Alex Littleton (00:00)
for parents to cultivate this genuine belief that anxiety is distressing and it's uncomfortable, but anxiety is not harmful or dangerous. It is not something you need to rescue your child from.
Courtney (00:16)
It's Monday morning, 7 15 a.m. The backpack is packed, the shoes are by the door, and then you hear those words. My stomach hurts. I can't go today. As parents, you immediately kick into high alert.
You start calculating missed assignments, worrying about the attendance office, and, if we're being honest, feeling the frantic urgency to just fix the behavior and get them in the car. It's a cycle of negotiation and flooding that leaves everyone exhausted
It's a cycle of negotiation and flooding that leaves everyone exhausted before the day has even begun. Today, I am joined by a psychologist who is changing the way we look at school avoidance and childhood anxiety. Dr. Alex Littleton is an expert in the SPACE Protocol, Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. What makes Dr. Alex's approach so revolutionary and so aligned with our Inside Out philosophy is that it focuses entirely on the parent.
We are going to dive deep into why rescuing our kids from discomfort is actually anxiety juice, how to move from being an investigator to an anchor, and why you don't even need your child in the room to start healing their anxiety. Dr. Alex, I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (01:32)
Good morning, Alex. How's it going?
Alex Littleton (01:34)
It is going very well. How are you Courtney? ⁓
Dr. Courtney Lynn (01:37)
Doing pretty good. We're back. Everyone went back to school this morning, so I feel like we're getting back into like a routine Slowly but surely.
Alex Littleton (01:44)
slowly but surely, I'm sure, easing
into the new routines.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (01:49)
Exactly,
exactly. Well, I know we're talking about a very stressful topic today. I was thinking about this before we jumped on just how stressful school refusal is for parents. know, one, I think when our kids start to go to school, we hope beyond anything that they love it and that the mornings are nice and easy and they're excited to go to school. And so when kids
Don't like school or school refusal starts to become part of the picture. I like it's so stressful for the entire family system.
Alex Littleton (02:22)
Totally.
School refusal specifically is such a trap that you can fall into because, you know, often it's well intentioned from parents to try to kind of help ease some anxiety or some distress or discomfort. But then the more it keeps happening and gets built into the pattern, then more problems get piled on top. Now, what if your kid's falling behind in schoolwork? What if they're kind of falling behind socially because they're actually not attending enough? So it can start to snowball and feel like it's starting to
out of control and parents just really really can feel like they don't know what to do.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (02:58)
Yeah,
yeah. Okay, can you outline for us first, like what is school refusal? Because I'm thinking, you know, it's probably a little bit different than just your kid like, I don't want to go to school today. No, you're going to school, you're fine. And then they go and like, have a great day. Can you kind of talk to us about school refusal? You mentioned, you know, that it's a trap and kind of discuss how we can start getting caught in that trap.
Alex Littleton (03:10)
Yeah.
Yeah, mean, I think school refusal is more of that persistent pattern of school avoidance. It's typically there's an anxiety related element to it. So some element of anxiety is driving some of that, but it could be lots of different things. It doesn't have to be a separation anxiety thing from leaving home. It can be related to social anxiety with peers at school. There could be pressure, academic anxiety. There could be things with friends and all these different elements that could be related
But oftentimes it's when there's this fear-based element of I don't want to go, it's really uncomfortable, I get a lot of anxiety, I'm in high distress thinking about or going to school. And that can be kind of a starting point for kind of...
okay, maybe you don't have to go today, maybe we can do a late start today, but that's when it can start to snowball a little bit, because what we know about anxiety is that avoidance is not a great long-term tool. And something's really scary and we avoid it in the short term. We kind of go, ⁓ gosh, your body feels better and there's so much relief. go, whew, that felt so good. But every time we do that, you kind of reinforce to your brain that, that thing was dangerous because you ran away from it. So next time you
it, your brain's gonna say, hey that's dangerous, don't you remember? That's really dangerous. So it sort of feeds the anxiety around the thing that you avoided. In this case, cool.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (04:44)
Right, right.
Gosh, even as you were saying, like there can be separation anxiety components and social anxiety components, performance anxiety with grades. There is so much going on at school. It's like a microcosm of the entire environment that any one of those components can really snowball.
Alex Littleton (04:55)
Yes.
Yes. And the good news about that is that parents don't need to like play therapist or even if the kiddo doesn't do therapy or doesn't want to go to treatment themselves, you don't need to identify exactly what the drivers are. It's helpful to know what the drivers of anxiety are, but there's a lot parents can do to actually respond to this and help build resilience for kiddos to be able to go to school without needing to know exactly what the root cause is of some of the fears and anxiety.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (05:31)
Yeah, okay,
how would they go about doing that?
