How to get your child to try new things

Sometimes, our kids just won’t try anything new. This can be something small, like not wanting to try a new food. But it can also be a bigger issue, like your child refusing to go to a new after-school activity they’ve joined. 

On this episode of Parenting Behavior, host Dr. Andy Kahn will talk about how to get your child to engage in new activities, especially those that make them feel afraid or anxious. 

We’d love to hear from you. You can email us at ParentingBehavior@understood.org.

Related resources

• What is growth mindset? 

• Why kids have trouble following a routine or schedule 

• Behavior: What is it, and how can parents affect it?

Timestamps

(0:47) Coping with discomfort

(4:11) Developing a “growth mindset”

(6:37) Watch-outs for parents

Episode transcript

Andy: Sometimes our kids, they just won't try anything new. It can be something really inconsequential, like trying a new food or it can be a bigger deal. Like your kid just won't go to that new team that you signed him up for or won't go to that afterschool activity that can be really fun for them. Today, we're going to talk about how to help you through that.

This is "Parenting Behavior," with me, your host, Dr. Andy Kahn. I'm a parent and licensed psychologist with over 20 years experience working with kids and families on navigating challenging behaviors. Today, we're going to talk about how to get your child to engage in some of those new activities, things that they're a little afraid of or too anxious to do.

(0:47) Coping with discomfort

One of the keys to trying new activities is to get your child to learn to tolerate discomfort and to cope with the stressors of new things. Listen, we all like to be comfortable, we all like to do things that we know and feel sort of skilled in. But for kids, if they don't build these new strategies to manage the anxiety or discomfort, they can miss out on opportunities, not be able to do things in their day-to-day lives that can be really good for them.

One strategy for getting your child to try something new is to try it out in advance. You know, sometimes we might want to get our kids to join, let's say, a basketball team, and we just send them off to the first practice and then they think, you know, "This is miserable. I'm not good at this. I want to quit." So, what if we try practicing some of the skill in advance?

Take your kid out to a local park, shoot some hoops together, get a sense of how can we make this fun? How can we get some introduction to the activity? Lowering the stakes of an activity in advance can make it much easier for a child to engage in it. So, keep that in mind when you're looking at new activities.

You know, it may sound silly, but when I was a kid, we got cable TV for the first time — and yes, I am that old. We had a cable box with an actual cable attached to it, and that was considered a remote at the time. And I was so much more accustomed to turning the channels by hand and just seeing the 2 or 3 things that I watch on a regular basis. So, getting familiar with the new technology was a little stressful for me.

So, when your child is trying a new activity, don't poo poo the idea that they might be uncomfortable, even if it's something that seems like it could be fun right out of the gates. For kids with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia, their brains are wired a little differently. So, when it comes to tasks that require flexibility or planning or even adapting to new day-to-day activities, it can be a little harder for them.

One thing to consider is that even new pleasant activities can require some adjustment and your kid will want to stay in their comfortable space doing the things they're familiar with. Anything new has a sense of being unexpected, and that can make your child reluctant to do those tasks. So, if we're talking about a key concept here, flexibility is the key. We're talking about getting your child to learn to be more flexible and to try new things, which may not feel natural for them.

One important wildcard here is that anxiety can affect flexibility. So let me give you an example. If someone is in a highly anxious mode, they're going to be focused on lots and lots of little details in their space. Anxiety is really there to help keep us safe from things that might be dangerous. And anxiety doesn't really know the difference between, this is just, you know, a low-key sport activity or this is something that could be fun.

So, if the brain's on high alert because of anxiety, kids are going to be less flexible. They're going to be less willing to work through certain activities and they may even try to escape or avoid doing them altogether. One of the cool things about this is relaxation and mindfulness can be super helpful for these kids.

Learning these skills away from the stressors is really important. So, practice them during a random time of the day when everybody's calm already. It's the practice of skill away from stressors that makes it more likely that they can be successful when they really need to be able to do the task.

In addition, remember, some kids just aren't as flexible as others. This is a natural thing. This is part of their natural wiring. So, it may take some more practice to get them to learn to calm down and bring their bodies back under control. And for some kids, just be aware it's going to take a little time and you're going to have some failure experiences with your kids. Just keep working at it.

(4:11) Developing a "growth mindset"

One of the key concepts to talk about here today is sort of a learning theory concept called growth mindset. Now, in a nutshell, growth mindset is really the idea that when we approach a new task that we expect that it's going to be hard, that we might make mistakes, that there are going to be things that we stumble across and that ultimately we're going to be successful. It's sort of an attitude of positivity.

For some folks who have a fixed mindset, they believe that no matter what they do, it's going to be hard, they're going to fail and they avoid an escape. Kids who have a fixed mindset, they're going to be inflexible. They're not going to try new activities. So, we can teach growth mindset, and that's going to be something we spend some time with today.

Let's think about growth mindset as it relates to challenges and setbacks. The idea that if you have something that's hard and you expect an advance, that I'm going to have some failure, then it's going to be a challenge. Then you're going to be able to navigate and keep trying. And this is really crucial for our kids when they're trying new things. So, developing a growth mindset, which is something that we can teach, is something that we're going to talk about here today.

