The stepladder approach

I wrote this post about 9 months ago but never posted it because our daughter “fell off the wagon” so to speak.  After going on the reward vacation, we came home and basically had to start over.  So I gave up.  However, we made another stepladder 2 weeks ago and had big success right away.  She now goes to sleep like a pro all by herself.  Thank goodness!

One of the many techniques I learned from reading Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents by Ronald Rapee, Susan Spence, Ann Wignall, Heidi Lyneham, and Vanessa Cobham a year ago is using stepladders with anxious children.  Stepladders are a way to help children overcome their fears by facing up to the very things they are scared of.

“Stepladders are carried out in a step-by-step fashion so that it isn’t overwhelming for your child. In this way, your child will experience difficult situations gradually and learn to cope with them. Being encouraged to try things that are frightening, and learning to cope, will give your child confidence and help to break the pattern of automatically responding with fear and worry.”

I share this with you because many of my friends have asked me about it, and also because I think it helps adults too.  Slowly exposing yourself to something you’re afraid of works to familiarize yourself with that fear, showing yourself that you can conquer it.  Avoiding something actually strengthens the power of anxious beliefs. Most people have developed ways to avoid situations where they might become anxious.

For us, one of my daughter’s big fears was (and still is) being by herself.  An only child who craves interaction, she is constantly with us.  And what’s worse than playing alone during the day? Being all alone… in the dark… at night.

After we were positive that it was a reasonable expectation for a 6-year-old to be able to be left alone in her room after stories and kisses, we discussed the concept with her.  We were clear about how we wanted to help her and what we thought she could do eventually.

“It’s important that your child is a willing and active participant in the process, or you will be fighting an uphill battle.”  Our daughter already wanted to be able to do this.  That was hugely motivating for her.  The three of us came up with each step of the ladder together.  Each rung is her actual wording.

As we worked our way up the steps, my daughter saw evidence that she could deal with her fears. She proudly went to her stepladder and highlighted the rung she’d completed.

“During a stepladder, children will have to experience some situations that make them feel worried. This is important because it helps children learn that although they may have started off feeling uncomfortable and worried, the bad things they feared did not actually happen. By doing this, your child learns that he or she can tolerate some feelings of worry and that these won’t stop him or her from doing things. After all, none of us can go through life without ever feeling anxious.”

Each next step should be slightly more difficult than the one under it. The idea is that she practice each step until she is relatively comfortable with it. Then, she can highlight it and climb up to the next one.

“Giving rewards after each practice increases your child’s motivation because it balances the unpleasantness of facing fears with a positive.”  For us, the chart was enough of an intrinsic reward.  Going to bed well and sleeping all night in her room does warrant a small prize in the morning.  We had fun shopping for those together.  The major reward in the middle of the ladder is new bedding, which our daughter really wanted.  She chose a rainbow of hearts duvet cover and turquoise sheets.

Our ultimate goal was to say goodnight in the living room and then not see our daughter until morning.  Honestly, when we were creating the steps, each one seemed far-fetched, so we just kept dreaming.  We reevaluated our ultimate goal before reaching the top.  She had done so well and felt so great about her successes that we decided it was ok to stop exactly where we were, which was having some alone play time, some stories with one of us, and then saying goodnight, letting her fall asleep, and coming back in a few minutes to check on her.

To fight fear you have to face fear. The book has many children’s activities to do together with a parent.  It also introduced us to a new way of thinking, “detective thinking,” where you both try to come up with evidence that something the child fears would not actually take place.  Usually it wouldn’t – the school fire drill usually doesn’t indicate an actual fire – but in the event it could, you brainstorm together how she would handle it.

So simple and so helpful! Let me know in the comments what you think.

Creating a new stepladder poster. Maybe now that she’s almost 7 she was more ready. She got to have a friend sleep over, which is a whole other story.