Alex Littleton (05:34)
Well, I mean a lot of this comes from, I know you and I have geeked out about space before. Is this something you've talked about on the podcast before? this?
Dr. Courtney Lynn (05:35)
Yeah.
Yes, our
third episode. I think, no, second episode. We talked about just general kind of space and parental accommodations, but we'd love to revisit all of that. It's always nice hearing someone else's perspective on it too.
Alex Littleton (05:51)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So space is short for supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions. It's this really excellent treatment protocol that has helped address this big treatment gap of the unique thing about space is that it's completely parent based approach for childhood and teen anxiety issues. So there's a lot of reasons why a kid or a teen wouldn't want to go to therapy or to do exposure therapy, which is, know, we have these excellent treatments
for anxiety issues, but they're hard to do. Even for motivated adults, it involves leaning into things that are uncomfortable, kind of knowing why you're doing it. It gets better and it works, but it's hard. So you can imagine the cell for an anxious child who's really afraid of this thing. It's very hard to... There's a lot of children that just don't go to treatment or blow out of treatment and that parents feel totally stuck with what can we do if they won't go. Space is sort of the answer to that.
It's completely parent-based, never through space are parents having children change anything about their behavior at all. They're never asked to change anything or do anything, and you can have a huge impact over your child's anxiety just from how you're responding and what you're doing when this sort of scary stuff comes up for your child.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (07:17)
Right,
right, and I'm even thinking, you know, and of course we do exposure therapy here at my practice. I know your practice does a lot of exposure therapy and it is really helpful and very evidence-based. The other thing that I really like about, you know, targeting parents is parents are the child's secure, safe base, right? So it's not meant to be blame, like, the parent is the problem and the parent is the one that needs to fix things. It really is.
you can be that supportive person for your child and you can give them the confidence that they can do the things that are really hard. So I think in some ways having that option, you know, for parents to be able to change the environment or modify their behavior is actually really supportive to the child.
Alex Littleton (07:48)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And we do this work with parents all the time where we kind of have to get ahead of this sort of shame stuff that can be so natural for parents to feel like, wait, like if I can do this stuff, have I been doing something wrong? Have I been doing this? it's really just not how it goes. I mean, with anxious kiddos, it's almost universal for parents to do things what we call accommodation behaviors. So accommodating is an effort from a parent or caregiver to help a child manage distress or discomfort.
or you know, it's different from danger, but distress is still really hard to watch your child in, so you want to take away distress. So that's not an unhealthy thing. That's a very good thing that parents are motivated to step in, help you with this thing, help you with the thing that's really uncomfortable and distressing. But when there's sort of an anxiety issue for the child, that sort of healthy system can get hijacked by the anxiety problem, and then parents are having to do more and more and to step in to accommodate, to shift, to make changes for.
or to call the school ahead of time, to make special arrangements and plans, maybe not requiring them or holding them to go to school when it comes to school avoidance. And then again, that sort of pattern can develop here.
There's lots of ways out for parents to be able to actually shift how they're accommodating ⁓ anxiety issues, but doing so from, like you're saying, like a supportive, warm, consistent, attachment-minded stance that's not like punitive or like cold or demanding of the child. And that's where space really kind of helps you find that nice middle ground.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (09:39)
Yeah,
yeah. Can you outline what are some of the common accommodations that you see parents making in terms of school refusal that kind of escalate over time?
Alex Littleton (09:52)
Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. really common clear one would be like allowing.
child to miss school and skip school, sort of without much consequence and sort of saying, okay, they didn't want to go, they're not going to go. So what you allow really kind of is apparent behavior. If you communicate this message that if you go like, okay, I won't really say anything, we won't really address it as a problem, we'll sort of allow it to keep happening. That's sort of what you're allowing. But there's a lot of other kind of sneaky ways that accommodation can creep in with this stuff. So it might be doing a lot of giving reassurance to your child in the morning or maybe telling him what's
going to be okay, what's not going to be scary, what's not going to happen, trying to reassure them that it will be okay, that it won't be that bad, that they can get through it. Maybe you're doing some excessive sort of like planning and letting them know exactly what's going to happen here and here and here to try to remove uncertainty for your child going to school. Maybe you're communicating with school staff and teachers and sort of letting them know to sort of change and hey, don't put too much on their plate this morning. They're really, really anxious, having a hard time. hey, maybe don't make them do the assignment.
they're having a rough day. Parents will often do a lot of communication with kiddos or teachers through the day as well. Maybe they're doing a lot of text responses. Maybe they're doing a lot of reassurance over text or over phone calls during the school day. Maybe they're falling into sort of negotiation stuff about like how long can you stay? Can you stay for one more period? What if I got you after lunch? And this sort of like again well-intentioned efforts to try to get them to be okay. It was just sticking out a little bit more but actually my
be kind of sneakily accommodating the fear.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (11:31)
Right. Gosh, as you're saying, I'm getting anxious ⁓ because I'm thinking to your point, very well-intentioned parents will, my gosh, something must be going on at school that this is so stressful. Yes. Okay. It sounds like you do need to stay at home today. I'm also thinking, and we talked about this in the episode with Dr. Eleanor Ho, who I know that you know, you know.
