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Areas › Worry and anxiety › The cost of avoiding
With an older teenager this goes better as a conversation about arrangements than about character: the wifi and the console sit behind the school day, and afterwards they are theirs. Say what is changing, say when it starts, and hold it evenly whether the day went well or badly. Expect a rough fortnight, and expect it to be shorter if you have not delivered any of it as a punishment.
If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky, if you can (Quran 6:35). The comfortable escape is gently shown to be no escape, only a delay.
الأنعام
وَإِن كَانَ كَبُرَ عَلَيۡكَ إِعۡرَاضُهُمۡ فَإِنِ ٱسۡتَطَعۡتَ أَن تَبۡتَغِيَ نَفَقࣰ ا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ أَوۡ سُلَّمࣰ ا فِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَتَأۡتِيَهُم بِـَٔايَةࣲۚ وَلَوۡ شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ لَجَمَعَهُمۡ عَلَى ٱلۡهُدَىٰۚ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلۡجَٰهِلِينَ
If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky, if you can, and bring them a sign: God could bring them all to guidance if it were His will, so do not join the ignorant
Qur’an 6:35read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A cross-sectional study of obsessive compulsive symptoms found experiential avoidance contributed beyond what beliefs about danger accounted for. That is one study of a specific problem, and it cannot show which way the influence runs. The idea it supports is practical: what a person does day to day carries weight of its own, so the arrangements often need changing as well as the argument winning.
Abramowitz JS, Lackey GR, Wheaton MG. (2009). Obsessive-compulsive symptoms: the contribution of obsessional beliefs and experiential avoidance.. Journal of anxiety disorders doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A reward only pulls if the same thing is not already available for nothing.
A chart imposed on a fifteen year old will be beaten, ignored or fought. Agree the terms with them instead, in a conversation where they can genuinely change something.
With an older teenager the pull is often not fear at all. The day at home is better: sleep, screens, and friends who are also not going.
A plan followed on some days and not others can be worse than no plan at all. Choose the smallest version you are sure you can keep to, and keep to that.