Unpacking and Breaking the Bad Habits
Unpacking and Breaking the Bad Habits
What To Do When Bad Habits Take Hold
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on Unpacking and Breaking Your Habits That Self Soothe, an episode of Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry.
Hosted by Lynn Lyons, a therapist, author, speaker, and one of the world's experts on helping parents, kids, and teens manage anxiety. She talks with co-host and sister-in-law Robin Hutson, the co-founder of Flusterclux.
Read our notes below.
Topics Covered in this Summary
Understanding Habits
Breaking Bad Habits in Children
Instilling Healthy Habits in Our Children
Understanding Habits
Psychologists define habits as acquired behaviors or thought patterns that we repeat so often that they become automatic. We develop habits because they free up our brains to do other things that require our focused attention.
Positive habits, such as waking up on time, help us to live and work more efficiently, but bad habits can have the opposite effect. It's often difficult to recognize them because we do them unconsciously and automatically, and it can be difficult to break them because they usually begin as enjoyable or stress-relieving activities that we want to repeat.
One of the things you'll see if you look at the research on habits is that it is perfectly fine to substitute one habit for another as long as it's moving you in the right direction.
Breaking Bad Habits in Children
Children’s habits are usually nothing to worry about. Sometimes they are aware of their habits, and sometimes they aren’t. But if your child’s habit is getting in the way of everyday activities or is even causing some harm, you might want to do something about it.
Most habits go away by themselves, but here are ways to stop some of them where it is not serving the child:
Find out why your child has the habit and suggest an alternative. If they're sucking their thumb, give them something else that they can suck on, or do with their fingers.
Gently remind your child about the habit and a suitable alternative.
Encourage your child to do something else during idle times. For example, you could encourage your child to play with a toy that has movable parts while watching television.
If your child has a pair of habits, like sucking a thumb and pulling hair, focus on stopping one of them. You might find that if you can stop the thumb-sucking, the hair-pulling might also stop.
It's okay to work on interrupting the habit, but don't worry about things that your little ones are doing that really aren't interfering with their normal functioning.
Instilling Healthy Habits in Our Children
As a parent, you pass more than genes down to your children. Kids pick up your habits too, both good and bad. The best way for you to encourage healthy habits is to first watch your own. Kids will follow the lead of the adults they see every day.
It’s easy for kids to get discouraged when things don’t go their way, and it's important to teach them that when they're anxious, upset, tired, or frustrated, it's totally fine to have someplace that you go to or something that you have that makes you feel okay.
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