Alex Littleton (11:35)
Yeah, yeah.
wonderful.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (11:55)
Also, like parents gotta go to work and got to move on with their day too, right? So it is that double-edged sword of, hate to see my child in distress and I have to get to work on time. Like I don't know what else to do. Like fine, whatever, stay home. Or yes, I'll email your teachers because you you need to go to school and I need to, you know.
Alex Littleton (11:58)
Yeah.
Totally.
Yeah.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (12:17)
show up at work or all of those types of things too. So I feel like it is also so multifaceted for the parent and what they're going through too.
Alex Littleton (12:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and that's where I'm always trying to have this line of like, accommodation's not a dirty word. Like you accommodate stuff to get life done, to like make things not fall off the rails, to just like make sure everything is moving. So it's not that it's a bad thing just because you realize, am I accommodating this? That does not mean like stop it and just like cold turkey stock, stop accommodation. First off, that won't work very well. And second off, like you need some of them like to just live your life and to be able to have things go a little bit more according
Dr. Courtney Lynn (12:29)
Right.
Alex Littleton (12:55)
to plan. So it's not about removing them all at once. It's more examining like what are the ones that feel like these sort of deeper rutted in patterns that feel like we can't escape them. Maybe every once in a while, you know, to allow your child to stay home when they're overwhelmed or distressed or to pick them up because they feel a stomach ache from anxiety stuff. Like that's OK. It's more just looking at the stuff where it feels like, oh, we're stuck in this. We keep doing this. If we don't do it, it would be really bad. There would be a huge meltdown. It would be a big problem.
That's where it's about trying to figure out how do I start to make shifts to this in very small gradual steps where I start to slowly dial back some accommodations around the school avoidance. But do it in a very supportive, warm way that's well planned out, that you announce ahead of time. It's not just about stopping all that stuff.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (13:45)
Right, right, and I love that distinction too.
an occasional accommodation. Your kid has a stomach ache because they had a presentation and you pick them up from school. That's fine, right? We all have to do what we need to do to get through life. Like you're saying, it's when this pattern becomes so ingrained and almost debilitating for both the child and the family that, you know, that's when we really start to break apart those accommodations. OK, so let's say a parent sees, yep, right when they wake up, they have a stomach ache. I give a lot of reassurance that they're going to be fine. They're not going to get sick.
Alex Littleton (13:54)
Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (14:16)
Okay, and then I email the teacher to let the teacher know. Let's say a parent kind of sees all of these different accommodations that they are engaging in. What is the first step for that after we have the awareness?
Alex Littleton (14:32)
Yeah, before you think of making any changes of what you're accommodating or not accommodating, first you just figure out how to express this message of support. To really think about how are you responding in the moment to the anxious distress, you're finding yourself wanting to step in, like what do you say and what do you not say? And this is where space has a great tool called the supportive statement, which is a statement that has two different ingredients baked into it. Number one is validation of the distress. So genuinely understand
like, hey, I see that this is really uncomfortable for you. I see that this is really hard. But then the second ingredient is also instilling a sense of confidence that they can actually handle hard stuff and handle hard feelings like that.
So that would sound like, know, something like, and I know that you can handle that even though it's so uncomfortable. So the support is like the place to start. It's like the primer before the paint. Expressing more support is the primer and then the paint is actually reducing accommodations. But everything you do to be more supportive of your child and the problems that this causes is going to just set you up well for changes down the road. But.
a common supportive statement for, yeah, being really anxious in the morning, hey, my stomach hurts, or I don't wanna go, it's gonna be so bad, can I just stay home for the morning? And instead of getting into a sort of reassurance cycle or trying to convincing or negotiating, a nice supportive statement might sound like, gosh, I know that morning's really hard for you. And I know that you can get through that and be okay, and we're gonna go to school today.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (16:08)
Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking even that reframe, right? Because as you're kind of describing, if we in the morning are getting caught in those reassurance cycles and negotiating, even a child hearing their parent kind of switch like, well, like the parents calm, validating the emotion, also giving that, you know, validation and
Alex Littleton (16:24)
Yeah.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (16:32)
the confidence that they can get through it. Even that I can imagine internally, even if it doesn't shift the child's behavior immediately, it hits different. It feels different than you're fine. Like you're, you're going to be fine today.
