Empowering ourselves and others to face challenge.
Emotional accountability
Working with young people through overwhelm and refusal into engagement, encouragement, and participation…
What we face has the power to transform us. What we flee from, pursues us. Peter Levine. Psychotherapist and author of Healing Trauma.
How do we walk that delicate balance of nurture, and challenge, in the service of enabling young people to learn and grow? When to push, and when to retreat?
This is a central and currently difficult question in an age where – quite rightly – we aim to operate via consent rather than coercion. It becomes a real dilemma in an age where we are very quick to (self) diagnose mental health, neurodiversity factors, but far less sure about what to do about them.
Many educators, and many parents alike, look at the current generations of young people going through school and university, and feel that it is all too easy to opt out of what causes discomfort, and challenge. Sometimes this comes at the expense of growth and resilience.
For parents and educators alike, we have the difficult task of encouraging the children and teens in our care to step up and meet challenges. To try, to fail…To try again, and fail again better – to paraphrase Beckett.
There’s an intergenerational texture to this. We as seasoned adults have memories of being forced to participate, back in the day when authoritarian leadership approaches were to the fore, and people on the ground were more deferential and compliant.
At school, if we didn’t like it, we simply had to suck it up. I have fond memories of soul-sucking hours of school life spent on cross-country runs… Until I fell in with a more rebellious crew of friends who had worked out how to shortcut the circuits of hell via a detour at a café. School refusal just wasn’t a thing. Except we didn’t actively measure it in the way we scrutinise attendance patterns now. We can look back with fond bravado – did it make us stronger? Maybe…
Or did it enable us to take matters into our own hands and enact a quiet refusal of our own…? Overt compliance, covert subversion…
Certainly, now we can look back at the ‘suck it up and get on with it’ culture as being a partial factor that created the gateway for abuses of power. ‘It is what it is’…And it was, what it was, in Harrods, in the Royal Mail, in the contaminated blood transfusions and products that failed patients en masse courtesy of government and NHS policy, malpractice, and cover-ups…to name but a few.
Having a culture of consent, respect for difference, and empowering the voice of the individual means we have to be prepared for people to say no and take a stand. And this can certainly be in the service of important values and principles to do with equity and transparency. And though it may slow things down when we want to get things done, there are huge social benefits that come from empowering individuals to speak up and speak out.
But when the no comes all too readily, then there’s a problem. It is anti-growth to insist on staying secure within the comfort zone.
We simply have to look at nature and the way the growth of the child causes practical discomfort inside and outside of the womb, leading to the secure base of the womb, the arms, the lap, the hip becoming too restrictive for the child’s need for movement and being able to regulate the body through movement. And on the flip-side, the child becomes too heavy and too bulky, and too wriggly to be held to any great extent by the parents!
We all – mostly – learn to walk. And we learn to do so by passing through the multiple discomforts of falling over. Similarly with overwhelming emotional challenge, like for instance grief – in the words of Joanne Cacciatore, author of ‘Bearing the Unbearable’ – we learn to bear the weight of unbearable loss through experience and practice over time. Having someone be present to our loss, makes that process -hard as it is – a little easier.
We do not learn to master difficult things by closing ourselves off from them. It’s the gradual building up of emotional musculature that enables us to feel the strength of our feelings and learn to bear the weight and process the meaning of them.
Recently on a visit to a school, I delivered a talk on self-image and wellbeing, and how we can notice unhelpful narratives, and disentangle ourselves from the mixed messages we pick up, in life, online, in the media, from our parents, from each other…A good, juicy topic – to engage with the operations of our inner critic, and the harsh criticism and rules we can impose on ourselves…
I was working with two year-groups of 16-18 year-olds. As is often the case with mental health PSHCE topics, the students were told about the session in advance, and given the choice of opting out if it was felt to be a sensitive topic. Some pupils decided not to attend. I don’t know how many, but they acted on the choice given them. The struggles in life that they were experiencing at that point meant that they felt it would be more beneficial for them not to participate.
After the talk, I had a training session with the Pastoral team, Heads of Year, School Nurse, and School counsellors. The topic that came under discussion was that the very people who had the most to benefit from the session I led, were not present. Those who attended the talk were full of regret that an opportunity that could have been helpful, empowering, impactful, had been rejected.
