for us
as adults.
Yet modern parents are
much less likely to let
their kids take these risks.
Overprotecting children
may mean they suffer
fewer broken bones, but could lead to them
entering adulthood with little experience of how to
handle challenges.
A new clinic, called Flourishing Families, has been
set up in Brighton to help prevent parents and
carers from passing their anxieties – and avoidance
behaviours – down to their children.
University of Sussex clinical psychologist Professor
Sam Cartwright-Hatton (pictured left) is working
with Dr Helen Startup (pictured right) at the Sussex
Partnership NHS trust in Brighton to run ‘Raising
Confident Children’ workshops for people with
mild or moderate anxiety disorder who also have
children aged between two and eleven.
“We know that anxious parents tend to overprotect
their children,” says Sam. “They see all the dangers
in the world. But overprotecting children can
undermine their confidence.”
“Mental health problems run in families,
particularly anxiety disorders. Children are very
good at absorbing these anxieties, whether they are
phobias about spiders, or a fear of social situations
that would eventually stop them from having a
fulfilling adult life.”
The key part of the workshop, the first of its kind in
the UK, is to encourage participants to adopt and
share with their children
what Sam calls The Seven
Confident Thoughts:
1. The world is a fairly safe
place.
2. I can cope with most
things.
3. Bad things don’t usually
happen to me.
4. Bad things don’t usually
pop up out of the blue.
5. I have some control over
my life.
6. Most people are pretty nice, really.
7. Other people respect me.
“If you can help your child to believe these things,
then this will help them to grow up confident,” says
Sam. “For parents, this will involve not overreacting
to dangers, showing yourself coping well with scary
situations and praising children for effort rather
than being perfect.”
Parents with particular phobias are encouraged
to find another adult who can give more positive
messages. “Most phobias are not the result of a
traumatic incident but learned from another adult
with that fear,” points out Sam.
She also reminds parents that children have high
levels of self-preservation, and that if allowed to
take small risks when young, will become good at
risk assessment. “It’s rare that children lose their
lives through being too adventurous. That’s why
those stories make the news.”
Jacqui Bealing
The workshops, run over two sessions, a week
apart, are available to all parents about to receive, or
who are currently receiving treatment through the
Brighton and Hove Wellbeing Service and have at
least one child aged 2-11 years old. The clinic will
also soon be available in East Sussex
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