Alex Littleton (16:43)
Yeah.
Yes, and even like the exasperated version from a parent of like, you're fine, like you're fine, you're just gonna be okay. They pick up on the energy of that, right? Versus like this sort of really calm, neutral message of, really believe you can get through this. Like I genuinely know that you will be okay for parents to cultivate this genuine belief that anxiety is distressing and it's uncomfortable, but anxiety is not harmful or dangerous. It is not something you need to rescue your child from.
And to get, know, how are you communicating that?
Dr. Courtney Lynn (17:12)
Yeah.
Alex Littleton (17:14)
message. Are you responding to their anxiety like it's something that can't happen and we need to get rid of it? We must do something to make sure that you don't feel that. Or are you giving the message of like, know that that's really hard and uncomfortable and you will be okay. I know that you will be okay. That comes through. Like your beliefs around that will come through in your messages there.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (17:33)
Right, might be hard for a parent to believe, right? Like for adults, anxiety is hard, you know? It's like, you know, parents often have anxiety around all sorts of things. So then to tell their child, you know, I know you'll be okay. Sometimes it is hard, but at least just saying that and having that script for it can be helpful to start to get the process moving forward.
Alex Littleton (17:38)
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, totally.
Absolutely, yeah. if parents, if you have your own sort of stuff around, like your struggles with anxiety and having a hard time sort of sitting with it at times yourself, I think that you can still communicate some of that message. But yeah, ultimately, yeah, we want to do that work with parents as well and help them understand, some psychoeducation around anxiety and that emotion that, you know, it's not a bad feeling. It's not a bad emotion. We actually need that emotion. But the more that we fight it and judge it and want to get rid of it and try to do something to immediately fix it, it doesn't really work. tends to feed.
it over time. So how do we sort of treat it as a feeling that's really uncomfortable but not this urgent crisis that we need to do something about.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (18:36)
Right, it's the classic, there's a monster in the closet and as I'm not gonna look in the closet, I'm gonna keep being scared of the monster in the closet, but I'm not gonna look in the closet. The moment we look in the closet, we realize there's no monster. And you you just have to face that and lean into it. Okay, so we are giving supportive statements.
I'm hearing parents in my ear right now being like, yeah, that's not going to work. They're still not going to go to school. that I look, it's the foundation. It's the foundation, not the end all be all. So what is the next step? What is the most effective way for a parent to start to reduce some of those accommodations or communicate that to the child?
Alex Littleton (19:00)
Yeah, yeah, maybe not. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Like you're saying, yeah, it's not like there's no magic wand sort of thing that you just give a supportive statement and then your child goes, you're right, I am capable, I go to school today. This happens really gradually, you know, for time where you build much more of a foundation for them to see themselves as more resilient and able to handle hard feelings. But I think a really good early sort of thing to start to experiment with is you mentioned the sort of like reassurance thing in the morning or the negotiation sort of cycle. I think that's a really good thing that you can start to
being pretty early on here as you're practicing more supportive statements of, you know, practice actually being more of a red light with some decisions rather than a yellow light. So what I mean by that is like,
When we yellow light about a decision, it's sort of like, hey, how about we do this thing? How about you change this thing? And you give an answer like, well, I'm not sure. Maybe not. Maybe. An example I really like, this came from Ellie Lebwitz at Yale, space originator. But he talks about the difference between your child asking for a new Nintendo Switch versus asking for a new Rolex watch. So maybe your 10 year old comes up and says, hey,
Dr. Courtney Lynn (20:28)
No.
Alex Littleton (20:31)
⁓ Mom, can I get a new like Nintendo Switch for my birthday? It's really cool. And then your yellow light response to that might be, well, I don't know. You do a lot of screen time already. Don't you have other games you want to play with? I don't know. Maybe if your grades get better, we can kind of think about that. it gives this message that there's a negotiation to be had of like, ooh, like maybe I can get the thing. So when we're out in the world and we're driving cars, like what do we want a yellow light to mean?
want it to mean slow down, but for many people in their driving, when they see a yellow light, what do they see that as?
Dr. Courtney Lynn (21:10)
Speed
up!
Alex Littleton (21:11)
Yeah,
maybe I can get through. If I punch the gas right now, maybe I can get through the light here. So the Nintendo Switch example would be like, yeah, you're kind of giving these like you're negotiating. And that sort of is a yellow light of like, hey, if I give the right answers here, maybe I can get it. Now you compare that with more of like a red light response. if the same 10 year old child came up and said, hey, mom, like I saw this really cool Rolex watch in a magazine and it was $20,000.
it for my birthday. I don't think you'd be like, well I don't know you already have a watch like do you need that one or can we do it? You'd say like of course not. No. There wouldn't be this sort of back and forth like this sort of persuasion or convincing or arguing about whether or not you're gonna do it. It's just much more of a red light of like of course not.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (21:44)
Yes.
