3 - Fear Is the Price of Being Human

Toye Oyelese

Welcome back to Navigating Uncertainty. I’m Dr. Toye Oyelese. Now, in the last episode, we explored the quest your child is on—the developmental games, those challenges that they have to overcome, the skills and rewards they’re forging for themselves. But, today? Today, I want to talk about the thing that, more often than anything else, gets between your child and that quest. And that thing, unfortunately, is often you—or more specifically, your fear. You know, over the decades, I’ve come to this somewhat uncomfortable truth: "fear is the price of being human." There’s no shortcut around it. I can’t eliminate it, and neither can you. All we can do is learn to process it, and that’s really the skill your child needs too—not how to never be afraid, but how to keep moving amid the fear.

Toye Oyelese

Let’s talk about how this plays out, because it never looks that big on the surface. Maybe your child gets frustrated with chemistry homework. And suddenly, in your mind, this spirals: What if they fail the class? What if they never catch up? What if they can't get into a good college—and then what? It’s wild, right, how fast your brain jumps from a bad Wednesday night to… thirty-five and living in your basement. Or maybe they come home after a fight with a friend, and you’re already imagining twenty years of loneliness and therapy. It sounds a bit dramatic when I put it that way, but honestly, these worst-case futures sneak up on all of us. I’m not immune—sometimes, I’d catch myself going there for my own boys.

Toye Oyelese

Here’s what I’ve realized: not all fear is created equal. There’s good fear that keeps you alert—makes you grab your toddler when they run toward the road, or double-check who’s watching your kid at a pool. That fear is there to protect; it’s real danger. But then, there’s what I call bad fear—the kind triggered by imaginary disasters or hypothetical tragedies. That’s the fear that makes you step in to solve a solvable problem for your teenager because your mind is racing far beyond what’s really happening. Most of the fear we feel as parents isn’t about what’s physically occurring right now. It’s about all those imagined futures, the anxiety pretending it’s protection. And, I’ll tell you, that’s the sort of fear that doesn’t help anyone—it just crowds out your child’s chance to solve problems themselves.

Toye Oyelese

So how do you keep that catastrophic imagination in check? Well, let’s talk about pausing. I’m thinking back to when one of my sons was eleven. He wanted to go for a sleepover at a friend’s house, someone I barely knew. Their place was across town, and I’d only seen the dad at school pick-up—never met the mom at all. My son desperately wanted to go; his excitement was… contagious, honestly. But behind my calm doctor’s face, I was definitely afraid. Now, at first, I couldn’t quite name the fear. It was just this uneasy, anxious fog sitting in my chest, and that’s exactly what fear does—it hides from you, makes it seem like you’re just vaguely stressed. But I made myself bring it into the light: I was worried about their supervision. About what my son might be exposed to. About something happening and, honestly, about looking like that overbearing parent who calls with too many questions.

Toye Oyelese

Now, that—those two fears, really—can pull you in opposite directions. Fear of something happening to your child, but also fear of looking foolish, or overprotective. Most parents, we get stuck there; we either say yes too quickly just to avoid the awkwardness, or no too quickly just to get rid of the anxiety. But, neither is clear thinking. Both are fear making the call. And here’s a hard truth I had to accept: fear isn’t something you reason away or wait out. It’s coming along for the ride whether you like it or not, so the key is to keep it from grabbing the steering wheel.

Toye Oyelese

So, what did I do? I paused. I sat with the fear, named it, and then I asked myself: “Okay, what does this situation actually need? Not what does my fear need.” See, fear wants certainty. It wants a guarantee nothing bad will happen—it wants comfort, not information. But what the situation really demanded was… facts. I needed to get to know that family a bit—find out what the plan was, who would be there, that sort of thing. So I talked to my son first—“Tell me about this friend’s family. What do you know?” Not much, but it was a start.

Toye Oyelese

And then, against my fear’s loud warnings about being ridiculous, I picked up the phone and called the parents. I wanted to hear from them what the evening would look like—who was supervising, when pick-up would be, what activities were planned. The mom was friendly, matter-of-fact—it all seemed quite ordinary. Dinner, movies, sleeping bags on the living room floor. She’d be home the whole time, other boys from class would be there. And just like that, the fear’s lie—that I’d seem crazy or overprotective—kind of dissolved. What I got wasn’t certainty, not really, because that doesn’t exist in parenting; what I got was real information. Enough to make a decision based on reality, not just anxiety.

Toye Oyelese

Then, before I sent him off, I did something else. I said, “Look, if anything makes you uncomfortable—anything at all—you call me. I’ll come get you, no interrogation. We talk about it later, but you don’t have to stay just because you think you’re supposed to.” And, well, he went, had a great time, nothing bad happened. But even if it had, it wouldn’t have meant the process was wrong—you can’t control outcomes, only your process.

Toye Oyelese

Now, this—this is the heart of it, really. Teaching your child how to handle uncertainty, not just by wrapping them in bubble wrap, but by giving them real tools to navigate discomfort. When you show them, “Look, we sit with fear, we name it, we gather information, and we move ahead anyway”—that’s not just talk. That’s modeling courageous action, and they learn by watching you far more than anything you ever say.

Toye Oyelese

I see this over and over: your child absorbs the lesson not when you say, “Don’t be afraid,” but when they notice you acting carefully, even nervously, yet making choices with the best information you have. They see you accept that certainty’s a myth, but we go forward anyway. Sometimes, I stumble; sometimes I overthink; sometimes I imagine risks on par with lions lurking behind the couch, but the point is—I don’t let those fantasies drive. My sons saw me hesitate, explain my fears openly, talk through my process, and, eventually, let them go try and maybe stumble, knowing they could call home.

Toye Oyelese

What’s vital isn’t just the outcome but the process you model: naming the fear, accepting it’s not just leaving, looking for what’s really needed, collecting as many facts as you can, and making the decision not from a place of panic, but of preparation. And, don’t forget—however you handle these moments, that’s what your child is learning to do. They pick up: Does fear mean freeze and avoid, or does it mean pause, think, ask, and move ahead while still a little worried?

Toye Oyelese

If you remember nothing else, remember this: Fear is information, not instruction. Courage is action in the presence of fear, not the absence. And, really, that’s one of the deepest skills you’ll ever give your child—the ability to be afraid and still do what needs doing. Teach it by doing it, right out in the open, with fear riding along in the passenger seat. In our next episode, we’ll take a look at the difference between helping and enabling—what kind of help lets your child move forward, and what sort just gets in the way. I’ll even share a story from back when I returned to Canada in 1987 with barely enough to get by—a lesson in the kind of help that actually helps. I’m Dr. Toye Oyelese, as always, thanks for joining me, and we'll keep navigating uncertainty together.