By Nikkya Hargrove

Fear, it’s an inevitable emotion, and yet our response to it is one that can do so much harm (and good). 

When my wife and I went through the adoption process to permanently bring our son into our family, we were fearful…carrying around the “what if’s” any adoptive parent knows well. Then came the fears associated with our in-vitro fertilization process, though none of these fears paralyzed me from taking action, it propelled me forward. 

And as for the son I feared we would lose to a broken family court system just before his adoption was finalized, he will turn nineteen next month. And those IVF procedures I was fearful would result in a miscarriage, never came true. My now 10-year-old twin daughters are daily reminders of the fear I carried leading up to the day we all left the hospital after their birth – healthy – expanding our family of three to a family of five.

But as a parent, fear doesn’t go away simply because your kids are healthy or older. My fear, at least, is ever present with every transition, graduation, playdate, or “I love you” when they hop out of our car to begin their school day.

Fear is a part of life. Fear is normal, as parents, and for kids too. There is a quiet fear that continues to walk alongside me as I grow as a parent.

What can you do if fear is your constant companion?

Lean into it. 

For example, when there is a new social situation, recall the many social situations in which you were fine and head into it with confidence that you’ll be okay. For young children, remind them of times they met new friends or had fun after being scared to show up. For adults, especially when it comes to young children, but also for adults (think first PTA meeting), you have plenty of memories of times that well to call upon.

Name it. 

Call it what it is, and don’t wallow in the “symptoms” like heart racing, shortness of breath, sweat, etc. When you name it, you bring down the heat of the emotion by accepting its real and seeking the understanding of another.

Decipher whether it is a valid fear or a perceived fear. 

As is true with the nerves that arrive before a first PTA meeting, there is only perceived threat. There’s no real and impending danger. When you identify that it’s perceived and not real and immediate, you can alter your story and normalize your feelings. 

My daughter is afraid of the dark. My other daughter isn’t afraid of much, but she isn’t fond of heights. Our son spent much of his life living in the fearless lane, but today, he is afraid of failure.I can certainly relate. I have a fear of failure too.

To lean into the fear, it must first be recognized as such – a fear. While anxiety is innately born out of fear, how does one quiet that voice? For me, it’s a lot of talking myself down off of the ledge, just like I do for my children. Self-talk can be an incredibly powerful tool. 

The words we use to empower, and propel us forward, quiets the fear, and provides us (and our children) with the ability to get through the uncomfortable situation. For us as parents, it may be meeting with the principal to discuss behavior issues or it may be how we are going to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. 

The idea that we must put the “mask” on ourselves before we do that for anyone else, especially our children, holds true here.

We must understand our own emotions before we can help our kids understand their own.

You can authentically walk your kids through managing their fear, whether it’s situational or a manifestation of anger, anxiety, or self-doubt.

When our almost nineteen-year-old began to prepare to leave home and return to college, he started getting angry, and short with his siblings, and his moms. He was more irritable, and hard on himself, his fear of the unknown (what his second year of college would be like) manifested as anger and anxiety. 

My wife and I handled it by letting him ride the wave so to speak. We let him navigate his fears, as best he could, because it was his process. And anyone with a teenager will tell you that reasoning with them is almost impossible. But in time, they will get it, and our son is no different. We gave him concrete examples of the fear we had when returning to college, and the excitement too. We tried to help him calm his fears by reminding him that it is normal to have such a fear.

I often forget that one of the many gifts of parenthood is that, like our children, we can continue to grow with them – through fears, anxieties, and self-doubt.

Nikkya Hargrove is an alum of Bard College and a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. She has written for the The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Taproot Magazine, Elle, and more. Her memoir, Mama: A Black, Queer Woman’s Journey to Motherhood, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books. She is owner of Obodo Serendipity Books in Stratford. She lives in Connecticut with her one son and two daughters and is a staff writer for Scary Mommy. Learn more at https://www.nikkyamhargrove.com.

Don’t miss Nikkya’s powerful memoir — Mama; A Queer Black Woman’s Story of a Family Lost and Found.