Comfort Zone Management

A comfort zone is a space, physical, emotional or mental, where a person feels at ease, supported and content. For some people establishing a comfort zone is incredibly difficult taking lots of curating and management. For others, comfort zones are easily created in new settings, across various developmental stages. As parents, I don't think we talk about comfort zone management enough. It is a topic that can often cause disagreement among parents, parents and children, parents and grandparents or other caregivers.

So, what is comfort zone management? First of all, it is important to acknowledge that as humans we have the ability to fabricate our own comfort zones. The first step to doing so is to begin to understand what makes a human, in this conversation, a child, comfortable AND what makes them uncomfortable. Every child is different. I once worked with a 4 year old prek student who was anxious entering the classroom every morning. As he arrived in the school building each day I could sense his tension entering the classroom space. One day I decided to ask him what he was worried about. "I just don't know who is here." He was unsure of who was already present in the classroom. I thought about this worry for a few minutes. It would have been easy to dismiss it and say to this child, "oh, its just your classmates." Instead, I suggested to the young boy that he look at the hooks in the hallway to see whose backpacks were hanging up and that would tell him who had already arrived. The student loved this idea and now every morning upon entering he takes inventory of the hanging backpacks before confidently entering the classroom. We curated his comfort zone. As parents and educators we can help children create their own comfort zones by helping them identify what makes them comfortable versus uncomfortable.

Another aspect of comfort zone management is comfort zone growth. To help a child expand their comfort zone, an interesting trick is for a parent or caregiver to have a larger comfort zone than the child. For example, when we lived in Philadelphia with our young daughters I would often walk to school while the girls would use their scooters. They were 2 and 4 years old at that time. They were scooting down the sidewalks of busy Philadelphia streets while I walked behind them. From the beginning, I established that they could scoot ahead the whole block, always stopping and waiting at the next crosswalk. At first, they were right with me, almost scooting next to me, uneasy to go ahead very far. But in a short time, they felt comfortable going ahead. On occasion one would catch a rock or crack and crash. By the time I caught up, the tears were gone and they were on their way again. By the time we moved to New Hampshire, when the girls were 6 and 8, their confidence navigating the streets of Philadelphia was palpable. They were still waiting to cross the streets, but they were scooting off bulk heads along the way! It was the perfect time to expand their comfort zones again. This time, it was in our New Hampshire neighborhood. We live at the end of a long driveway in a neighborhood that is a mile long circle shape. At this point, they were interested in bike riding. So, I gave them the freedom to bike around the whole circle without me. It took several weeks, maybe even a few months, for the girls to be comfortable biking around the neighborhood independently. They started by going to the culdasac at the end of the driveway, increased their range by going to a neighbor's house down the street and slowly but surely they got comfortable and did the whole circle. I'm certain that if I had set the range smaller it would have been much longer before they were comfortable going around the neighborhood. When we set wider boundaries for a child's comfort zone we encourage growth and bravery and ultimately, we provide opportunities for a child to increase confidence and independence.

Comfort zones are great because they provide a landing space that provides confidence to a child as they navigate an ever changing world. I think its always helpful for a child to define their comfort zones by talking about them. When we talk about our comfort zones it is easier to then explain to ourselves and others what the essential elements of our comfort zones are so that we can more easily fabricate them for ourselves or a child. The better we know and understand a person's comfort zone, the better we will be at helping a child who is stepping outside their comfort zone to try something new or go somewhere unfamiliar.

As adults we can anticipate moments in a child's life that may require them to step outside their comfort zone. Going to a new playground, trying a new activity, entering a new school are all moments that require a child to step outside their comfort zone. For the child going to a new playground, prior to going identifying aspects of their favorite playground that they love (sandbox, swings, friends) can then give the child something concrete to look for upon arriving at the new playground. The child trying a new activity can prepare by talking about previous moments when they tried something new, or they can create a plan to gradually join after some observation time. And for the child entering a new school, attending some school functions of activities that the child likes, touring the school, setting up a playdate with a future classmate are all ways to help with the transition because you are building a comfort zone. The primary take away here is that we need to be active managers of our child's comfort zone until they are ready to take on the management themselves. Children will learn to manage their own comfort zones if they have regular dialogue about them and see a parent or caregiver actively managing them when they are young. When the young child grows into the college bound student, the stage is then set for them to fabricate their own comfort zones away from home and independent of a parent's tending.