Absolutely not.
Alex Littleton (22:07)
And I think for parents to experiment with giving a little bit more of that red light messaging around like some of the expectations for attending school. Instead of doing that negotiation, how many, you know, can I go or should I not? How bad is my tummy? How nervous am I today? Like, can I stay just for a little bit of, certainly give more of the message of like, you know what? No, we are going to go to school. The plan is to go to school.
And to be much more of a red light around that and resist the negotiation, kind of arguing, convincing persuasion sort of stuff, even if ultimately it leads to you still don't take them to school. Just at least eliminating that pattern out of it can be a really good initial first step to start to stand more with this, yeah, do less of the sort of kind of things that keep us stuck and mired in it deeper and deeper.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (22:52)
Yeah, I love the yellow and red light example. I'm also thinking the red light is not punitive, right? It's not punishing. It's not saying you're bad, so you're, you know, have to go to school. That's not it at all. In fact, it almost feels more supportive because you're giving your child clarity that you have the confidence that they can go to school and that they will be OK. It's almost like with anxiety, if we're giving this wishy washy answer of like,
Alex Littleton (23:05)
Yes.
Yes.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (23:20)
Well, let's see how you feel after you have your breakfast. Maybe your stomach ache will go away, right? To the anxiety in the child, it's like, ⁓ maybe the stomach ache actually is really bad. And I might actually need to stay home from school. So when a parent can give that red light response, it's more confident to the child that, ⁓ my parent knows that I can do it. They can send me to school.
Alex Littleton (23:24)
Yeah.
Yes, yes.
Yes, absolutely. And it takes some pressure off your child. what we know feeds anxiety for anybody, not just if you have like significant anxiety. It's decision making and uncertainty and unpredictability. So if I have to decide whether I'm going to school, that's another thing to have to decide or not knowing whether we're going to do it or not, whether we're going to actually do it. mean, versus maybe it's uncomfortable to sort of hear like the plan is to go, like we're going to go to school. Like that is the expectation. That's what we're going to do.
even though that might be a little scary to hear, the decision's made. You don't have to do any decision making around it. There's not uncertainty around it. That's the thing that's happening. And actually, that's kind of a gift for an anxious kid.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (24:29)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah,
it is certainty in a way. I know we want kids to get comfortable with uncertainty, but in some ways, a parent being certain that they're going to school can be helpful because it's giving them that certainty. So, OK, this is all sounding good because this is all at home. These are all things that parents can change. They can change the way that they're responding. So let's say the child, the parent does a great supportive statement. I know you're so anxious about going to school.
Alex Littleton (24:32)
Yes.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (24:56)
confident that you can handle it, you're going to school today, and then child has a total meltdown. Like not getting in the car, you know, what from there, what would the next step be?
Alex Littleton (25:10)
It happens and it will happen with this. So that doesn't mean you fail. That doesn't mean you're doomed. That doesn't mean this will never work. There are just gradual stages of this. So the goal is not to quickly get them to attend school consistently from the get go. It is really much more gradual over time.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (25:12)
Right.
Alex Littleton (25:32)
And oftentimes, you know, starting with the support, supportive statements around the stuff is really, really important first step. Being less of a yellow light and less the negotiation, the back and forth, the convincing, the persuading sort of stuff is also very helpful. And then honestly, I like them to actually focus on what happens when they do stay home. So instead of like beating yourself up, like, ⁓ I failed today as a parent. I again accommodated and let them stay home from school. That's not a failure in this. Like that's going to happen, especially at the beginning.
But then what you do from there is really really important. So we'll often talk about how to ⁓ really help parents communicate this like identity to the child of like hey we see you as a student who belongs in school and this is a school day. So if you do end up staying home, okay that's okay I'm not gonna yell at you for that you're not in trouble for that but just know that on school days if you stay home we're gonna try to make home as close to school as we can. So changing the
environment to like make it school because you're a student and that's where you that's where like you typically would be today so how do we create the student sort of role at home do you do children have access to like you know their games and electronics and really fun books and super fun interesting toys like when they're at school
They don't. The kind of expectation is that you're not just playing and doing total leisure the whole day. So oftentimes we'll just have parents start to adapt what's available at home, sort what's allowed at home for a school day. And again, not doing this in a punitive, harsh sort of way. Now you skip school, so now you're grounded from this, this, and this. It's more about, no, for school days we stick to the school routine. So that means, yeah, no, we're not gonna watch TV, you're not gonna use the iPad,
kind of get to play PlayStation during the school hours, because this is school time. So again, this is an indirect, sort of ⁓ foundational thing of starting to shift what happens when they stay home from school, rather than trying to convince them to go, convince them to go. You're just focusing on what you can control with the environment at home.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (27:45)
Right, to the parent who is worried their child is going to be so mad and think I'm so mean for taking away electronics while they're staying home, what would you say?
