Attentive Parenting–or Just Overprotective? Sissy Goff & David Thomas

Sissy: Hypervigilance is when we cross over into becoming obsessive about whatever the thing is, rather than [thinking], “I hope this is not happening. I've done what I can to keep them safe. And I'm going to do the work, now, I need to do not to be hypervigilant.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today!

Dave: So, here's a question for you: what was one of your biggest fears when you became a parent? I know I didn't prep you for this. There's nothing in the notes. This is out of nowhere. [Laughter]

Ann: Probably my number one is that they would not know and walk with Jesus. It’s probably—

Dave: —yes.

Ann: —the biggest one, but the other one is that I would mess them up. [Laughter] And   that I could really mess them up, and it would be my fault. That was a fear. Did you have that?

Dave: But you don't have to worry about it, because I did it. [Laughter] It was already done by the time—

Ann: —did you have that fear?

Dave: —yes, that was my biggest fear: the brokenness of my family of origin—

Ann: —yes.

Dave: —two alcoholic parents, divorce, abuse, [thinking], “I’m going to pass that on.”

Ann: We all think that: “Are we going to continue that?”

Dave and Sissy: Yes.

Dave: So, we have got to talk to some experts about this.

Ann: Aren't you excited? I'm so giddy right now.

Dave: Who do we have with us?

Ann:  We have Sissy Golf with us and—

Dave: —no, we're with them! We're in their place.

Ann: Yes! (and David Thomas) If you have ever listened to Raising Boys and Girls, or you've ever gone on to their website, you see the yellow house with the white picket fence.

Dave and Ann: We are in the house!

Dave: With the dog right at our feet.

Ann: I know! Patches is a new therapy puppy. You guys, we're so excited to be with you!

Sissy: Y'all, we are delighted to be with y'all and on our turf.

David: I know!

Sissy: It is so fun!

David: I can't believe you're here in Nashville.

Sissy: I know!

Dave: Tell our listeners, if they don't know: what do you guys do? What is this house we're sitting in?

Sissy: We are both therapists with kids and families. I have been in practice at Daystar Counseling Ministries since 1993. And you—

David: —and I have since 1997.

Sissy: That’s what I was thinking.

Dave: Wow.

Sissy: And out of the great privilege of doing this work here, we get to travel and speak and write and have our own podcast and do all of those things. But this is really where we spend the bulk of our time.

Ann: David, what's your favorite part of all the things you do? What would you say, “Oh, this is what sets my spirit on fire”?

David: I have long said that, if you get to go to work every day and work with kids and dogs, you really do have the best job in the world. [Laughter] Walking through, it was so fun, hearing you two talk about what it was like to walk through these doors.

I think we work with the most amazing team of folks. I do love this place. It's why we both wanted to stay. We believe in the mission. We've seen the impact, and [I’m] just so grateful for it.

Sissy: We were interviewing somebody yesterday for an internship and she said, “What's it like being on staff in this place?” It's really like a family. I mean, we have so much fun together. We have a Christmas party where we wear our pajamas, and we go to see a movie together [Laughter] and [exchange] gifts together.

The work of counseling is so heavy, and it's—30 years, it's heavier than it's ever been and more to carry than I think it's ever been, and especially in this community in Nashville, a year post—

Ann: —yes.

Sissy: —the Covenant shooting. So, yes, I can't imagine doing it solo. So grateful to have like-minded folks that were praying for each, with each other; all of those things.

Ann: The atmosphere of this is, it's a home. It's a home. It’s a large home.

Dave: It feels so warm.

Ann: But it's decorated. It is a home with a kitchen and a dining room and rooms with dogs. I think it just tears down all the walls of walking into a therapeutic session [in] a sterile building. Not that those aren't great, too.

Sissy: Sure.

Ann: But I'm saying there's something about the atmosphere that feels so much like—you guys, it feels like walking into a good home; that you're really welcome.

