Author’s practical guidance
Dreading it for three days
Source named in the book: behavioral inhibition and anticipation (Kagan)
Around three or four, children become able to hold a future event in mind — and an inhibited child, in Kagan's sense, holds it with the wariness attached.
Say this now
“You're thinking about Saturday. What part are you thinking about?”
Most of the dread sits on one detail. Found and named, it usually turns out to be solvable.
“We can leave whenever you want. You just tell me.”
An exit they hold makes the whole thing enterable. Most children never use it.
Do this
- Tell them close to the event, not as soon as you know.
- Ask which part is the worry instead of reassuring the whole event.
- Walk through the shape of it once: who takes them, what happens first, who brings them home.
- Agree the exit in advance and mean it.
- Keep the day before quiet rather than filling it as a distraction.
Avoid this
- "It's not until Saturday, stop worrying about it." — the instruction is impossible and the date is the problem.
- Not telling them until the morning of — they lose the preparation along with the worry.
- "It'll be fine!" — a promise about a thing you cannot promise.
If it repeats
If dread arrives before every event, shorten the notice rather than the guest list. A day of knowing produces a fraction of the worry that a week produces, and the event itself usually goes the same.
Why the book suggests this
Around three or four, children become able to hold a future event in mind — and an inhibited child, in Kagan's sense, holds it with the wariness attached. The party on Saturday exists on Wednesday, and by Friday it has been rehearsed a dozen times.
What they cannot yet do is picture the event going well. Imagination runs ahead of the experience that would correct it, so the version they have rehearsed all week is built from the worst part of the last one. The dread is not about Saturday. It is about the three days.
From this collection
Same Words: Deep Feelings
45 prepared situations in this family area.