I've struggled with something similar with one of my sons. As a young boy, he tended to watch what others were doing rather than to jump in full steam ahead. Like your husband, I sometimes worried that he'd spend his life on the side lines and my anxiety would grow. But one day while we were at the park, I watched him and learned something important. A group of similarly aged kids were trying to climb a tree. Some made it to the top, others fell with scraped knees and bruised arms. My impulse was to encourage Aaron to give it a try, but instead of indulging what I wanted for him, I sat down and watched my son.

Aaron wasn't passively sitting on the side lines, he was actively watching other children as they tried to climb the tree. I could see that he was studying how they approached the situation and that he was paying close attention to what worked and what didn't work. My son was not passive, he was thoughtful and curious. He was engaged — engaged in a way that felt comfortable to him. In that moment, I saw my son as thoughtful and curious rather than anxious and timid. What a big and helpful change in how I thought about him!

Learning to let our children choose how and when they tackle new experiences and how and when they wiggle out of their comfort zone is rarely easy for parents. I'm not suggesting that we never intervene or encourage our children to take risks — we need to at times. But how we intervene and how we encourage our children will feel very different to them depending on what is driving us — anxiety and fear or acceptance and appreciation.

A good place for you and your husband to start might be to talk openly about what you feel when you see your son warming up at his pace, rather than the pace you might prefer. It's important that you are honest with each other about your concerns and fears. Often voicing your fears and concerns and talking about them together is helpful in and of itself. You and your husband might even spend some time reflecting on the new things your son has tried. My bet is that your son, like all children, does try new things — at some point. Maybe it is a new food at a restaurant or a game that he played with a friend. A good place to start encouraging your son is to encourage him in areas that are already relatively comfortable to him. When he tries something new, ask about it. What did he like and not like? How did it feel? What was challenging about it and how did he overcome the challenge?

The bottom line, however, is that your son might operate at a different pace than you do when it comes to trying new things. Is this necessarily bad? What are the positive aspects of his pacing? When I reframed my son's style from passive to thoughtful, I had a whole new appreciation of this part of his character. I saw this part of him as a strength rather than a weakness. As my son has gotten older, I see him taking on lots of new experiences that in the past he would have been more hesitant in. And, more importantly, I see lots of examples of how his thoughtfulness and "active watching" have served him well.

Your son is nervous when he faces a new experience, yet despite his nervousness he perseveres and comes back triumphant. I understand that it would be easier for all involved if each time it got easier so that soon he was able to approach new situations comfortably. But, for now, he might continue to feel initial anxiety when he's trying to tackle something new.

With your help, your son has been able to develop skills and master the challenges he confronts, despite feeling anxious. And that he continues to do so demonstrates his resilience — and the helpfulness you are providing him.

You might find it useful to create a "Challenge Book" with him in which he writes down a few sentences that describe the situation and a few situations that describe which of his strengths and coping skills he used to help himself move forward, even though he was feeling nervous. Encourage him to also write a few sentences that describe the positive feelings he experienced afterward. Taking a few minutes to write in his Challenge Book might help the experience to stick and it can also become a resource to him — a place to go to remind himself of what worked in the past. As he gets older, my guess is that he will be able to provide himself with the "pep talks" and that he will need less of that from you.

Until he can do this for himself, you are serving as his resilience coach. If it feels like you need to spend inordinate amounts of time coaching him, work together to identify what you do that is most helpful to him and what you do that he feels able to do for himself. By discussing this with him, you are sending him the message that you have confidence that he can coach himself through parts of the process — and that message is an important one for him to hear from you.