One big idea to reinforce here today is to help your child understand that when they enter new situations, that they shouldn't come at it with this idea that they're going to be successful and everything's going to be perfect. Setting an expectation that new things are hard and that we're going to have failure experiences can be really reassuring. And then when it happens, it's not unexpected. And kids are less jolted by it.

One important concept here is that if your child's going to try something brand new that maybe has a low probability of success, that you share that with them and say, "Hey, you know what? This is worth a try. And not everybody succeeds at this. So, if you fail, it's not any big deal. It's really expected for many folks."

Another great way to prepare your child for building a growth mindset is to take some time reminding them about things they're successful with, things that they've done in the past that maybe were hard. These barriers that maybe they've overcome, these are great things to remind them of "Wait a second, I can do this. I've done hard things before."

The other thing that's really crucial is making sure that your child has other activities going on, that they feel good about, things that they enjoy so that they have the opportunity to have something that feels pretty easy and comfortable. Not everything has to be about growth in every moment of their lives.

Finally, before we move on, I want to make sure that you know that in the show notes, we have some great references on developing and building growth mindset and those information there is going to be really helpful for you if you want to seek it out.

(6:37) Watch-outs for parents

Before we go, I want to give you a couple of parent callouts here. First, let's talk about parent modeling. The idea that if you're not doing new things and showing your child that you're trying activities and and making an effort to do things that are hard, they're not really going to believe that it's something of value. So, show your child through your example, that we're going to try new things.

Second, I want you to focus on trying some new things alongside your child. Whether it's going out and giving them a chance to order food at a restaurant and giving them the opportunity to try something with your support. Remember, pick something low-stakes so they have a chance for success. And if they don't succeed, it's not that big a deal.

Now, remember what I said about flexibility earlier? Well, flexibility is also something that we look at in terms of parents. If you're not a terribly flexible person, you don't try new things, it may be really important to try this out with your child. Sometimes you're going to have to fake it till you make it. In addition, I don't know if you've heard the saying, but people will often say anxious parents raise anxious kids.

If you're nervous about your environment, if you're always looking out for safety-related issues, and you don't try new things, your child is going to perceive the environment as dangerous. And they may be anxious, too. They often look to you to know if they're safe or secure. So, keep in mind, if this is leading to impairment in your life, you're not able to do certain things that you want to do, and you see it's affecting your child, it may be a great time to get some support and maybe seek some counseling or even looking at some resources at Understood.org.

Another important thing to be mindful of is projection. Now, again, this is psychobabble here. Projection is if we have an idea or belief that we hold that we sort of projected onto our child. So, if we have a belief that, you know, it's good to be really social and extroverted and engaged in a lot of daily activities with peers and other people and our children aren't, we may feel that there's something wrong.

And in that situation, it's really important to stop and ask yourself, "Wait a second, is this just my thing? Is this my thought?" Ask your child about how they feel about being social. If you go out to a party and you see your child is escaping and avoiding, take some time to ask them about some really specific things. Are you uncomfortable because you don't know what to do? Or is this just not your preference?

Not everybody's going to prefer big groups and hanging with lots of people. And if that's your preference, don't assume it's your child's. Take some time and ask them about this before you put them in those situations where you know that they're really uncomfortable.

When we think about what projection can lead to, one of the things I want you to keep in mind and ask yourself this very specific question "Am I forcing something on my child that I'm interested in? But they may not be?" So, I'll give you an example. I've mentioned this before a little bit, but with my own child, one of the things that was really important when she was growing up was spending time figuring out her activities and her interests. Well, I realized I was projecting my own onto her.

I like sports. I like rock music. I like to get out and go to concerts. And when my child was young, she did not share a lot of those interests with me. She picked up orchestra when I picked up rock music. She picked up ballet when I picked up other sports, and I had to realize that I had to get out of the way as a parent. You have to be mindful of what your child's telling you.

If you have a preference in an interest that doesn't match with theirs, listen to your child. Follow along with some of those activities and you may learn some really nice new things. For me, I never imagined I was going to be a ballet dad. But many years later, here I am. Letting your kids develop their interests is really important. And sometimes we need to figure out how to get out of the way.

So, one final reminder for you folks: if you're an anxious parent and you're struggling at times to navigate some of these flexibility tasks and you notice it's rubbing off on your child, don't hesitate to reach out and try to get some help for this. Getting some professional support and counseling can be super helpful to all of you. And remember, as a parent, if you're modeling seeking help for something that's hard for you, this is really great for your child.

Thanks for listening to this episode of "Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn." We'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on the show. You can email us at parentingbehavior@understood.org. I'll put that email in the show notes to where you can also find more resources and links to anything we mentioned.

"Parenting Behavior with Dr. Andy Kahn is brought to you by Understood.org. It's produced and edited by Cody Nelson. Editorial guidance by Rae Jacobson. Music and mixing by Justin D. Wright. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director.

For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to support us as we go through with our important mission, please consider donating. Go to Understood.org/give.