Dave: Okay, as you heard us talk when we started about—honestly, I didn't know it at the time, but when we had our first son (first of three), I was not an emotionally healthy man. I would have told you I was; I would have looked like I was; I was pastoring—

Ann: —I don't even know if we knew what that was.

Dave: —yes. But, honestly, I thought, “Oh, I'm together. I have stuff in my past, my brokenness in my family, but it's all been healed by Jesus. It's all in the past and way in the past, and I will not pass that on.”

I think something about parenting brings that out to [say], “Oh, there's stuff still here.” Talk to us about that, because you deal with that every single day. Is that a legitimate fear, and how fearful should we be? [Laughter]

David: I would say first, I think your story is so many parents’ story, and I think everything from how much I think this relationship stirs in us and how much we go back into our own stories. We talk a lot about—it's Madeline L’engle, I think, who says: “You're every age you've ever been.” And how, I think, when our kids become adolescents, we revisit our own adolescence.

Dave, Ann, and Sissy: Yes.

David: When we're launching them, we're thinking about our own young adulthood. So, I think that is familiar territory. And I would even argue, I think God designed it that way. I think we're growing as much as our kids are growing, as parents.

Dave: Yes.

David: It's just a matter of: are we open to that growth? Are we open to developing new skills that we didn't have earlier on, or things, not that our parents didn't want to offer us, but maybe they didn’t know to offer us?

It's fun for us to get to intersect with parents in a lot of contexts; through writing, and the podcast, and speaking, and in this space; to see evidence of where they want to grow alongside their kids.

Ann: That’s cool.

David: I love, even, when parents say that to their kids. We have that happen a lot. They'll say, “We're going together because we want to learn new things, too.”

Dave: That’s good.

David: I think that's a great message to send to kids: “We're all growing. There are things we all could be learning.”

Ann: Well, Sissy, I'm thinking of exactly what David said when my kids would get into it. I remember, when they turned anywhere from four to eight—I experienced sexual abuse—now, that comes to my surface, and I found myself being a little paranoid—

Sissy: —yes.

Ann: —about that. Then, they became teenagers, and I'm thinking of the things that I did as a teenager. So, my heart is good and diligent to want them to experience the best; but I wonder now, was that not paranoid? In some ways, I wonder if I put a little more anxiety on them based on what I had been through. Is that something that's typical?

Sissy: Well, I think any of us do that out of the very best of intentions of wanting to protect them.

Ann: Yes.

Sissy: We talk so much about [how] vigilance is required to be a parent.

Dave: Yes.

Sissy: The line between vigilance and hyper-vigilance is so thin, and it's so easy to step over into wanting to make sure they don't experience any of the hard things—

Ann: —right.

Sissy: —that we experienced. We do a parenting seminar—I was doing it last night at a local church—and one of the things we talked about is remembering when you grew the most; and it's often the very things that you're trying to protect them from.

Ann: Yes, yes.

Sissy: Not that we would ever want to allow them to go through what you did—

Ann: —right—

Sissy: —but the two most common parenting strategies, in light of anxiety, are escape and avoidance. So, I want to pull them out of the hard things when, really, in my own life, it's the hard things that have caused me to grow the most; the disappointment that God has used in a redemptive way to make me who I am and propel me into what He's called me to do.

Ann: We hate for our kids to go through pain, but you're right.

Sissy: Oh, it's so hard to watch.

Ann: Look at the Scriptures.

Sissy: Yes.

Ann: Those are the times that God really moves.

Sissy: Yes.

Ann: But explain the difference between vigilance and hyper-vigilance. What does that look like?

Sissy: Well, that's where we could get into anxiety in general, but I think it's—we talk so much about how all of us have intrusive thoughts; worst case scenario thoughts. You know, ”What happened to me is going to happen to them” kinds of thoughts.

Ann: Yes.

Sissy: I have a mom that I'm working with right now that our whole session this week was about her intrusive thoughts. Her daughter is struggling, and so, she has reason to be fearful right now, but she can't stop the loop. We talk about it like the one-loop roller coaster (I think we've talked about this before)—

Dave and Ann: —yes.

