“avoidance is a coping mechanism when someone is struggling.” Our daughter was scared to sleep in her room, so she was avoiding it. By allowing her to sleep on our floor, I made her anxiety worse. Every day, when I said, “You can sleep on the floor of our room,” I was telling her with my actions, “I believe you’re not strong enough to face this.” This may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a really big deal. Over the next few years, her anxiety got way worse, because I had helped her learn how to avoid facing it. I had taught her that the solution to anxious feelings was to run away from them.
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