We reflected together on what the significance of this might be and what the team should do about it. Was it right to give students the heads up on sensitive topics coming up in PSHCE talks and events? Was it right to give them the choice of whether or not to excuse themselves from confronting difficult or vulnerable topics? Was it too easy to make that choice, was that approach colluding with avoidance? Was it an example of catering to ‘snowflake culture’?
To what extent are we normalising ‘trigger alerts’ that thinning out the tolerance and bandwidth for different viewpoints, challenging ideas? When does a trigger alert, lead to hairline trigger responses to difficult and vulnerable topics?
These are all interesting and challenging questions. Hearing speakers bring rounded and informed debate to topics that are of current concern and interest hopefully adds value and depth of perspectives. Perhaps adding to the myriad influences picked up in the media, in conversation, and in direct or indirect experiences with peers…and suggesting avenues for positive action and growth.
Sitting anonymously in a theatre with a large group of people, how much personal exposure is there when listening to ideas on topics that might resonate with us in challenging ways?
Does it seem a shame, that we accept that some people just won’t want to put themselves in a position where their learning experience might – god forbid- move them emotionally?
The pastoral team reflected that many of the pupils who had not attended found it very difficult to label their feelings or approach expressing or exploring the dynamics of their feelings and the impact on them, apart from to label themselves diagnostically.
This leads to a split – where the opportunities for learning and growth about the trigger and the avoidant response can only be within the sanctified safe space of a clinical intervention, rather than something that can be engaged with on a whole spectrum of lower levels.
It made me think about the psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s model of mindful growth through mastery and internalisation of bite sized, manageable experiences of successful approach of the dreaded event. This is in opposition of the mindless cycle of avoidance where the fear and the avoidant tension grows, and the experiences that might help reality check and reduce the fear are kept at bay with increasing anxiety-driven vigour.
Fredrickson coined the expression ‘What you focus on grows’…If you focus on the sadness, fear, dread, avoidance, that is what grows. If you focus on the actions big and small that start to reduce the dread etc. then the feeling of capability, mastery, agency is what grows…She called it ‘Growing the good’. (Read her books, Positivity, and Love 2.0 – they are great!)
So what’s my answer? How not to collude in the auto-no…
- I think in general, it’s good to have dialogue around approaching difficult topics in PSHCE. And in other sensitive areas of the curriculum. This is with the aim of giving young people agency so that they can feel equipped with a range of strategies to deploy when areas of their life feel and are points of sensitivity and vulnerability. Not just the – you can stay or leave if you need to element… It’s important to avoid the black-and-white approach that is the signature tendency of adolescence. It’s important that we model the ideas that it is good to get support at vulnerable times – that that is the hallmark of secure attachment patterns that create both relational health and are vital to personal wellbeing.
- We might like to bear in mind the work of Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) and James Clear (Atomic Habits) when it comes to building healthy habits – and therefore tacking against avoidance as a habit – which research shows confirms and compounds anxiety, and will grow and add restriction if a habit of avoidance grows unchecked. It’s called sensitization – where we become increasingly hypervigilant and sensitive to the sticking point as opposed to habituation where gradually, over time, through carefully titrated practice, we find it easier to approach content and action around that sticking point. This means:
- Making it less convenient to say no – so if it’s simply a matter of firing off an email to green-light non-participation…that is a systemic issue that needs thinking about. Think about building in friction, making it more formal and more dialogue-based to secure the free pass – so that there is a built-in accountability process.
- Build in a short meeting with one of a small group of the pastoral team…the Director of Sixth form, Heads of Year to discuss the rationale, the feelings and issues being anticipated. Ideally this should happen before the session, but if that’s not possible, after the event would be good to circle back on the thinking, the feeling, and the consequence of the omission.
- This discussion can then be used to inform pastoral tracking concerning the intensity and impact of the young person’s point of struggle – for instance bereavement, the need for support with family illness, an eating disorder, or disordered eating, other mental health conditions, experience of domestic abuse etc…This can lead to productive further interventions.
