Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents

1. Expect worry to show up: It's a normal part of life and growth

Stop acting startled by each new occurrence of worry and help your child do the same.

Normalize worry. Anxiety is a common and often useful part of human experience. It serves as an early warning system, helping us slow down, think things through, and prepare for potential challenges. However, problems arise when worry becomes excessive and starts interfering with daily life.

Anticipate worry in specific situations:

• When trying new activities
• During times of uncertainty
• When facing performance situations
• When imagining "what if" scenarios

By expecting worry to show up, we can reduce its power to surprise and overwhelm us. This shift in perspective allows us to respond more calmly and effectively when anxious thoughts arise.

2. Talk to your worry: Externalize and respond to anxious thoughts

Rather than being pulled into the catastrophic visions that your anxiety generates, your child can learn to move away from it and take back some control.

Externalize anxiety. Teach children to view worry as something separate from themselves, rather than an inherent part of their identity. This creates psychological distance and allows for more objective evaluation of anxious thoughts.

Ways to talk to worry:

• Expect it: "I knew you'd show up here, worry."
• Take care of it: "It's okay, worry. I can handle this."
• Boss it around: "Not now, worry. I've got this under control."

By engaging with worry in this way, children learn that they have choices in how they respond to anxious thoughts. They can acknowledge the worry without automatically believing or obeying it.

3. Be willing to feel unsure and uncomfortable on purpose

To grow, your child must expect to feel anxious and worried from time to time.

Embrace discomfort. Avoiding uncertainty and discomfort reinforces anxiety and limits growth. Instead, encourage children to willingly step into challenging situations, knowing that feeling anxious is part of the process.

The courage formula:
Courage = Willingness to feel uncertain + Willingness to feel uncomfortable

By reframing discomfort as a necessary part of growth, children can build resilience and expand their comfort zones. This approach helps them develop the confidence to face new challenges and overcome obstacles.

4. Use breathing techniques to calm your body and mind

Calming Breath and Calming Counts can help in two ways. First, you have a chance to feel more physically relaxed. Second, by following the instructions you pull your attention away from any not-so-helpful worried or stressed-out thoughts.

Practice breathing skills. Simple breathing exercises can help reset the body's stress response and create a sense of calm. These techniques provide a practical tool for managing anxiety in the moment.

Two key breathing exercises:

1. Calming Breath: A 30-second technique involving deep inhalation, slow exhalation, and mental focus on a calming word or phrase.
2. Calming Counts: A 90-second exercise combining deep breathing with a countdown from 10 to 1.

Regular practice of these techniques can help children (and adults) develop greater control over their physiological responses to stress and anxiety.

5. Focus on what you want, not what you're afraid of

To win over anxiety, we have to act courageously—to feel uncertain and uncomfortable . . . and step forward anyway.

Identify meaningful goals. Help children shift their focus from avoiding fear to pursuing what they truly want. This change in perspective can provide powerful motivation to face challenges.

Turning "have-to" into "want-to":

• Identify the desired outcome
• Acknowledge the uncomfortable steps required
• Reframe those steps as necessary parts of achieving the goal

By connecting challenging tasks to meaningful goals, children can find the courage to push through discomfort and anxiety. This approach builds resilience and a sense of agency.

6. Bridge back to past successes to boost confidence

Past successes become yet another source of internal encouragement to keep moving forward into the unknown.

Combat anxiety-induced amnesia. Worry often makes people forget their past accomplishments and abilities. Actively recalling past successes can counteract this tendency and boost confidence.

Creating reminder bridges:

• Identify similar past experiences
• Recall skills and strategies used successfully before
• Apply those lessons to the current challenge

By consciously connecting past successes to present challenges, children can tap into their existing resources and approach new situations with greater confidence.

7. Take action on your plan to overcome anxiety

Children must be in charge of pushing past their hesitations and into the wonderful adventures coming up in their future.

Develop a concrete plan. Help children create a step-by-step approach to facing their fears and achieving their goals. This provides a clear roadmap for progress and helps break down overwhelming tasks into manageable steps.

Key components of an action plan:

• Clearly defined goal
• Specific steps to reach the goal
• Strategies for managing worry at each step
• Ways to track progress and celebrate successes

Taking action, even in small steps, builds momentum and provides real-world evidence that challenges can be overcome.

8. Understand the brain's role in anxiety and how to retrain it

When your child consciously says (and believes), "I can handle this. . . . I'm willing to be unsure and uncomfortable. . . . I can expect my worry to show up and learn what to do. . . . It's okay to be nervous," the amygdala then learns over time not to go into fight-or-flight and not to secrete so much epinephrine.

Educate about brain function. Understanding how the brain processes anxiety can demystify the experience and provide a foundation for change. Focus on the roles of the amygdala (the brain's alarm system) and the prefrontal cortex (the thinking part).

Retraining the anxious brain:

• Recognize that the amygdala is doing its job, even if it's overreacting
• Use the prefrontal cortex to evaluate threats more accurately
• Practice facing fears to teach the amygdala that certain situations are safe

By framing anxiety management as a process of retraining the brain, children can approach the task with curiosity and a sense of empowerment.

9. Promote independence and problem-solving in anxious children

Our job as parents is to create an atmosphere that encourages our children to make decisions, develop their own opinions and views, and become self-reliant.

Foster autonomy. Overprotecting anxious children can reinforce their fears and prevent them from developing crucial coping skills. Instead, create opportunities for children to make decisions and solve problems independently.

Strategies for promoting independence:

• Ask for your child's opinion on various matters
• Encourage respectful disagreement and debate
• Support reasonable risk-taking
• Allow natural consequences (within safe limits)

By gradually increasing children's autonomy, parents help them build confidence in their ability to handle challenges and navigate the world.

10. Use rewards strategically to motivate progress

Rewards are a part of life. We give our kids an allowance, and the neighbor pays them to mow the lawn or babysit. We get a paycheck and buy a car with the promise of "cash back"!

Implement thoughtful reward systems. While intrinsic motivation is ideal, external rewards can help jumpstart progress and maintain momentum, especially when tackling anxiety feels overwhelming.

Guidelines for effective rewards:

• Keep rewards small and frequent, especially for younger children
• Reward effort and practice, not just outcomes
• Avoid punishments or taking away earned rewards
• Be specific about what earns a reward
• Adjust the system every few weeks to maintain interest

A well-designed reward system can provide extra motivation and help children see tangible progress in their efforts to manage anxiety.

11. Parents: Model healthy responses to uncertainty and discomfort

How do you manage your feelings when you start a project that requires a new skill set or when you have to perform in front of others? How do you handle the worried thoughts that show up when things are uncertain?

Lead by example. Children learn a great deal by observing how their parents handle challenges and uncertainties. By modeling healthy responses to anxiety, parents can teach powerful lessons without saying a word.

Ways to model courage:

• Talk openly about your own experiences with uncertainty
• Demonstrate problem-solving when faced with challenges
• Show that mistakes are normal and can be learning opportunities
• Express excitement about trying new things, even if they're a bit scary

By consistently modeling a courageous approach to life's challenges, parents can create a family culture that values growth, resilience, and facing fears head-on.

Last updated: July 28, 2024