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Areas › Worry and anxiety › The cost of avoiding
A parent who hears that their comfort has been part of the problem will either argue or quietly stop coming, and both of those cost the child far more than the mistake ever did. The sentence that works says this was well meant, that it made sense at the time, and that it has had an effect nobody wanted. After that you can talk about changing it, with the parent still in the room.
My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excess, do not despair of God's mercy. God forgives all sins (Quran 39:53). When a parent is sitting in guilt, that is the sentence to reach for first.
الزمر
۞قُلۡ يَٰعِبَادِيَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسۡرَفُواْ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمۡ لَا تَقۡنَطُواْ مِن رَّحۡمَةِ ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَغۡفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًاۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلۡغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Say, ‘[God says], My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excess, do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful
Qur’an 39:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a community clinic study of 197 anxious young people, dropping out of treatment was frequent and to some degree predictable from the start. It is one clinic, and it describes what happened rather than explaining it. It still makes the point sharply: leaving early is the commonest way this kind of help fails, so how families are spoken to is a clinical matter rather than a nicety.
Gonzalez A, Weersing VR, Warnick EM, Scahill LD, Woolston JL. (2011). Predictors of treatment attrition among an outpatient clinic sample of youths with clinically significant anxiety.. Administration and policy in mental health doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Blame makes people defend themselves rather than change anything, and often makes them leave.
A shortened day, a pass on presenting to the class, a modified deadline, a quiet place at lunch: worth asking for when they let a child stay in the building rather than leave it.
Anxiety is the most common mental health difficulty of childhood, with something like a third of young people meeting the threshold at some point and a smaller group badly held back by it. Both halves of that are worth saying.
Two stretches of childhood carry most of this: the first years of school, and the middle years around the move to secondary. Knowing that lets you prepare instead of react.