- There is an important aspect of due diligence around the feeling of aversion, or being incapable of attending. And it may well be better for the young person to be able to sit the session out because the timing may be particularly difficult, for instance. However, it’s important that the agreement is specific, and does not exclude skill building – because the young person is likely to
- Strategies to use in the room if there are conversations touching on difficult areas for you. These strategies can equip a young person with the ability to be present to difficult areas without being overwhelmed by them, and fill in some of the fertile grey areas between the black of ‘I can’t do this. If I do, it will be awful and I won’t be able to cope’ and the ‘white’ of ‘I have to force myself through this’.
The skill of circling back
The skill of having conversations that involve compassion, curiosity, and emotional accountability are especially important for parents and educators. Events will happen in the trajectory of a child’s development that will cause ruptures- in the relationship between parent and carer. Similar events occur in the relationship between the child and their work, the expectations of school and fitting in with peers.
From their toddler years, to their teenage years, where they are working on the balance between intimacy and autonomy, their belonging, which is contingent on the will of others, and their own counter will.
Quite often in working closely with parents in situations where there are strained relationships and conflict loops, it is not a matter of punishment that will create the release from refusal and break down a rigid wall of non-engagement. It is the development of skills in reconnecting. Being able to revisit and integrate intensely felt experiences of overwhelm and face those feelings from an increasingly well-regulated or co-regulated perspective.
And sometimes, at home and in school, it is the dialogue that follows a rupture that is most important and helpful in being able to move forward with some genuine growth as opposed to groundhog day repetition. It’s a process of emotional accountability…there was this breach of behaviour…there was this refusal…there was this bit of relational friction…This is what is important, this is the impact…can we talk about the choices and the consequences at play here?
Quite often this gets left behind in the flow of busy lives – leaving the relationship with challenge – and the relationship itself with inadequate repair…meaning there’s a fault line where the avoidance sits.
Slowing down to be present to the fight/flight response in action can be hugely helpful and releasing the contracted energy of uncertainty / threat / anxiety. And doing so without labelling their feelings for them in this way can work especially well.
This involves Dan Siegel’s technique for helping a young person unpack their unique subjective experience…It’s an acronym called SIFT – looking at the sensations that came up, finding a resonant image to express what was going on for them, before going into feelings and thinking.
What we run from pursues us. What we face has the capacity to transform us. Peter Levine.
Especially when we look at older teens and young adults, and the culture of shutting down conversation – rather like barring a contact from social media – simply refusing to participate, or in universities, the ‘no-platforming’ opinion that is challenging or different – in the guise of an entitlement to safety…The issue is one of being able to invite productive dialogue to help move out of the inner chaos and outer rigidity dynamic to something more flexible, integrated and integrative.
Contact me if you are interested in learning about ways of helping young people engage with difficult feelings – as a parent, as a school-based practitioner.
Useful frameworks from authors and speakers working on these themes:
Dr Dan Siegel’s SIFT approach (Sensation, Image, Feeling, Thinking)…See his book, The Whole Brain Child…and others.
Adapting ideas from Peter Levine’s notions of ‘pendulating’ and ‘titrating’ the approach of topics that are felt to be overwhelming. https://youtu.be/LiXOMLoDm68
Another person who writes beautifully about this is Lawrence Cohen, the clinical psychologist and author of ‘Playful Parenting and ‘The Opposite of Worry’ in his discussion of ‘approach and avoid dynamics’.
How we show up in dialogue where we seek connection with the young person, and promote healthier connections that they might make with their points of anxiety is really powerful – both as parents, and as educators.
We all need safety, satisfaction, and connection. Colluding with anxious avoidance is not something any loving parent or good teacher ever wants to do. There are conscious and unconscious ways in which we as individuals and as institutions can end up joining with managing anxiety rather than developing mastery of it which makes a crucial difference.
Ways to work with me:
I work in-depth with parents around how to support their children, teens, and young adults.
I provide supervision for individuals and groups with safeguarding or pastoral leadership responsibility.
I provide training for schools around how to use coaching skills, and help develop an effective, multi-stranded listening environment where everyone is able to feel and be supported in doing hard things.
…Especially when life is hard, and the growing gets tough.
