Things I want my kids to know

Have you ever tried to take a cat to the vet?

What I am really talking about here is trying to get a cat into a container and then close the door. They don’t like it. Even when the carry case has bars on the front so they can see out and they aren’t totally enclosed, it’s not something they want, and they will let you know.

Let’s imagine a similar thing for you: let’s imagine you get into a big wooden box as a prank, so you can jump out at someone, but when you push against the lid, it won’t open. Or, you go to use the toilet in a deserted train station (I know, why would you, but let’s assume it was impossible to avoid) and when you go to leave, there is no handle and you seem to be completely sealed in.

Odds are, you would immediately feel panicky. Your heart would start pounding, you would feel like you can’t breathe. Feeling trapped is a fundamental fear. It’s built in.

The thing is, not all traps are made of wood and metal. Sometimes we feel trapped when we are out in the open.

Feeling trapped in a job that you hate is one example. Maybe because you are being mistreated, maybe because it’s overwhelmingly stressful or unsatisfying. Other people might tell you that if it is that bad, maybe you should just leave, but you might not feel that’s an option.

It might be feeling trapped in a relationship. It might not be working or it might be downright awful, so the thought of staying fills you with dread, but leaving doesn’t seem like a viable option either.

Sometimes it’s facing something that scares you. A big presentation or an event. Feeling like you need to do it, or to avoid it would mean you miss out, but the nerves feel intolerable.

Sometimes there are real-world, concrete reasons we feel trapped. Finances, dependents, safety. Sometimes there are psychological reasons, too. The time and energy we have invested already, and feeling like we can’t just throw that away. The idea of starting over again might feel overwhelming. The judgement we might get from other people, and the shame or embarrassment this brings up. The internal judgement we might feel towards ourselves: feeling that quitting would mean failure or weakness. A sense that we should be “sticking things out” and to not do that means a flaw in our character.

This is something I want my kids to know. If you are feeling panicky or stressed to the degree that you can feel it in your chest, then maybe it’s because you are feeling trapped. Caught between two options that feel scary or impossible, or not being able to see a way out.

We want our children to learn perseverance because we know there are times when things are rough but they will get better, and we don’t want them to have to run away every time things get hard. Sometimes that can lead us to want to be hard-line with it. To say “Well, you are doing it. Quitting isn’t an option, so you are just going to have to deal with it” and walk away, but for me it’s also important that they always know that quitting really is an option, and that choosing to leave something doesn’t mean failure.

If you want to make someone feel more panicky than they already are, then one simple way to do that is to take away their options. Actually, if you want someone to feel calmer, even just knowing that there is an escape route if they want to use it can be enough to do that. Something like: “I want you to give this a go because I think that you will feel a bit better once you get in there, so if you have given it a good try and you still want to leave, then that’s OK.”

Just having the option available is sometimes enough to let the shoulders drop, even if you never use it.

Sometimes it is enough to just acknowledge that the tension we are feeling is about feeling trapped. Sometimes that allows us to say to ourselves “It’s not that I am trapped. There are options for me here, they just aren’t particularly nice ones.” We might not need to change anything about what we are doing. It might be enough for us to be able to see the emergency exit and feel safe in the knowledge that it is there.

Acknowledging might allow us to recognise the bits that we can do something about. It might help us recognise that we haven’t asked for help because we have been trying to plough through on our own, or haven’t wanted to because we feel ashamed. Maybe that would be enough to pluck up the courage to speak to someone.

Acknowledging might allow us to manage our own expectations and judgements. It might let us cut ourselves some slack. To tell ourselves that quitting isn’t failure, or that it is OK to start again.

That’s I want my kids to know that quitting is always an option.

So they don’t feel like a cat in a box.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. Sometimes I even feel a bit of this when it is purely my own expectations. Setting myself an aim for getting certain things finished by the end of the week and then feeling stressed about not having the time, until I realise that the only person setting these tasks is me, and I can move things around if I give myself permission.