At Least I Can Do That

Teaching my kids how to arm themselves in the battle against self-doubt.

Last week I was down for the count with COVID. My symptoms were very mild. A few aches the first couple of days, and some sniffles the next few. There was, however, the bout of unexpected anxiety I suffered from being cooped up in the guest room all week.

I spend much of my life convinced I am a lazy sonofabitch. Whether or not this is true is a matter of interpretation, but when faced with activity prohibition while in quarantine, I discovered something astonishing: I really like doing stuff.

When I initially realized I was in for a long holiday weekend of mandatory sitting on my ass, a pang of excitement struck. No responsibilities, free time to read, watch movies, play video games, or even work on a side project. This was, let's say... short-sighted.

I'm not big on going out to do things, per se. Or going to parties. Or traveling. But those are all examples of doing stuff socially. My bread and butter is solitude. If I'm working on something, fixing something, making something, or practicing something, I'm in my happy place. My mind is calm. Granted, it has to be at least partially voluntary. If someone asks me to do something in which I truly have no interest, it's hard for me to get up for it. It also helps if it's mechanical or involves the building up, clearing out, or rearranging of something to make it better.

When I was a kid, I would always "feng shui" my room every few years to stay on top of the fight against those pesky lunar tides and keep my circadian rhythm aligned. JK, I was probably just bored. Regardless, I have many projects to tend to around here, and the combination of my lack of energy from the illness and the goddamn quarantine meant I was a sweaty waste of space for days.

The whole experience crystallized something I've been thinking about for a few months: The concept of "At least I can do that."

One of the reasons I think I had such a hard time with quarantine is it took away the foundation of self-worth I subconsciously rely on. When I was old enough to recognize self-improvement I was still too young to comprehend the implications. I just knew it was something worth repeating. And it's something I'm starting to see develop in my youngest child as he enters middle school.

In the American school system, going from elementary to middle school is a huge change. The atmosphere, the expectations, and the responsibilities are all an order of magnitude more intense. From preschool to elementary school the kids are too young to know what's happening around them. From middle school to high school, if I didn't raise them in a barn, they're prepared and mature enough to take on the next challenge smoothly. But in the opening stanza of the era between those book-ended milestones, they're nothing but freshly molted lobsters completely aware of their vulnerability, desperately hoping they blend in with the nearest rock formation.

So what do I do to help my little lobsters along? What can I instill in them to bolster their mental state and give them ammunition to fend off the entropy of creeping anxiety that never stops marching?

I can reverse-engineer the antidote to my own anxiety. And, as I found out during my recent quarantine, that means doing stuff. But here's the catch: it can't be just doing whatever. Left to their own devices, my lobsters will blithely eat mollusks and play video games all day. So giving them useful yet interesting tasks to do will not only build up a tolerance for the discomfort of learning new things but also pique their curiosity enough to meet the all-important criteria of being a voluntary activity. Ideally, the activity is just beyond their current abilities so they have to push themselves outside the boundary of their competence. This is commonly referred to as the zone of proximal development.

An example of this for my youngest is mowing the lawn. Since he's on the brink of being too young to operate potentially dangerous machinery, mowing the lawn is the perfect candidate for the kind of heightened level of responsibility for which he may not feel ready. But with instruction and supervision the first few times, it's something he can add to his repertoire of skills and utilize in his ever-present battle for self-confidence. It's a big zero-turn, too, so it's fun to putter around on which should keep him interested enough to get him over the initial learning curve. For my part, I just need to make sure I remember to stand aside once he knows the basics and let him actually do it. He won't be able to recognize what it feels like to learn a new skill if I'm hovering over him correcting his every misstep.

So my job right now is not to teach him new skills, per se, but to teach him what the process of learning a new skill should look like. That meta-skill is something he can apply to any unfamiliar situation, which leads to the next thing he needs to learn: to spend most of his time in unfamiliar territory. Grow a curiosity for trying stuff out. It's way easier to pick things up than people realize, and the only thing holding them back is the unwillingness to try it out and see what happens. I'm not a big fan of the phrase "get out of your comfort zone", but I admit it fully applies here.

Every bit of this is preparation for the cold truth that some days he'll wake up and feel like he's useless. Like he can't do anything right. Like he's a let-down and a fraud. And it's on days like this, if we did everything right, he'll be able to take a look in the mirror, remember all the challenges he faced and overcame, and tell himself: "At least I can do all that."

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Thanks for reading.

I mismanaged my time so I was a little late to the game this week. I’ll try a little harder next time.

Enjoy your Sunday, and have a great 37th week of the year.

-Tim