Alex Littleton (28:00)
Yeah, yeah. You might get some of that, absolutely. And I think it's possible to respond to that in a really warm, supportive way as well. So a couple things can temper that reaction. think number one, if you really are working on communicating the supportive message of like, see you in distress, I know this is uncomfortable and I know that you can handle it. This isn't me punishing you, this is me just really trying to give clarity.
and not doing it punitively or reactively or harshly. The support thing is really important. Another thing that I hope that would help temper that kind of a response to will...
Announcing these changes ahead of time so I wouldn't recommend like deciding to make this big change of what's available at home if they do stay home like that morning after they decide to not go I'd recommend announcing it ahead of time being really clear like hey starting on Monday. We just want to let you know Here's the new here's the new setup if you do stay home from school That's okay. You have that choice But if you do here's what it's gonna look like at home
So we'll have access to this, this, or maybe they'll have access to schoolwork or some.
certain books or certain activities that you can sort of pick out but letting them know so that it's not a surprise when it does happen. That can help a lot ⁓ and you you can use that announcement as a time to clarify that it's not a punishment like it's this it's really important that you're in school we know that's really good for you does so many good things for you so we want to make sure that we're treating you like a like a student even if you're home and not in the classroom so this is like what it'll look like as a student at home.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (29:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and I think all of those little things are, you know, like you said, when delivered calmly, when delivered in that supportive way, when you give the child notice ahead of time that this is the change that's coming when we're not pulling the rug out from underneath of them, but making those gradual steps, it actually can feel supportive and, you know, helpful for the child, especially in the long run. What about, you know?
Alex Littleton (29:43)
Exactly,
Dr. Courtney Lynn (30:03)
school. So the actual school who is saying, you know, this is all behavioral or whatever, or when they get to school, they're not being supportive. How do we work with schools, you know, either as the parent or as the therapist working with the family to help get that child back into school?
Alex Littleton (30:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, great question because it's really important. And we're actually, as a practice, doing a lot more work to try to loop in more school counselor teams and teachers and school staff to help understand this framework so that they can get kind of consistent messages at school. So I think it can be really helpful at the beginning to actually like wrap a teacher in or maybe a school counselor in about if you are doing space, about some of the concepts of space. I know that we have handouts that we give parents to to teachers.
and to school staff to help them understand like, hey, what's a supportive statement? What is ⁓ accommodation? And how can we sort of give this message that, you know, the distress, the anxious distress is uncomfortable. We see that it's uncomfortable, but still ⁓ express confidence that they can handle it and be okay. So really getting teachers often a great first place to start, like sending even an email or just like a basic information about like how to express support and maybe telling them what the plan.
is and just looping them in. So you might ask them to fill them in about the reassurance loop sort of stuff. And you can always make a request of a teacher like, we're working on this at home. We really want to instill the expectation that they do go to school.
When they're there, we're actually, the plan is to stay in school. So if the teacher does a lot of negotiation about like, do you want me to call your parents? Should we do this? Should we do this? That it can be really helpful to have like kind of a unified front in that way of like the teacher sort of knows what the plan is. How does the teacher actually respond in supportive, warm way to that big anxious distress feeling without actually doing the negotiation like, all right, should you go home? Should you not go home?
even if there's still partial accommodations that are happening. Maybe the child's still calling parents like in the middle of the school day and that's okay. You could still take those phone calls, but maybe on those calls you're still expressing supportive messages, not doing negotiation about how many more minutes they need to stay or whether or not you will pick them up, but expressing confidence in their ability to handle it in a very warm, validating
Dr. Courtney Lynn (32:31)
Right, and like you said, letting them know ahead of time. If you call me from school, I know I wanna help with the anxiety, and so I will say, essentially a supportive statement that I know you're feeling anxious and I'm confident you can get through it. We won't be negotiating.
Alex Littleton (32:35)
Yep. Yep.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
And letting them know, yeah, so if you do call and I'm happy to call you back, maybe not right away, or I'm happy to find a time to call you and talk with you and talk you through it a little bit. But ⁓ yeah, being clear that if your plan isn't to like come pick them up, like letting them know that you'll talk, or maybe not right away or on demand, or maybe not indefinitely through the day, but just letting them know kind of what the plan is for that.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (33:11)
I was actually thinking as you were saying, as we were talking about looping the school in, right, for kids who go to the nurse's office, even making the nurse's office less reinforcing, right? You, you know, need to do your schoolwork while you're in there or you're, I don't know, listening to an audio book or whatever it is, not just, you know, laying down, eating at public school, unless of course the child is sick, you know, we don't want to give them what they need.
