Your Children Are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear from You

through the messages they receive from their parents and direct engagement with the world, that the world is a fundamentally safe place (while also recognizing that risks and dangers are always present and that reasonable precautions need to be taken).
    Children who develop a belief in an insecure world have vastly different experiences and perceptions. They may have received messages about a dangerous world from their parents. They may have had early experiences that caused or reinforced their perception of a dangerous world. Or they may have felt overwhelmed by the world and believed themselves to be incapable of responding to its inherent dangers. Regardless of its causes, children who have an insecure view of the world feel unsafe and scared, which can lead to lasting clinginess and an aversion to exploration and risk.
Protection Is an Instinct
     
    Parents are naturally concerned for their children’s safety. As I have noted earlier, parents’ instinct to protect their children is paramount. Just as mama bears protect their cubs, so you protect your little brood. Unfortunately, this essential inborn concern can sometimes transform into irrational apprehension and extreme fear. Parents can communicate their own insecurities and fears about themselves and the world to their children through role modeling and out-of-proportion reactions to situations their children encounter. Objectively small risks by children, for example, climbing high on a ladder at the playground, can be viewed as a threat by parents who have a fear of heights or don’t perceive themselves to be capable enough to successfully navigate the climb. With these reactions, parents communicate a message based on their own experiences and perceptions rather than one that is appropriate for their children and the present situation.
    Parents are also vulnerable to the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality of the 24/7 news cycle. If we are to believe the news these days, children live in a truly dangerous world in which they are being lost, abducted, molested, assaulted, and killed at an alarmingly high frequency. But the reality is that, based on the objective statistics, the world in which your children live has never been safer. Even threats of considerably less severity, for example, injuries and illnesses, have been reduced through improvements in product safety, hygiene, childproofing, and increased vigilance on the part of parents—creating a world that is a far cry from the “dangerous” environs in which children of previous generations lived.
    Your children have sensitive radar that is tuned directly to your emotions and underlying perceptions about them and the world; they will pick up your anxiety on their emotional radar screen as soon as it emanates from you. They will sense your nervousness about their exploring beyond your comfort zone, and they will feel scared themselves because you are sending the message that there is reason to be scared of the world. This message will cause them to learn not only to fear the world, but also to mistrust themselves.
Let Your Children Find Their Limits
     
    Your goal in instilling a sense of a secure world in your children is to allow them to find their own comfort zone and to encourage them to expand it steadily. Children seem to have a pre-wired comfort zone, based on their inborn temperament, that will initially dictate how far they are willing to roam; some are risk averse, some seem fearless, and others lie somewhere in between, depending on the nature of the “risk,” for example, whether it is intellectual, physical, or social.
    Of course, for your children’s safety, before you allow them to explore their world, you need to judge their impulsivity and the degree to which you trust them to be safe when they venture forth.If they tend to rush off and aren’t responsive to your calls to stop, you’ll want to keep a tighter rein on them for their own safety.
    The key is to allow your children to set the pace of exploration. If you have timid children, you may feel compelled to push them to go further than they are comfortable with to help them overcome their apprehension. This tactic will probably fail because it will send the wrong messages. First, you send the message that you don’t respect their comfort and limits. Second, you convey the message that you think there is something wrong with them. Third, your disappointment and frustration may convey unhealthy emotional messages to