Sissy: —at the fair. And I think hyper-vigilance is when we cross over into becoming obsessive about whatever the thing is, rather than: “I hope this is not happening. I've done what I can to keep them safe. I'm going to do the work, now, I need to do not to be hyper-vigilant.”

Ann: Describe the loop, because, as soon as you said it, I remember that we talked about it; but I also know that I could get in bed at night as a parent,—

Sissy: —yes.

Ann:  —and I am riding that roller coaster [Laughter] for hours.

Sissy: Yes.

Dave: And I’m right there with her—

Ann: —yes.

Dave: —hands up, screaming my head off. [Laughter]

Ann: So, explain that: how do we get off the roller coaster?

Sissy: Yes, that's called “rumination.” I never have productive thoughts at three a.m., [Laughter] when I can't sleep.

Dave: Right.

Sissy: I'm never getting to a better place. We talk about it like the one-loop roller coaster at the fair, with kids, because it is that thought that comes in, and it just gets stuck. That's what's happening when we're lying in bed, going over and over and over: “They're not going to make cheerleading,” or “Their friend doesn't want to talk to them anymore,” or “Why are they struggling to make friends?” or “What's happening with their grades?” or any manner of things.

Basically, when I was doing the research for the anxiety books I've written, one of the words that kept coming up is “context,” and that, basically, kids’ anxiety/our anxiety attaches to the thing that matters the most to us at any given age. So, we could guess, by a child's age, what they're going to loop about the most: little ones, being away from mom and dad; something bad happening to them. They get a little bit older, and it's throwing up, because they don't throw up very often, and somebody at school threw up, and now they can't stop thinking about it.

We really can track that, which is why so many parents say to us, “I never had any anxiety until I became a parent.” Because the thing that matters the most matters more than anything ever has in your entire life. So, that becomes the context for that loop, but we've got to do the work of getting out of it.

Ann: David, is it any different for dads, do you think?

David: I think it can look different on dads, but I think, at the root, a lot of it can be exactly the same. I love when Sissy talks about, in The Worry-free Parent, with rumination, how, if we step away on the outset, it can look like good parenting because I'm problem-solving, and I'm thinking deeply about this. But that line between thinking and overthinking, as she's talking about with vigilance and hypervigilance, is a thin line. I look like I'm doing all this good problem-solving on behalf of my kids, and it's really rumination in disguise; or I think, for a lot of dads, we get high-control in those moments.

Ann: Oh.

David: “I'm going to manage the situation. I'm going to tell you what you need to do.” We're fixers and doers, and it, again, often is going to be from a great place. My intention is good. I don't want you to struggle. I'm worried when you go back into these contexts, how it's going to go; but I'm too involved, or I'm involved in ways that are controlling and aren't helpful to you or to me.

Dave: Is there ever the opposite, where—I'm thinking of me sometimes, because Ann would tend to be—

Ann: —yes, you're describing me right now. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Ann: Both of you are describing me.

Dave: Hypervigilant, almost casting fear into our kids that they didn't have until Mom said it. [Laughter] And I'm over here, saying, “Hey, chill out! They're not going to make any bad decisions. They're going to the party. They're not going to drink or whatever.” And I was absolutely wrong as well. [Laughter] But it was extremes.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: So, I wasn't controlling. I was hands-off.

David: Yes.

Dave: “Let them grow up. Let them fall on the dirt. If they skin their face—good! We'll be there to help them when they figure it out. If he drinks at the party. . .”

We put it in our parenting book—we want them to sin while they're under our house.

Sissy: Yes!

Dave: We don't want them to sin, [Laughter] but we—

Sissy: —but no, you know they will.

Dave: —we'd rather have it happen while we're still here to be able to walk beside them, because when they get to college or whatever and we’re not around—instead of, “I want perfect kids that never make a mistake.”

We had this thing—

Ann: —it created friction—

Dave: —yes, in our home.

Ann: —between us—

Sissy: Ann, it's so good.

Ann: What do you mean?

Dave: That's good?

