This week we talk about the importance of acknowledging and working through personal anxieties, and I share specific techniques to help parents manage their own worries while supporting their child's journey to coping with anxiety.
This week I share insights on disrupting anxiety patterns, identifying manageable starting points, and honoring both parental and child capacities.
This is such a painful place to be! But pain can also be the motivation we need to revisit what we're doing and start doing something different! Mostly I want to reassure you that loving your kids doesn't mean you'll always love parenting those kids and that's ok.
You know what's hard about this one? Well, first not all anxious kids WANT to process their feelings and second sometimes processing their feelings gets them stuck. Learn more on this week's episode of The Child Anxiety FAQ
Spoiler alert -- you're not the cause but yes, you are the solution. Both things can be true! I talk about the fallacy that a child's diagnosis ALWAYS goes back to what the parents are doing. Nonsense!
This question is less important than the asker thought it was and I use this episode to explain why. I also talk a little bit about why it's ok if two households are handling the anxiety diffrently (mostly because there's not necessarily anything we can do about it)!
Specifically? Help your teen get more sleep! It's my number one wish for ALL anxious kids and other humans! Learn more this week on The Child Anxiety FAQ
Poor self esteem is super common in child anxiety and no wonder -- anxiety upends our ability to do the things they want to do or that are expected of them. Let's talk about what we can do as loving, supportive parents.
I have several tips, mostly about finding new ways to consider what parenting an anxious child is supposed to be, which might help you feel less pressured to "fix" things.
We interrogate this whole idea of manipulation, look at child development, and talk about better ways to consider the situation.
A parent contacted me about an 8-year old whose separation anxiety means their child meltsdown every time she tries to leave the house. We talk about what we need to know and give a brief overview on how what we're doing might unintentionally be encouraging meltdowns (and what to do instead).
Because there was so little detail offered in this question it gave me the chance to explain what we need to know and why we need to know it to hopefully offer some ideas about next steps for listeners.
This week we discuss "coping" and how sometimes parents misunderstand what that means.
The person who asked this question is trying to figure out if the anxiety she's seeing in her child is just due to a specific situation or a sign that her child is more generally anxious. I share some thoughts about how to figure that out.
Parents reach out for help because they need their anxious child to learn to not be anxious or to handle their anxiety more effectively. But we can't make our anxious child or even want to change. What we can do is focus on our own change. In this week's episode, we dig into this uncomfortable truth.
This question from a listener gives us the opportunity to talk about some of the details we need to know to appropriate address our individual child's anxiety, especially around things like school refusal.
This week I explain why it almost doesn't matter whose anxiety started the anxious patterns in the family because the intervention is the same -- at least to start. Also if you'd like to sign up for the free webinar "Tell Me It Will Be OK: How to Talk About Your Child's Anxiety (without making things worse)" just head here: ChildAnxietySupport.com/webinar
This week we explore parental concern in regards to child anxiety and what it means if the child is anxious and what if it means if they aren't (or at least if they aren't clinically anxious). Remember to reach out to me if you have further questions!