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Well

Need a Life Coach? This 5-Year-Old Can Help.

A child’s advice for coping with anxiety has gone viral after his mother shared it on Twitter. (Hint: It involves doughnuts, dinosaurs and Dolly Parton.)

Credit...Edmon de Haro

For 5-year-old Clark Todebush, the transition to kindergarten after two years of pandemic isolation hasn’t been easy. Sometimes he cries.

But when his mother recently told him she was feeling a little anxious about a meeting, he knew he could help. “Mama, I am nervous all the time,” he told his mother, Gwenyth Todebush. “I know what to do.”

What followed was a stream of uplifting advice worthy of a Brené Brown TED Talk. His mother was stunned to hear her son repeat, albeit through a 5-year-old’s filter, all of the coping skills she’s been trying to teach him. She posted their exchange on Twitter. Though Ms. Todebush had only a handful of followers — “Before this, it was me and 10 moms on Twitter who talked to each other,” she said — the post quickly went viral, and it has been retweeted nearly 24,000 times and liked more than 93,000 times.

“Everybody is kind of coping with one kind of stress or another in a pandemic,” said Ms. Todebush, who lives in northern Michigan. “I think it rang true with people. I said on Twitter that he’s the only life coach I know that gets paid in goldfish crackers.”

Here is Clark’s advice for coping with anxiety, accompanied by a few brief explanations for context from his mother.

“Another mom on Twitter talked about saying affirmations with their kid before school. We tried it. Sometimes I tell him, ‘Say it like you mean it.’ I guess he translated that.”

“He knows you can be scared of something, so he talks about being brave of things. I love the grammatical construction. I’ve never corrected it because I like it better. I don’t know where the ‘I smell good’ came up, but I like it. I’m going to use it a lot.”

“He really loves Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ When kids are making fun of her in school, she still went in and was brave and talks to those kids. I don’t know where the dinosaur thing came from.”

“I don’t know what it has to do with being nervous.”

“We used to go to this little record shop. There was a room in the back and a whole section of records for a dollar. I would take him down there with a dollar bill, and he came back with a Burl Ives record from the ’50s. There’s a song on there called ‘The Donut Song.’ It goes, ‘Watch the doughnut, not the hole.’ After we listened to that song a lot, that became our thing. Every night at bed he tells me about the doughnuts of his day.”

“When he’s upset, sometimes I tell him to think about things he’s looking forward to. Potato chips are high on his list.”

“I’ve been teaching him breath exercises when he gets upset.”

“There have been so many times when there’s nothing I can do. I tell him, ‘Even if it’s a bad day, when you get home, I’ll hug you.’”

Image
Gwenyth Todebush with her 5-year-old son, Clark.Credit...via Gwenyth Todebush

Ms. Todebush said she had been surprised at the reaction. Some people were concerned that such a young child even needed coping skills for anxiety. She said that Clark is an only child, and he didn’t have cousins or other children around during the pandemic. She added that she’s been working with him on coping skills to make the transition to school easier. His advice on the way to school made her realize how much he’s been paying attention. “He’s doing a lot better overall,” she said.

But most of the thousands of comments posted in response have been positive, she said. They include:

“Who IS this kid, and is he available for Zoom sessions?” one follower asked.

“Chuckling at the insights, but in reality am here for pandemic potato chips little dude,” said one fan.

“Haven’t we all experienced being on a bus with a skunk, metaphorically?” asked another.

An artist who saw the thread even began selling a T-shirt depicting Dolly Parton on a dinosaur, and has promised the proceeds will go to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Ms. Parton hasn’t commented on the post or the T-shirt.

For his part, Clark is taking his Twitter fame in stride.

“I tried to tell him that other grown-ups liked what he said,” Ms. Todebush said. “He said, ‘OK mom.’ He likes the shirt, but other than that I don’t know that he cares much.”


More from the Well newsletter

Thanks to everyone who took part in January’s Eat Well Challenge. I’m still reading all of your comments, emails and texts. While the challenge is over for now, I hope you’ll continue to practice mindful eating, ride the craving wave and think about other strategies we learned this month. As I’ve noted before, mindful eating takes practice, and it’s easy to slip into old habits of food restriction or mindless eating. Though I’ve shared a lot of information over the past five weeks, there are a few “mantras” that I use regularly to remind myself to be mindful.

The other day I started to reach for a root beer in my dad’s refrigerator and quickly put it back, and poured a glass of water instead. My sister noticed and asked me about it. It’s become second nature to think about how what I consume makes me feel, and I instantly recognized the sugary soda would hurt my stomach and lead to reflux. So it was easy to put it back.

Sometimes I crave foods that I know will make me feel lousy. I’ve learned to just accept the craving, knowing it will pass. Sometimes I give in to the craving, without judgment.

I like to think about the farmers and the workers; the family recipes passed down for generations and all of the traditions that brought this food to my table.

The nutritionist Evelyn Tribole said this to me, and it really resonated. We don’t need to be perfect.

No explanation required.

Missed a week?
Catch up on the complete Eat Well Challenge here.


On March 9, join David Leonhardt for a live-streamed edition of The Morning newsletter as we explore what Omicron signals about the state of the pandemic, and watch Modern Love editors share their favorite reader-submitted Tiny Love Stories.

Read more and register:
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Here are some stories you don’t want to miss:

Let’s keep the conversation going. Follow me on Facebook or Twitter for daily check-ins, or write to me at well_newsletter@nytimes.com.

Stay well!

Tara Parker-Pope is a columnist covering health, behavior and relationships. She is the founding editor of Well, The Times's award-winning consumer health site. More about Tara Parker-Pope

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