Sissy: Well, I mean, research says, in a two-parent household, there's an anxious parent in a non-anxious parent. The non-anxious parent is usually dismissed.

Ann: Which then creates friction?

Dave: Hey, did you hear that, honey?

Ann: Because—

Dave: —did you hear that?

Ann: —I’m [wondering], “Why aren't you more worried about it?”

Sissy: That's the thing. It feels like they're not watching.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: Not like passivity, and not engaged—

Sissy: —right.

Dave: —don’t care.

Sissy: But kids need—

Ann: —both.

Sissy: —to grow and go. They need to wander out and experience all the things, but they also need someone watching. They need both. But I think it's easy to get into a situation where it does create more friction, and that's why I think both voices are so important, even for each other. For you to be able to say, “Honey, we're okay. They're okay. We're going to get through this.”

David: One of the things that she talks about that I love is how non-anxious parents can, a lot of times, bring humor and warmth to the equation. When the anxious parent is so tight and— 

Sissy: —we get so intense!

David: —craving control.

Sissy: I think, especially as women, we get so intense—

David: —yes.

Sissy: —or anxious.

David: And I think that's an extraordinary piece that dads can bring to the equation at times.  

Sissy: Yes.

Dave: Yes, that’s good.

David: —just to bring—

Ann: —you bring that, Dave—

David: —that levity.

Sissy: Yes. 

Dave: Yes, I brought that, but also, there were many times—well, not “many;” several times—where her fear was realized. It did go that way. So, after it happened,—

Ann: —but is it bad?

Dave: —I'm [thinking], “Oh, I should have been more aware.” Although it didn't kill himm and he grew from it, and it wasn't—

It was like, “Oh, yes. He did go drink.”  And he comes home, and Ann grabs him and says [shouting], “You're going to work in the yard all day, boy!” [Laughter] It was hilarious. And I'm [thinking], “Really? I thought they were perfect little boys, and they're out there doing exactly what you were afraid they would do.” [Laughter]

I’ve never, until this moment, [seen] it as a good balance. So, that's helpful for even listeners to hear because, I bet, like you said, they might have the same, similar, or backwards dynamic. But I always thought I was a better parent, because I was more chill, and I was trusting God more, and it was never that—

Ann: —and I thought I was the better parent, because I was more involved.

Dave: Right.

Ann: So, that's kind of an interesting dynamic.

Sissy: By the way, I love that y'all just said that out loud,—

David: —me, too. [Laughter]

Sissy: —because I can't imagine how often that happens—

Dave: —yes.

Sissy: —in the dynamic between two. For you to say that out loud, and to realize—

David: —for parents to hear that—

Sissy: —how important you both were. Actually, as I say that, I think we could not not say, “If you're listening, and you’re a single parent,”—

Ann: —yes.

Sissy: —"you can be both.”

Dave: Yes.

Sissy: You can be aware and vigilant, and you can have a sense of humor and help them develop independence. It takes work, but really, we believe so strongly that, in this day, where one in four kids are dealing with anxiety, and one in three adolescents—and girls are twice as likely—that the best thing you can do for your kids is to do your own work: single parent, married parent; it doesn’t matter.

Dave: What does “doing your own work” look like? Sort of where we started: I'm bringing in baggage; I don't even know what my own work looks like.

Ann: Yes.

Dave: How does a parent identify that they need to do it? And then, how do they start?

David: I love Richard Rohr's wise words of, “Whatever we don't transform, we transfer.”

Dave: Yes.

David: Acknowledging that: “Whatever I don't work through, I'm likely to pass on, whether I'm aware it's happening or not.”

Dave: It's truly, isn't it, the sins of the Father?

Ann, Sissy, and David: Yes.

Dave: That passage? It's going down, unless you—

David: —yes.

Sissy: There's a therapeutic statement that, “If it's hysterical, it's historical.” So, if I'm getting hysterical, that means it's about me and my past.

David: There's something else going on.

Dave: There’s a story behind it; yes.

