When we encounter challenges and uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, we’re likely to want to turn away from it, to work in such a way that we don’t have to deal with it. However this is often the first step on a path to lower resilience and capacity.

By digging deeper into where these thoughts and feelings come from, understanding what they could be and what they might represent, we can reshape our approach and understand ourselves better. We can redefine and reappraise our behaviour, and adapt ourselves to be who we want to be.

Finding “The Grain Of Truth” means working through tough feelings and thoughts, sometimes that we’re not even aware of, to find what is at the core of it all. These deep motivators are the ones we need to find to be able to create a healthy plan of what to do next!

The Grain of Truth can be used in just about any situation! Working into deeper thinking and emotions is a powerful way to build resilience. But in particular, you should be using it in situations where there’s Avoidance Behaviour.

Any time that your young person is acting in a way to try and get away from discomfort, fear, anxiety or adversity you should help them explore it! That isn’t to say force them to face those feelings arbitrarily, or to use this as a way to make them keep going. Using this process is about finding the right information so we can guide a young person.

Often when we use this process, young learners will find their own way to a healthy conclusion, and sometimes we need to give them some guidance and suggest the courses of action we feel are best as the adults. But before that, we need to find the Grain of Truth.

Before you go digging, it’s important to recognise that tough emotions are tough! Especially for young people who might be facing them for the first times, we want to make sure that they know we’re taking their challenges seriously, even if we don’t think they’re that big a deal.

• Validate Perspective: When someone is struggling, we can’t pretend they’re not. Always start by helping them to understand those feelings have a point, there’s nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed, or incapable. Help them feel like they’re not alone, and not broken: “It’s ok, everyone feels this way sometimes. Even me! Let’s talk about it, I’d love to understand how you’re feeling better.”
• Don’t Validate Avoidance: But we need to stop before we tell them avoidance is OK. They need to be the one to decide that using our support. Never tell a young person “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but…” or “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you unhappy, but…”. They will seize that and use it to calm their negative thoughts and feelings, and any attempt to take it back away will fail.

Start off your conversations with this validation tool, and you’ll find your Risky Kid feels heard and more comfortable with working through the next steps.

Avoidance behaviour often emerges while people are in pursuit of things they want! We want to feel successful, or strong or confident and it’s when we start to hit obstacles between us and those feelings that we might give up.

Finding the Grain of Truth is about digging deep with questions to help find the real reason we’re trying to avoid something, and then compare it up against what it is we want. This gives us clarity and helps us make the best decisions.

Some questions to help you start looking for the Grain of Truth are:

• “Why do you think you feel that way?”
• “How do you feel about it now we’re talking about it?”
• “Have you felt this way before?”
• “How do you think this feeling/thought is helping you?”
• “Is there anything you might not have thought about?”
• “Is the way you’re feeling/acting helping the situation, do you think?”

Our objective in this process is to find the deepest feelings and thoughts. Often these are to do with fear. Fear of being hurt, fear of being judged, fear of rejection, fear of failing, fear of feeling unworthy or unloved, fear of the unknown. These are just some of the common fears that will be the “Grain of Truth” at the heart of avoidance behaviours.

Once we’ve found the grain of truth, what next? It’s not always easy to know, but that’s OK! The important thing is to move forward with it. It’s up to you and your Risky Kid to decide what the best, healthiest steps are. Sometimes avoidance behaviour is healthy.

For example, if a young person was avoiding a situation because they felt they had no control, but the situation was that there were other kids who were taking that control from them in an unhealthy way, then avoidance might be the best option. However in that same situation, if it meant our young person would miss out on things that were important to them, they might need to look for ways to get help or navigate that situation without avoidance.

Just the same, if a young person wanted to quit swimming lessons, the grain of truth might be that they feel like they’re not good enough or getting enough support from their teacher. Their teacher might actually think they’re doing amazing though, and feel they don’t need help! The healthiest action here would be to address the self confidence issue, as well as communicating needs to the teacher that the young person might benefit from extra challenge or praise.

It’s important to collaborate, balancing out letting your young person make decisions, but also guiding them towards making the choices that are best for them. When parenting, this can include some executive decision making at times.

This process might seem a bit complicated to start with, but it’s worth investing the time in to develop as a family. Our team uses it regularly at Risky Kids as part of their toolkit, and it helps thousands of Risky Kids to face challenges daily.

This process of reflection is valuable for so many reasons. Firstly, it teaches young people that they can dig deeper into their emotions, and that not every emotion and thought is healthy or helpful. It gives them the tools they need to judge that, and the experience to do it more quickly and effectively each time.

It also builds deeper relationships with the people helping them through it, demonstrating patience and trust and a desire to help them be their best. It also helps us as the guides to get to know them, better, the things they’re afraid of or concerned about.

Most importantly, finding the Grain of Truth helps to mean that when we’re avoiding things for the wrong reasons, we can instead tap into our reserves of resilience and work through it to achieve the things which matter to us.