One of your roles as a parent is to protect your child. You protect them by holding them carefully when they are newborns, buckling them into the car seat as toddlers, by not letting adults be mean to them, providing a supportive and warm home environment, and preserving their dignity. They need this from you.

What they don't need from you is protection from uncomfortable yet helpful experiences. These are things like losing a game, being bored, frustration, disappointment, and making mistakes. Young people can be 'saved' from these experiences because people don't like to see them in 'pain' (I use that word loosely). You might save them by writing a note excusing their lack of work (when there really is no excuse) or defend their poor behaviour by blaming someone else (when it really is their fault), or remove them from a challenging event (when they were good enough to turn up to the challenge).

I know this feels like love, but it isn't really loving. When young people don't have the experience of being uncomfortable, they don't get to learn the lesson. You are saving them from temporary pain but also saving them from a valuable life lesson. When young people walk through an uncomfortable space, they learn to act differently in the future, they learn compassion, and it helps them to develop an inside (character, ethics, morality).

Some practical ideas to help you let them be a 'healthy' uncomfortable:

1. All worthwhile things are a bit uncomfortable. When I am doing something challenging and feel uncomfortable, I think to myself that this feeling is normal with challenging tasks. It helps me to keep moving forward rather than hide from the uncomfortableness.

2. Uncomfortable helps me to shift. A speeding ticket is uncomfortable – it reminds me to drive safely. If you paid my speeding ticket every time (took the uncomfortable away) I wouldn't learn a lesson. Leave the discomfort with the young person to help them learn the lesson.

3. Uncomfortable is temporary but constant. I feel uncomfortable before I do an interview, a presentation, or meet someone new (all good things). It is often present in life's most exciting and difficult times, but it is always present. It is important to understand that it will always turn up but it doesn't stay. 

4. Uncomfortable needs courage. You learn to manage being uncomfortable by turning up. You turn up and tell the teacher you didn't complete your work on time. You turn up and apply for the role in the performance. You turn up and say sorry. These are all uncomfortable. Once you have done the uncomfortable, it is over, and on the other side, there is potential success and a relaxed mind.

5. They will be okay. I know it is hard to watch someone sad about losing the game, or mad about the detention for doing X, but think of it as a necessary part of forming them. Allow them space to process those feelings. You can best support them by talking through a plan rather than removing the uncomfortable feelings altogether.

I like being a little uncomfortable. It means I am growing, feeling challenged, and developing my character. That makes the uncomfortable worth it.