Ann: Just stop, as a listener, and think: “Is there anything you get hysterical about?” I think, in a marriage, you can see when your spouse does that. So, to think, “Oh, that means I need to go back into my past and think, ‘What happened?’”

David: I would challenge any dads listening, that I think the next step—because I have seen way too much of this—is get open, because I couldn't begin to tell you how many parents I've sat with where the dad looked like a surly teenage boy in my office, and the mom [says], “He didn't really want to come today, but I feel like it's so important.” I'm hard on dads in that space. We all need to grow—

Dave and Sissy: yes.

David: —in some way. And what are the contexts for the relationships where I can do that? That may be meeting with a close and trusted friend. It may be meeting with a pastor. It may be engaging in counseling myself, but get open and figure out where to do that work.

Dave: I mean, it's some of some of that—and I'm sure it's true for women as well, but for a guy, some of that—surly, arms crossed stuff is just fear.

David: It is!

Dave: They're afraid of—

David: —yes.

Dave: —what they're going to discover, even in their own self. They don't want to go there, and they don’t want to bring it out; and they [think], “I'm going to lock it up.”

Sissy: Back to that control.

Dave: Yes.

Sissy: “I’m going to stay in control.”

Dave: And you're not going to let them. You're—“I’ve got a key. [Laughter] We're going to crack this baby open!”

David: If you're in the room!

Dave: [Have] you ever had anybody just walk out and say, “I'm done. I'm not going to do it,” or they sort of go on a journey?

David: I don't know that I can think of a single parent that didn't stay. I’ve certainly made a lot mad. I hope it was always from this place of “I care deeply about you.”

Dave: Yes.

Ann: That's good.

David: There's good growth; good opportunity for growth.

Ann: Talk about hypervigilance. What are some of the terms we use that a parent can hear and think, “I've done that. I say that?" That creates anxiety in their kids, based on what they're feeling.

Sissy: One of the other things I read in the research was that anxious parents even use more catastrophic language. I think, anytime we're using really big, “You always,” or “This never happens.” When we notice ourselves—kind of that hysterical piece of it; I think, when we notice ourselves—using that big language, that's kind of a tip off.

We did a podcast interview with—

David: —Dr. Michael Thompson.

Sissy: —Dr. Michael Thompson, who talked about a phrase called “investigating for pain.” That, when we're asking kids questions—I'll give you an example of a woman [from when] I was doing a parenting seminar on girls and friendships: she said, “My daughter won't talk to me. I can't get her to open up with me. So, every day at the end of the school day, when I pick her up, I say, ‘Who was mean to you today?’” And she said, “She always answers me.”

That's investigating for pain. Rather than, “Who'd you hang out with?” or “What was the day like?” or, you know, whatever we want to ask them. But I think when we lead with questions like—

Ann: —"Did anyone sit with you today?”

Sissy: —yes, yes. Rather than, “Who did you go sit with today?”

David: And think about where that fits within the vigilance/hypervigilance piece. It's [thinking], “But I need to know if something went wrong!”

Sissy: Right.

David: “I need to check in with her.”

Dave and Sissy: Yes.

David: It's back to what Sissy talked about, where anxiety is always looking for context. These amazing kids are instinctively looking for what could go wrong already, not what could go right. If we're inviting them deeper into that, with investigating for pain, we're making the anxiety worse, not better. So, that's a great thing to look for.

Ann: Their heart is good.

Sissy: Right.

Ann: They're thinking, “I want to get it out of them.”

David and Sissy: Yes.

Ann: “I want them to verbalize, maybe, some fears.” The intent is good, but you're saying that, in itself, can create—

Sissy: —more anxiety.

Ann: —make the child think into, ”Oh, wait!”

Sissy:  Yes, yes.

Ann: What are some other of those statements that we can make? I think parents are [thinking], “Oh, check that off! [Laughter] Check that off.”

I remember my mom used to, when I used to come home from school, say, “Did anybody tell you that you look nice today?”

Sissy: Wow.

