Key Points
- Control What You Can: Consistent routines and family rituals help kids (and adults) embrace uncertainty by providing stability, safety, and trust.
- Shift Your Mindset: See uncertainty as an opportunity to shift the status quo, explore new choices, and rise to meet the new challenges ahead—to become more than who you are today.
- Practice Daily Renewal With Your Kids: Every day is an opportunity to ground yourself and teach your kids how to be at peace with a world that is constantly changing.
- Face Challenges Together: Role models to your kids that feeling afraid, upset, or worried is normal. We can lean on each other and ask for support—we don’t have to go into the scary, uncertain future alone.
In the wake of the elections, many of us are struggling with the aftermath—grasping for answers, hoping for stability, and feeling the weight of the next four years bearing down like a horrible plague.
I went to bed wanting something so badly but not knowing if it would come—and fearing what would happen if it didn’t.
Now, I have to face reality and sit with my uncomfortable feelings. It’s hard work, but if I don’t do it for myself, I’ll never be able to teach my kids that being uncomfortable is not the same as being unsafe.
Big People, Big Problems. Little People, Little Problems.
Imagine your child starting a new school. They’re nervous about the unknown:
- Will I like my teacher?
- Will I make friends?
- Am I going to like this new world?
You might reassure them, but inside, you know that life holds no guarantees.
They might hate their teacher, not make friends, and feel completely out of place and alienated. They might feel like the world is out to get them, half the people are crazy, and not understand why any of this is happening.
When reality deals you a crappy hand—the cards you most dreaded—you must learn how to stay in the game and keep going.
It’s a hard truth that we adults wrestle with daily: We can never be certain things will turn out okay, and still, we must show up and play.
So, how do we navigate this uncertainty and set an example for our kids?
Buddhist Psychology: Letting Go of the Compulsion for Certainty
Buddhist psychology teaches that our drive for control and certainty creates suffering.
Our thinking mind assumes that if we just know more, prepare better, or grasp harder, we’ll be safe. But life is much more complex than our conscious mind can ever grasp.
The result is that we’re caught up playing games, trying to control the little piece of reality that we can:
- We attach to “me, me, and I,” and cling to them dearly.
- We can create islands of stability by telling ourselves stories that make it all okay.
- We build egos and identities that give us a reference point and home base to move through life.
These bubbles of certainty and control are important psychological anchors. They help reduce reality to something more manageable. They give us something to fall back on when life seems overwhelming.
The danger is getting too attached to these stories and concepts, mistaking them for who we truly are.
Sooner or later, life moves in unexpected ways—plans fail, (presidential) losses happen, and unanticipated outcomes shift our paths (individually or as a nation).
Our logic proves limited.
Our egos, wounded.
Our control, an illusion.
Our beliefs, challenged.
Our sense of having it all together, crumbling.
Hope, Dream, & Plan Ahead But Never Get Too Attached
For us dads, accepting this truth can be a profound challenge. We want to provide, protect, and plan a future for our families. We’re told that it’s a dad’s duty to bring order to the wild world, to make it safe, and to ensure it is a comfortable kingdom for our kin.
We show up to this challenge as best as we can, but we’re never taught to embrace uncertainty or the possibility that we can’t control it all.
We are made to believe that we can design and execute some perfectly mapped-out 5-year plan, but…
To find peace, we need to practice letting go of the feeling that we know exactly what is best; we need to relinquish the desire to control everything to fit our limited model of what’s right—showing our kids that it is okay for them to do the same!
Trust Your Ability To Make The Best Next Step
We do not know the long-term consequences of the recent presidential elections. We don’t have a crystal ball to see how this will impacts us or the world in decades and generations to come.
Similarly, we do not know the future of our careers. We do not know what kind of relationship we will have with our partners or kids ten years from now.
A lot of life is uncertain. Any single choice can ripple into the future in unexpected ways.
This does not mean we give up, stop caring, or stop investing our time and energy into these matters.
It means we shift away from needing certain outcomes to feel valuable, worthy, or safe, and focus on the present small ways we can take care of right now.
Systems Thinking: Embracing Life as an Unfolding Journey
Systems thinking reinforces this wisdom by reminding us that life unfolds in unpredictable ways. Even when we get what we (think) we want, what comes next might be unexpected and unwanted.
