Teaching Kids to Be More Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
I was born in the 60’s and grew up in the 70’s. This means that I was raised by parents who mostly raised me the way they were raised. They were strict at times, inattentive at others, but what was consistent was that they were not the least bit concerned about how I felt about their parenting choices. I was told what to do and I mostly did it, and if I didn’t, I took great care to cover my tracks to make it look like I did.
People of my generation learned early that it was our job to adjust to whatever situation we were in—even if it made us uncomfortable.
When we were little kids, our moms sent us out to play in the neighborhood and told us not to come back until lunchtime. On the first day of kindergarten, they said goodbye to us on the sidewalk and shooed us inside unceremoniously. Once, when I picked up a piece of costume jewelry in my friend’s bedroom and slipped it into my pocket and my Mom later found it, I was marched over to my friends house and forced to apologize for stealing, while my Mom waited on the sidewalk. I was 6 and in that humiliatingly uncomfortable moment, I learned never to steal again.
As we got older, we might have complained if we were asked to stay home with our younger siblings, instead of going out with our friends, but it didn’t really matter. Our teenage social lives were almost always secondary to—well—just about everything. And driving wasn’t necessarily a right, but rather a privilege earned after we got that part-time job. In those days, getting a part-time job meant walking alone into a restaurant or store (talk about uncomfortable) and basically promising to work weekends for the rest of time. We played sports, but mostly when we decided we wanted to and we were urged to find a ride to practice, when we could. Our parents might have come to our games, but they never lurked around practices or felt compelled to give the soccer coach advice about how to best utilize our talents. We were expected to disappear during adult parties in our home and do our own research about which college we wanted to go to. No-one I knew went on a week-long trip to visit multiple colleges. Most of us went to the nearest state school or community college and we didn’t communicate with our freshman roommate before we showed up; We just walked in, awkward and uncomfortable.
The good old days? Probably not. But one thing I know is that I was uncomfortable a lot. And, I learned pretty early on, that being uncomfortable wouldn’t kill me. So, when I first moved to the East Coast and that first Christmas without my family rolled around and I didn’t have the money to fly home, I remember my Mom giving me a little pep talk—but not the plane fare to come home. And, when I went back to graduate school and realized that I didn’t even understand the name of my first class, Post Colonial Literature, and I was feeling way out of my league, I just kept on keeping on, even though I was so uncomfortable. And that first trip to Europe, getting off the plane in Italy and barely knowing what the currency was or how to speak the language. Yep, I have been uncomfortable plenty of times in my life. Lately, it has become a kind of litmus test to see if I should do something new. My philosophy: If it makes me a little uncomfortable, it is probably going to help me grow in some way.
Although most of us can agree that being uncomfortable is an important part of life, somehow we have refused to let our children experience the same discomfort that grew us into competent and resilient adults. Long before this pandemic, we parents seem to be obsessed with never letting our children be uncomfortable. Johnny feels uncomfortable going out to ride his bike by himself, so Dad orchestrates a playdate, rather than encouraging Johnny to practice being independent by riding his bike solo. Jill feels uncomfortable asking her math teacher for extra help, so Mom emails the teacher, rather than coaching Jill to work through her discomfort and email the teacher herself. Tommy feels too nervous to apply for a part-time job, so Dad does the legwork, instead of helping Tommy to understand that being nervous is part of growing up, and that he needs to learn to work through it. You get the idea. We are so busy trying to help our kids have an easier time than we had, that we seem to have lost sight of this essential truth: It is our job to prepare our children for the path, not the path for the children.
The question then is, how do we teach our children—at home and in school—that being uncomfortable is okay? And, just as importantly, how do we remind ourselves to let them be uncomfortable?
Lately I have been thinking about this question a lot and recently I realized that I have my own captive audience in my 12th grade English classroom. My class has always been a site for personal story sharing, theirs and mine, but lately I have been very intentional about sharing stories in which I worked through my own discomfort to do something new. I recently told my 12th graders about the first time I went out for sushi with some young women I knew from work. The year was 1984 and sushi was a new thing for most Americans and being from Oregon and new to New York City, it was especially new for me. Sitting at a fancy sushi spot on the Upper West Side, every one of the six women at the table nonchalantly ordered their dinner and when it came to my turn, instead of faking it, which I had planned to do, I simply said, hey guys, this is my first sushi outing, any recommendations? Everyone was so nice and began talking about their first time having sushi and where they were from. It turned out to be just the ice-breaker that the group needed. After my students wrapped their heads around the fact that sushi hadn’t been around forever, we had a really nice conversation about how you feel when everyone seems to know something you don’t.
Uncomfortable.
As the end of the school year approaches, many of the conversations in my senior English class revolve around the nervous and excited speculations about the transition into college, which might very well be the most uncomfortable moment in any person’s life. We talk about how unsettling it will be to live away from home for the first time. How awkward they will feel sharing a room with someone they just met. How nervous they will be about the work of college. I tell them stories about my own discomfort at that particular juncture in my own life. How I walked into my freshman dorm at the University of Oregon, all 6 feet of me, fresh from basketball practice to find my very petite roommate, Zoe and her enormous French Horn. She was listening to classical music and I thought, wow, I will have absolutely nothing in common with this person.
You can imagine how this story goes. Zoe and I became fast friends and roommates for a few years. She taught me to love classical music; I shared my love of poetry with her. After graduation, we both ended up in New York and started families around the same time, and although our paths have meandered to and away from each other for years at a time, somehow in middle age, we find ourselves back in touch, with everything in common: both teachers, empty-nesters, travelers, who love music and literature, art and the outdoors. And, our friendship.
So, this is what I say to my seniors now: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. On that first day in the dorms in September, walk up to someone new and introduce yourself. Chances are that person feels just as nervous and uncomfortable as you do. Let that first interaction with a stranger be the roadmap for your future. Always do the brave thing. The thing that makes you nervous. Get to know the people who don’t look like you. Travel to the places you’ve never been. Be uncomfortable learning about something you’ve never heard of. Take that class, that trip, that chance—even if it is taking you out of your comfort zone. Especially if it takes you out of your comfort zone.