Ann: Which, sometimes I'd say “yes” or “no.” But I started thinking, “Do I look nice? Should I look nice? Do I always need to look nice?”

Sissy: Yes.

Dave: Are you saying that it was negative to you?

Ann: I'm saying that created this part of me that I'm always looking for that now—

Sissy: —yes!

Ann: —and if I don't get it—do you know what I mean? But I would say things to our kids like, “Oh, so how did it go on the playground? Did you play with anybody?” Which, I thought that was a great question.

David: I would add to your great question, thinking about Sissy talking about how often you find moms asking girls about their relationships. We talk about how easy it is to get too involved, hypervigilant in a girls relational life. I see a lot of it with moms of boys and their academic journey, asking too many questions.

Ann: Oh.

David: In this day and age where we have access to an online portal, and any given day could identify what he didn't turn in, where he struggled, where he didn't test well, invites too much involvement, often, in that space. I have a lot of moms who lead in that place.

He gets in the car: “I noticed you didn't turn that in. I saw you made a 72 on your science test.” That frames the relationship in ways that I don't think are helpful. Too much of what we're talking about has to do with this.

I had a teenage boy, one day, that I went down to the lobby to get, and I could tell he and his mom had had a tense conversation in the lobby. He said to me, “If you were to go downstairs right now and ask my mom to hand you her iPad, I guarantee you, her home screen is my school's online portal.”

Ann: Wow.

David: That, I think, was his way of saying, “It defines everything, [or] most everything we talk about.”

I think dads can get way too involved in a boy’s athletic life.

Dave: Yes.

David: I think we, as males, already tie too much of our identity to what we do. I think it's the first invitation for boys, [asking], “How are you performing?” Even that we would lead sometimes with that question with boys, [asking], “What sport do you play?” As opposed to any more questions about who they are rather than what they do. That, I think, is what we do with men: “What do you do?” That's the first question we ask, not, “What do you love? Tell me about your family.” We don't lead with those questions that are more about their personhood.

Ann: A mom could say, “Was your coach nice to you?”

David: Oh, yes.

Sissy: Yes, yes.

Ann: "Was he encouraging?”

David: “How much playing time did he give you today?”

Ann: [Laughter] Yes.

Dave: Yes, I had a mom—I was an athlete my whole career, and I had a mom—who celebrated every—

Single mom—Dad was gone—and I think that helped me as a dad, then, never to put the performance thing on them.

David: That’s great.

Dave: I just didn't. I coached a lot of them even through high school, but it was a joy to just—

And when I wasn't coaching, we never went to a coach, never, and said, “Hey, Why's my kid—?” Never did it. We trusted them, and there were some bad coaches. [Laughter] We still trusted them, but it was like, “Don't step in there. Don't put that pressure on your kids to do something that, maybe, God didn't even create them to do.”

Sissy: That’s so good.

Ann: I think, too, as I go through that and wonder about the questions that I asked my kids, because my parents didn't really ask me anything, ever, besides if anyone said I looked nice, I didn't want to be that parent. I wanted to be more involved. So, I think the parents have a good intent.

Sissy: Yes.

Ann: They want to help their kids, but this frames it up and helps us to know what that looks like.

Dave: We're Dave and Ann Wilson, and you've been listening to FamilyLife Today.

Ann: We've been talking with Sissy Goff and David Thomas. David's written a book called Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, and you can get a copy at FamilyLifeToday.com. And Sissy's written a book called The Worry-Free Parent: Living in Confidence so Your Kids Can, Too.

Dave: And when you partner financially with FamilyLife to help more conversations like today's get into more homes, we want to send you a copy of her book as our thanks.

Ann: You can partner with us at FamilyLifeToday.com or by calling 800-358-6329. That's 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word. “TODAY.”

Dave: Or you can mail us your donation to FamilyLife at 100 Lake Hart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. Make sure to let us know you'd like a copy of The Worry-Free Parent by Sissy Goth. And thanks for partnering with FamilyLife.

Ann: And thanks for listening. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

Dave: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife^®, a Cru^® Ministry.

Ann: Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

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