We Can Be Purposeful in Reducing Anxiety
This post is for January 4. To understand why, I hope you will read my post from January 1. To do so, please click here: January 1
Each day, as adults, we make countless decisions that have a variety of consequences. Whether you are an educator (which many of my readers are), a stay-at-home dad or mom, or a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, you have decisions to make...and most of our decisions affect others. In fact, Dr. Joel Hoomans, a writer for the Leading Edge Journal, claimed in a 2015 article that we make 35,000 decisions a day, and most of them - even what and when we choose to eat - can have an effect on others!
Last week, I had a chance to attend the Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training offered by the Crisis Prevention Institute. While this training covers dozens of topics, one of my favorite new understandings was derived from the “Decision-Making Matrix” introduced in the program. This matrix is a nine-square grid that asks decision-makers to consider the “severity” of potential consequences on an axis and the “likelihood” of those potential consequences on the other axis. In the training, we discussed some traveling options as examples. For instance, traveling in a plane has the potential for a highly severe consequence if it were to crash - survival, in this case, is unlikely. However, the likelihood of a crash occurring is minimal.
When trying to find exact numbers on this, I found a 2015 CNN article by Karla Cripps about an app called “Are We Going Down?” that analyzes flight risks. And on a flight from Hong Kong to LA, if you take that flight everyday for the next 11,146 years, you’ll be unlikely to experience an incident because there is a 1 in 4,068,434 chance that the flight they studied would crash. So, the action of taking a flight would be high on the x-axis (Severity) but low on the y-axis (Likelihood). Knowing this could potentially reduce a person’s anxiety when flying. Conversely, riding in a car has a much higher likelihood of an accident occurring, but the potential severity of an accident can be much less severe, depending on the situation. Again, the matrix could be used to ease anxiety. While getting into a car accident is very possible, our chances of survival are much better than they would be using other modes of transportation.
In the training, we were not studying the matrix so we could make informed travel decisions, however. We were studying it so we could make decisions to avoid crises in our schools and so we could understand how being mindful of the matrix can help us to reduce anxiety in others. Though I didn’t know we were using any matrix at the time, studying it reminded me of past decisions made at a school where I was serving as a school administrator. We had a parent who was concerned about the ability of the school to respond to a health emergency that could occur with her son. This is not uncommon. Students with Epilepsi, peanut allergies, and Type-1 Diabetes, to name a few, are students with an increased risk of a health emergency. So, our job as caretakers in the school homes of these children is to decrease the potential for severity and likelihood that an emergency will occur.
Working with parents to strategically place materials needed for health emergencies can ease their anxiety, and so can training staff on how to use these materials. By doing so, we cut down on the severity and risk of a potential emergency...and if we can show the parents (and students) we work with how we are using this matrix to make decisions, that in itself may ease fears...especially if we can move to a place on the grid representing the lowest severity and the lowest likelihood. In this example, I believe we were able to move to the middle square on the grid. With our placement of materials and by training staff, we decreased the potential severity of a health emergency; if the student would have had an emergency, it would have been addressed promptly by a trained individual with the materials he or she needed to properly do so. And, I think the training also decreased the likelihood because we knew what signs to look for when that student may have been at an increased risk.
While this example is one that the school addressed anxiety in a parent that was easy to understand, I hope I can begin to use this matrix in other aspects of my life to ease the anxiety of those people around me. I have children, and I make decisions each day that affect them...and unfortunately, some of these decisions cause anxiety. Can I cut down on that? When we get in the car, for example, it helps to tell my kids where we are going if there are any stops aside from the destination we all have in mind. If a child is unsure how long she will be in the car, that can be the cause of discomfort and anxiety. If it is near a meal time and I, myself, am wondering what I should do for dinner, chances are that my children are wondering what they will be served! My predictability - or my explanations at times that could become unpredictable - reduce anxiety, and the Decision-Making Matrix will help me to cut down the severity and likelihood of anxiety when I interact with my children (my own...and those in the schools where I work!).