We tend to over-leverage specific outcomes, believing they will make us happy and satisfied. Yet when we finally arrive at our desired destination, we are less than thrilled—weight loss that didn’t make us as happy as we thought, a new job that seemed great on paper but terrible in reality, a trip that fell short on all our expectations.
The opposite is also true. When we don’t get what we (think) we want, what comes after can be more beautiful than we ever imagined—the silver lining of loss and foible as new beginnings that open doors we didn’t even know existed.
We are inherently bad at predicting how certain events will make us feel tomorrow (let alone years from now). This means…
We don’t have to have the “perfect” answer. We don’t have to have it all figured out. We only need to make one small good move forward and then pause and reassess where to step next.
When Life Is Most Uncertain, Imperfect Action Beats Waiting
We can’t try to map out 20 steps ahead. The best thing we can do is take one small step forward. Taking a step forward into uncertainty, even if it feels tough and scary, reveals what to do next.
Of course, there are times to hold back. Sometimes, we need a moment (or days) to gather more information and sift through our feelings.
But we can’t get stuck in waiting. We can’t wallow in uncertainty.
No matter how well we plan our lives or our kids’, there will be unexpected challenges—a new school, a big game, or an awkward social situation.
We can’t control their outcomes. We can’t promise what happens next.
But we can guide our kids through this uncertainty by helping them find their next best step as it emerges—that this is enough for now.
Four Practices for Dealing with Uncertainty (For Yourself and Your Kids)
These practices are simple yet powerful tools that you can use to handle uncertainty and pass on to your kids:
1. Control What You Can
- Start Small: Focus on immediate, actionable steps. When things feel overwhelming, encourage your child to think about one thing they can control—packing their school bag, practicing for a test, or getting enough sleep.
- Create a Safe-Haven at Home: Help your kids limit the stress of uncertainty by creating routine, familiarity, and structure at home. They make safe containers for kids to feel in control. With a safe-harbor at home, they’re more resourced to venture out into the unknown.
2. Shift Your Mindset: See Uncertainty as a Gateway to Possibility
- Reframe the Unknown: Teach your child that not everything is written in stone, nor would we want it to be. Life’s uncertain spaces allow room for creativity and change. Remind them that we’re all co-authors in this journey, and not knowing what will come invites us to create something—becoming more than we are today.
- Use Affirmations: Phrases like “Even if I don’t know what will happen, I can handle this.” Or, “We’ll figure it out as we go. We can always ask for help.” These statements can rewire the brain to embrace ambiguity with curiosity instead of fear.
3. Daily Acts of Renewal and Grounding
- Anchor in the Present: Practice grounding exercises like deep breathing, meditation, or looking up. Mindfully sit with your kids and watch how the world is constantly changing, and how it’s okay to not be in control of that change. This can help you and your learn to kids feel stable internally, no matter what’s happening externally.
- Create a Family Renewal Routine: Start or end the day with small, grounding activities as a family. These could be a gratitude circle at dinner, a walk after breakfast, or bedtime stretches. These rituals help everyone feel anchored, connected, and ready to face the day’s uncertainty.
4. Share Your Challenges & Seek Support
- Facing Challenges Together: Remind your kids (and yourself) that we don’t have to go it alone. Connecting with others, sharing our fears and hopes, and leaning on each other makes handling uncertainty easier. What we can’t face alone, we can face together—something that can be notoriously hard for dads. Role model to your kids that it’s okay to seek support, not know, and ask for guidance.
Talking to Your Kids About Uncertainty
Children are naturally curious and intuitive. They pick up on our worries. If we don’t talk to them about how uncertainty (or the recent presidential election) makes us feel, they’ll learn about it anyway.
Rather than letting our kids absorb our unprocessed shock and worry, we must first meet and manage our own emotions. Then we can explain that life doesn’t come with guarantees, which is scary, but together we can find a way to make it work.
Let them know that everyone, even adults, experiences fear and doubt about things outside our control, but we can respond with wisdom and strength.
We can learn to be present to ourselves and trust that we can make the best choices without holding ourselves to standards of perfection.
We can show them that uncertainty will never disappear, but we can cultivate a steady inner compass—an “unshakable” center—to guide us through.
Jeff
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