How to be Brave with Jackson

What Is Bravery?

Bravery is facing your fear. 

Bravery is a choice. 

The world would have you believe that bravery means the absence fear, but I believe bravery is facing your fear and BEing intentional. 

Like, brave people don't experience fear, but this isn't true. 

Brave people experience fear, just like you, but they have mastered the skill of BEing intentional in the face of their fear.

Bravery Requires Fear

Fear is not the enemy. 

In fact, fear is a required emotion for bravery and courage. 

BEing brave actually increases your emotional health because it requires that you experience, identify, and process emotions. 

One of the most powerful things that you can do as a parent is to lean into your fear and choose to be brave.

This will show your teen a powerful example of BEing brave, of being intentional in the face of uncomfortable emotion. 

How Fear Affects You As a Parent

Through the years that I’ve coached parents and teens, I’ve noticed a few things about fear.

NOBODY likes how they behave when they’re being driven by fear.

NOBODY!

When you parent from a place of fear, your brain goes into overdrive to find all the things that you “should” be scared of.

If you’re like me, fear makes you more controlling, less trusting, and it shifts your focus from things within your control to things outside of your control.

How To Manage Your Parenting Fears

1. Identify and Acknowledge Your Fear
   • Get to know what your afraid of.
   • Understand it.
   • Acknowledge that you are afraid and that it’s okay.
2. Mentally Go There
   • If you are scared, you are likely focusing on things outside of your control, and you are likely catastrophizing.
   • Understand that and mentally go there.
   • Picture yourself in the experiencing the thing that you fear.
3. Decide Who You Want to BE In The Face of Your Fear
   • This is hard, but explore, who you want to be in the face of your fear.
   • See yourself BEing that way in the face of your fear.
   • Understand why you want to be that way.
4. Explore How That Way Of BEing Would Apply To Your Best Case Scenario
   • Once you’ve identified who/how you want to be in the worst case scenario, your fear, see how that would serve you in the best case scenario.
   • How does this way of being apply to both scenarios?
5. Practice BEing The Parent Of Your Dreams
   • Now, get back to reality and practice BEing the parent of your dreams.
   • This doesn’t make the fear go away, but it gives you a guide for how you want to be.
   • This shifts your focus back to the one thing you can control, YOURSELF!

Join our Family!

Human beings are herd animals. We are unintentional about most of the herds we are a part of.

You have the opportunity to intentionally join a herd of

Take the free Parent Trap quiz

If you have a teen you should take this Parent Trap Quiz .

It will help you uncover specific parenting patterns that might be hindering your relationship with your teen.
By identifying your Parent Trap, you gain the tools to have better communication, resolve conflicts, and build greater confidence in your parenting decisions.
This self-awareness ultimately strengthens your relationship with your teen, which leads to a more open and harmonious connection.

This quiz is your gateway to becoming the parent of your dreams and paving the way for a happier and healthier family life.

TAKE THE QUIZ

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