Alex Littleton (33:25)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
sure, and this is tricky, right? Because there's a real chicken and egg thing that can happen with a...
anxiety and physical symptoms, right? So what we know is that high anxiety and chronic anxiety can lead to physical symptoms like tummy aches and headaches and fatigue. So I think there's a balance here of like acknowledging there's a genuine symptom and not saying, you're faking it. This is just anxiety. You're not really sick. You don't have a tummy ache, but.
Also just noting that like, hey, it seems like this is a well-established pattern that there's like a lot of these tummy aches around when things are especially scary or there's a lot of anxiety going on. So giving even, a quick sort of education for a nursing staff about maybe what a supportive statement is as well. So wrapping them in when that does come up of like, I know that your tummy really hurts. Like here's the thing that we can do and then that's what we can do. And I know that you can handle it and you're free to stay here.
for some time but maybe not using the nurse's station as like a ⁓ constant place that they can just have full access to whenever they want to throughout the day. That might be a version of an accommodation that you wouldn't allow for a non-distressed, anxiously distressed student.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (34:49)
Right,
right, or even starting out, okay, you get, you know, two visits a day to the nurse's office and then one visit a day, like kind of going down to the number of times the teacher lets the child go to the nurse's office.
Do you get a lot of pushback from schools? I know we sometimes will get pushback from schools. You know, they it is kind of hard. They don't necessarily have just like unlimited capacity to support a student. So what are some ways that parents can kind of overcome some of that pushback if you have things that have worked in the past?
Alex Littleton (35:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's tricky. mean, on one hand, when we really explain how this model works, school staff are like so eager to learn more about it. Like, please, please, please, because they're overwhelmed. Like, teachers are now feel like they have to be counselors or know how to deal with these really intense emotional problems. Then the counseling centers are just overwhelmed and they don't have time to sit with each student. So it's typically that they feel like, oh, great, like there's a resource for parents. Like, please tell us more.
⁓ That said, like yeah, I think it's...
There's just a reality of sometimes having to just advocate for yourselves within a school system and trying to kind of be the educators and sort of wrap people in as the things that could be helpful. Just working with kind of bigger systems like a school that, yeah, I think that we just lean towards the psychoeducation typically and kind of giving them really brief sort of handouts. If you are able to coordinate a sort of meeting that has all of the people in one place, that can be a really, really great.
Sort of setting to be able to talk through hey, here's what we're doing. Here's what the approach kind of looks like I know that will sometimes on behalf of parents like attend those meetings as well and meet with teachers and the staff and help them sort of understand for more from the clinical perspective like hey Here's how this sort of fits in with the wider picture here, you know Presumably will reduce the anxiety anxious distress ⁓ Over time and here's what that looks like
Dr. Courtney Lynn (36:53)
Right,
for both the parent and the school, it's remembering that it's temporary. Like our goal is also to get the child back in school so that you're not having to negotiate and that they're not going to the nurse's office and they're not needing to leave class to call parents all day long. It's a temporary, you know, intervention to try to get some of that momentum with getting back to school. Yeah, right, and I like that most of the time.
Alex Littleton (36:58)
this.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (37:18)
the schools that you talk with are kind of excited to have at least a solution or a plan, right? When they're kind of floundering and don't know what to do, this gives them some sort of outline.
Alex Littleton (37:28)
Yeah. And just to give teachers like a thing to say that they know is helpful when there is really high anxiety and they of course they're empathetic and they want to help the students and want to step in. But is it yeah am I stepping in to help you from something that's dangerous or help you from something that's like uncomfortable. And that's sort of a really important differentiating point here. Like we need to protect kids from things that are dangerous but we actually shouldn't protect them from anxiety.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (37:31)
Yeah.
Yep.
great.
Alex Littleton (37:58)
itself and how can I instead maybe lean on a supportive statement in that moment rather than the accommodation that I might feel pulled to do.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (38:07)
Yeah, yeah. OK, so you've kind of rec or outlining the accommodations, recognizing what accommodations parents are giving, starting to give supportive statements and more red light statements, and then starting to reduce some of those accommodations, which might be, you know, like you said, changing the environment at home so that they're not getting reinforcement or reducing the number of times they're allowed to go to the nurse.
not responding to their phone calls that they make when they're at school. So reducing some of those bigger ones. And then gradually the anxiety, they start to feel more confident. The anxiety starts to become less and less.
Alex Littleton (38:48)
Yeah.
