Welcome to the third module of LUNA! This week, you will learn more about avoidance and about why avoiding things that cause anxiety will not help your child overcome their fears. You will also learn about behaviors that we call “quick fixes” which can also make it harder to overcome anxiety.
You will spend about 30 minutes reading, watching videos, and doing activities. We encourage you to take breaks and come back to the material as much as you need. Remember, your child will also have readings, videos, and worksheets to complete in their own modules, which can be done on their own or with your support.
Previously on LUNA…
Over the last two weeks, you and your child:
- Learned that anxiety is a normal emotion everyone has, and a healthy amount of anxiety keeps us safe. The LUNA program is for kids and teens who feel too much anxiety too often or experience anxiety in situations where it isn’t helpful.
- Learned about the three parts of anxiety: The physical aspect (heart beating fast, sweating), anxious thoughts (expecting something bad to happen), and behaviors (avoiding feared situations).
- Set goals for the program.
- Brainstormed ways to keep your child feeling motivated and supported throughout this journey.
The Behavior Aspect of the CBT Triangle- The Avoidance Cycle
Last week, your child learned about identifying anxiety and other emotions by noticing how their body feels and by paying attention to their thoughts and behaviors. This week, we will focus more on the behavior aspect of anxiety by looking at the connection between your child’s anxiety and their actions.
It’s only natural for your child to avoid things that make them anxious, but avoidance will not help them overcome anxiety in the long run. Avoidance usually creates a cycle that makes anxiety worse over time. If your child avoids a feared situation over and over again, this will reinforce their fear, making it stronger each time they do not face their anxiety. Repeated avoidance will not give them the opportunity to learn anything new about their fears. It can trick your child into thinking that feared outcomes are more likely to happen, causing them to continue to avoid their fears.
Watch the video below to learn more about the avoidance cycle:
Sometimes when we encounter challenging situations, it’s easier to avoid them than to face them. Some difficult emotions – like anxiety, fear, or worry – stick around or get worse because of this. It’s natural to avoid things that challenge us.
Sophia’s new friend Bethany asks Sophia if she wants to go to anime club after school. Sophia loves anime, but this would disrupt her normal routine of going home right after school, changing her clothes, and watching anime. This makes her feel anxious and she wants to avoid changing her routine, so she decides not to go. It makes her feel a little better at first knowing she can do her normal routine, but she’s also disappointed that she didn’t hang out with Bethany. Sophia’s avoidance does not help her overcome her anxiety. In fact, Sophia ends up doubting her ability to handle any future changes in her routine. Let’s look at Sophia’s avoidance cycle to see how this happens. The cycle is triggered by Bethany’s invitation to go to anime club after school. Because of this, Sophia’s starts worrying about the possibility of changing her routine. This thought makes Sophia anxious. Because of her anxiety, Sophia avoids changing her routine to hang out with Bethany. Avoidance makes Sophia feel better at first. But Sophia never learns that she can handle changing her routine to do the things she wants to do.
George sees the new kid at school, Jerry, reading a medieval book and wants to talk to him. George always wants to connect with people who are also interested in medieval times, but he is anxious he won’t know what to say or will act awkwardly, so he avoids talking to Jerry. It makes him feel better at first knowing that he will not embarrass himself, but it also makes him sad that he didn’t get to become friends with Jerry. George didn’t get the chance to learn that talking to new people can be exciting and rewarding, and not as scary as it seems. He also didn’t get to learn that he has the ability to socialize and make friends if he reaches out to others. Let's look at this cycle to see how avoidance makes George's anxiety worse over time. The cycle starts with George’s interest in becoming friends with Jerry. George starts to think that he will embarrass himself if he talks to Jerry. This thought makes him anxious. So, George avoids talking to Jerry. This makes George less anxious at first, but he never gets to learn that he can face his fear of embarrassment in order to make new friends.
Sophia has a big math test coming up, and she’s scared she’s going to fail the test. This makes her feel so nervous that she procrastinates studying for her test by drawing comics for hours. This makes her feel a little less nervous, but because she’s not studying, she worries again that she’s going to fail the test, and the cycle continues. If Sophia had tried to study, she could have learned that even though studying is hard and makes her feel anxious, she can handle it. Plus, she would have felt prepared for the test. Let's see how Sophia's avoidance stops her from overcoming her anxiety. First, Sophia encounters a trigger- remembering that the math test is just a few days away. Sophia starts worrying that she will fail the test. This thought makes Sophia anxious. Sophia avoids studying so that she does not have to face her anxiety about the test. This makes her feel better at first, but when Sophia is forced to think about the test again, she feels even more anxious. It’s natural to avoid things that are hard for us, but we will work on overcoming this cycle!
As you can see, it is important for your child to work on breaking out of these avoidance cycles by changing their actions when they are anxious. This is exactly what we will be focusing on in the LUNA program! We will teach you how to help your child identify and break out of these patterns.
To get more familiar with avoidance, let's take a look at some more Avoidance Cycle Examples.
Then, go ahead and take a look at the list of common avoidance behaviors:
List of Common Avoidance Behaviors:
- Not talking or interacting with others
- Canceling plans with others or missing events
- Isolating yourself by staying in your room or by not leaving the house
- Procrastinating on things you need to do like assignments or chores because of anxiety
- Refusing to do things or put yourself in certain situations because of anxiety
- Distracting yourself from things that make you anxious
Anxiety and Avoidance
As we have mentioned before, anxiety can be a very helpful emotion in certain situations. Anxiety is also a natural emotion which means that everyone gets anxious sometimes, and that's okay! But anxiety can be unhelpful if it is too intense or if your child experiences it in situations that are not really dangerous.
Just like anxiety, avoidance can also be helpful and necessary to keep us safe. However, avoidance is usually only helpful in situations that are truly and immediately dangerous. For example, if your child is feeling anxious because of a tornado warning in your area, it may be necessary for them to avoid going outside and to stay in a safe location. Also, if your child is trying to overcome their fear of dogs, but they know that the neighbor’s dog often bites and attacks people, it would still be helpful for your child to avoid the neighbor’s dog to keep themselves safe.
Remember, if your child experiences too much anxiety that stops them from doing things that they want to do, then avoiding things that make them anxious will only make the anxiety worse. But it’s important to know that both avoidance and anxiety can be helpful in dangerous situations. You can identify helpful vs. unhelpful avoidance by assessing whether an avoidant behavior is realistically necessary for protecting your child’s safety and wellbeing.