Whether we like it or not, our decisions affect others. I hope you will be mindful of this and join me in finding ways to reduce the anxiety of those who work with and around you.
Each day, as adults, we make countless decisions that have a variety of consequences. Whether you are an educator (which many of my readers are), a stay-at-home dad or mom, or a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, you have decisions to make...and most of our decisions affect others. In fact, Dr. Joel Hoomans, a writer for the Leading Edge Journal, claimed in a 2015 article that we make 35,000 decisions a day, and most of them - even what and when we choose to eat - can have an effect on others!
Last week, I had a chance to attend the Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training offered by the Crisis Prevention Institute. While this training covers dozens of topics, one of my favorite new understandings was derived from the “Decision-Making Matrix” introduced in the program. This matrix is a nine-square grid that asks decision-makers to consider the “severity” of potential consequences on an axis and the “likelihood” of those potential consequences on the other axis. In the training, we discussed some traveling options as examples. For instance, traveling in a plane has the potential for a highly severe consequence if it were to crash - survival, in this case, is unlikely. However, the likelihood of a crash occurring is minimal.
When trying to find exact numbers on this, I found a 2015 CNN article by Karla Cripps about an app called “Are We Going Down?” that analyzes flight risks. And on a flight from Hong Kong to LA, if you take that flight everyday for the next 11,146 years, you’ll be unlikely to experience an incident because there is a 1 in 4,068,434 chance that the flight they studied would crash. So, the action of taking a flight would be high on the x-axis (Severity) but low on the y-axis (Likelihood). Knowing this could potentially reduce a person’s anxiety when flying. Conversely, riding in a car has a much higher likelihood of an accident occurring, but the potential severity of an accident can be much less severe, depending on the situation. Again, the matrix could be used to ease anxiety. While getting into a car accident is very possible, our chances of survival are much better than they would be using other modes of transportation.
In the training, we were not studying the matrix so we could make informed travel decisions, however. We were studying it so we could make decisions to avoid crises in our schools and so we could understand how being mindful of the matrix can help us to reduce anxiety in others. Though I didn’t know we were using any matrix at the time, studying it reminded me of past decisions made at a school where I was serving as a school administrator. We had a parent who was concerned about the ability of the school to respond to a health emergency that could occur with her son. This is not uncommon. Students with Epilepsi, peanut allergies, and Type-1 Diabetes, to name a few, are students with an increased risk of a health emergency. So, our job as caretakers in the school homes of these children is to decrease the potential for severity and likelihood that an emergency will occur.
Working with parents to strategically place materials needed for health emergencies can ease their anxiety, and so can training staff on how to use these materials. By doing so, we cut down on the severity and risk of a potential emergency...and if we can show the parents (and students) we work with how we are using this matrix to make decisions, that in itself may ease fears...especially if we can move to a place on the grid representing the lowest severity and the lowest likelihood. In this example, I believe we were able to move to the middle square on the grid. With our placement of materials and by training staff, we decreased the potential severity of a health emergency; if the student would have had an emergency, it would have been addressed promptly by a trained individual with the materials he or she needed to properly do so. And, I think the training also decreased the likelihood because we knew what signs to look for when that student may have been at an increased risk.
While this example is one that the school addressed anxiety in a parent that was easy to understand, I hope I can begin to use this matrix in other aspects of my life to ease the anxiety of those people around me. I have children, and I make decisions each day that affect them...and unfortunately, some of these decisions cause anxiety. Can I cut down on that? When we get in the car, for example, it helps to tell my kids where we are going if there are any stops aside from the destination we all have in mind. If a child is unsure how long she will be in the car, that can be the cause of discomfort and anxiety. If it is near a meal time and I, myself, am wondering what I should do for dinner, chances are that my children are wondering what they will be served! My predictability - or my explanations at times that could become unpredictable - reduce anxiety, and the Decision-Making Matrix will help me to cut down the severity and likelihood of anxiety when I interact with my children (my own...and those in the schools where I work!).
Whether we like it or not, our decisions affect others. I hope you will be mindful of this and join me in finding ways to reduce the anxiety of those who work with and around you.
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