Exactly, it's a gradual process. Do not bite off too much here. Low and slow is definitely your friend here where when you do decide to shift in accommodation, you pick one that you feel confident being in real red light about sticking to. Even if that's a small step, it's much more important that you're going to be consistent and follow through with the shift than try to go for a lot and then end up sort of backpedaling and wishy washy. So start really slow. Maybe that's something of just
Dr. Courtney Lynn (38:53)
me
Yep.
Alex Littleton (39:19)
not responding to texts through the day or the morning. Say, hey, starting on Monday, I'm actually not gonna answer the texts. I'll give you a call at lunchtime and we'll pick you up after school. And I know that'll be really hard when you first do that. It'll be uncomfortable and I'm sure.
you'll be okay. That might be a good sort of first step and then sticking to that. And the idea is that you make one shift and you kind of stick to that consistently over at least a couple weeks before you decide to add something else. So after you're really sticking to your plan for a couple weeks, then maybe you add in a new sort of accommodation, give them a heads up, hey, this is how this is gonna go now, this is what this change is gonna look like. And then.
What we find often is that sometimes this feels overwhelming to parents because they go, wait, I have like 80 ways that I'm accommodating. Like I have to do this like every single couple of weeks for this is going to take years and years. And it really doesn't go that way. Like we really start to see a snowballing effect with this where you're sticking to the supportive responses and you reduce an accommodation one area and then they end up OK. Like they do get through it and you're giving those messages to remind and reinforce that. And we really start
Dr. Courtney Lynn (40:07)
Thank
Alex Littleton (40:30)
to see a generalization happen where, this thing actually started to fall off on its own. Like the more that they're building the resilience and getting through that thing without that thing they thought they needed from the parent that we see that confidence build up, we see that resiliency build up, and the other accommodations tend to start to naturally start to melt off.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (40:48)
Yeah,
right. They're gaining that resilience inside. Once they start to feel more confident, then they might not be seeking out and parents might not be accommodating as much.
Alex Littleton (40:58)
Yeah, exactly. Because the anxiety tells them that maybe the reassurance is the thing that's keeping them okay. If they don't tell me it's okay, reassurance is tough. It's sort of like drinking anxiety juice. It works in the moment, but boy, it doesn't last very long. It's gonna be okay, nothing bad is gonna happen. Maybe your child has a really temporary, like, okay, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay, but then.
They just need more of that reassurance. But what if it isn't? And then your mind comes up with a reason why it won't be okay. So if like you're always doing the reassurance and then in the supportive planned way, you stop giving the reassurance in these certain times of the day and your child actually goes like, wait, I got through that thing. I didn't get that reassurance. And I was actually made it through it okay. Like that really does something important with your brain, your amygdala, the emotional part of your brain where it teaches you that you actually did do okay without that thing that you thought you needed.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (41:22)
What if
Alex Littleton (41:51)
And that, again, snowballs over time to build more and more resiliency, more bravery, more ability to like, yeah, I can handle, it's hard, but I can handle hard stuff and I can be okay.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (42:03)
Yeah,
yeah. What is one thing you would like parents to know listening to this? One last message for them.
Alex Littleton (42:14)
go easy on yourself. This stuff's hard. It's very, very challenging. Again, accommodation's not a dirty word.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (42:17)
Right.
Alex Littleton (42:25)
Overbearing or reactive parenting cannot create an anxiety problem in a child. You need a genetic disposition as well to develop an anxiety disorder. So just go easy on yourself. This stuff is hard. Take it slow and gradually. there's a lot, even though it's not your fault, you didn't cause this, there's so much you can do just from the parent side to make a huge, huge, huge difference over time with your child's anxiety.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (42:55)
I love that. Well, thank you so much, Alex. It was so wonderful having you on the show.
Alex Littleton (43:02)
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.
Dr. Courtney Lynn (43:04)
Of
course.
Courtney (43:06)
I think the biggest mic drop moment from Dr. Alex today was that metaphor of the primer versus the paint. It is so tempting for us to try to paint over the behavior, forcing the routine, setting the consequence without first laying the primer of a supportive statement. When we validate the distress and affirm our child's capacity to handle it,
We are building the architecture of a secure base. This week, I want to challenge you to look for the yellow lights in your house. Where are you negotiating with anxiety? Where are you speeding up to try and outrun your child's discomfort? Take an internal U-turn tomorrow morning. Instead of jumping into manager mode when the stomach ache starts, try to be that steady, calm anchor. Remind yourself, this is a messy middle moment, but my child is capable of doing hard things.
If you're feeling stuck in the cycle of school refusal, please check out the show notes for links to the space protocol resources and how to connect with our specialized team for support. Thank you for listening to Kids These Days. Remember, you don't have to be perfect to be a great parent. We are all learning about how to raise kids these days.