and Parents Addicted to Worry
Every addiction has a ‘step recovery’ program and a worry addiction is no different. Worrying is no less serious than any other addiction.
Paranoid Parents Anonymous is the club for any parent who worries sometimes, from child health and child safety to child social and emotional issues.
Millions of dollars are spent needlessly on perceived but false parent worries from $250,000 school sniper-proofing, $50,000 home spring cleans, to baby walking helmets and bottom wipe warmers. Many parents inadvertently frighten their children, making them feel helpless in the world. So if ever an addiction needed a recovery program, paranoid parents is it.
Paranoid Parents Anonymous pays tribute to all recovery programs that have come before it.
The 10 Steps of Paranoid Parents Anonymous:
1. We admit we are powerless with devotion, concern and worry for our children—that our lives have become consumed with keeping them safe and happy.
2. We now believe that facts of what really happens in our world, not our worst imagination, could restore us to sanity.
3. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to common sense based on what really happens and not everything that could ever possibly happen.
4. We now know that not every possible danger is relevant to our child. We will not waste our precious time with our children trying to fix every imaginable danger, but will fix the likely dangers quickly, in order to be free to enjoy every situation. We now know that the job of being a parent is not to keep your child safe (unless from immediate death and head injury).
5. We now know that the job of the parent is not to keep your child happy all the time.
6. We have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our worrying over the Evil Nothings we hear in the media and hearsay from other parents.
7. We are entirely ready to remember the facts to stop us nagging, to stop us warning about everything we see, and to stop us making my kids scared of the world.
8. We have made a list of dangers that are not major threats to our children, and we will enjoy ourselves: mall trips, front yard play alone, bike rides to friends alone, vacation, school drop-offs, parents’ night out, etc.
9. We know we are recovering paranoid parents and that nerves will not vanish overnight and ask others to be sympathetic and supportive in pointing out the real odds to us.
10. Having had a parenting ethos change as the result of these steps, we will try to carry this message to parents who worry a lot or worry a little, and to practice these principles in all our parenting. Positive parenting from facts and not parenting from fear.
Resources for Parents Addicted to Worry and Fear:
