October 1, 2022 | Child Anxiety Support

How do I change my anxious child?

Our question this week is simplified for the podcast title but it’s part of a longer question. The asker described their situation — they have an anxious child, the child is older elementary age, and the child isn’t interested in dealing with their anxiety often melting down when the parent attempts to talk to them about it. And the parent wants to know, how do I get my child’s buy in. How do I talk them into dealing with their anxiety. How do I make them change.

The short answer is you can’t. We can’t make anyone change. If you get into a power struggle with your child, you have already lost. They are better rested than you and they aren’t going to get distracted by things like needing to pay the mortgage or laundry. So before you try to change your child, give up on changing your child.

But just because you can’t win a power struggle doesn’t mean that you’re not powerful because you are. You are in charge of the environment and you are in charge of yourself and what you choose to do. So those are things you can and you should focus on changing.

At the heart of child anxiety is their relationship with you. That’s where we find the answers in treating their anxiety. You hold the key. And all of the hard work that you’ve done to build a loving, respectful, and responsive relationship is going to pay off when you turn your attention to helping your child meet the challenges of their anxiety.

This is true for all facets of parenting and there’s a paradox at play here and in fact at play in all of parenting. That is that you are deeply essentially part of your child and they are entirely their own person having their own experience. It’s within this paradox that change happens.

Let me explain.

In parenting, especially in highly attuned and connected parenting, we and our children are sharing experiences. We are catching each other’s moods. We are impacting each other’s functioning. If your child is in a bad mood, you might feel bad and vice versa. If you are worried about something, your child might catch your worry. We are living in the same space. You are choosing fundamental experiences for them like the food they put in their bodies and the clothes they put on their backs. You are choosing where you both live. Whether or not details like open windows, colors of carpet, the presence of pets. You share relationships with other family members and other people outside the family.

At the same time, you are having entirely separate experiences. You may love the open window and your child might find the sounds coming in from the street annoying or upsetting. You may be struggling with your child’s other parent and they are full of adoration for that other parent. You may serve oatmeal for breakfast and buy them a cozy sweater for chilly days and they may insist on Lucky Charms and choose to wear their favorite tee shirt no matter how cold it is that day.

And you may want them to deal with their anxiety and they are strongly committed to the avoidance that makes their anxiety worse. You can’t change that for them. You can’t change their commitment. You can’t talk them into it. So you will have to change yourself.

One of the most important things you can and should do is realize that your child’s anxiety belongs to them. It is part of their journey as a human being. Your anxiety — even if your anxiety is about them — belongs to you, not them. You have to figure that piece out. I talk to parents who get confused — where does their anxiety leave off and their child’s begin? Or they don’t know how to tease out the differences between them.

This essential separation is at the heart of parenting. It’s the work we’re doing for 18 plus years with an emphasis on the plus. We are dancing the weaning dance all of our parenting careers — figuring out when to step in, when to step away, when to offer support or advice, and when to let it go. Very often any conflict we are feeling in our relationship with our child goes back to this essential work. Either they are wanting more separation or we are wanting more separation and we are constantly pushing and pulling to figure it out.

It’s inevitable that we’re going to make some mistakes and step on each other’s toes. I think there is so much learning in these conflicts. Anytime you’re hitting a point where you are fed up with parenting in general or your child in particular, you can look to see at it’s roots there is this push/pull happening.

This is especially true with anxiety.

You cannot make your child learn the skills they need to handle their anxious emotions but you can offer them. You can make them part of your family culture in the same way that you have shared your other beliefs, your other expectations, and your other everyday routines. You can show them by internalizing and practicing these skills yourself. You can use them to deal with any anxiety you have about your child’s anxiety. Children learn directly but also through observation. A child who is reluctant or resistant to learning is not going to be happy when you tell them to learn anyway. But if you do the learning yourself, they’re going to pick up on it.

You can also decide your boundaries. Remember that your child’s experience of anxiety is theirs. But your experience of raising an anxious child is yours and you get to decide how you’d like to manage that. If you are experiencing frustration or unhappiness because your child’s anxiety seems to be demanding particular behavior from you, you can choose whether or not to continue with that behavior, to cease it altogether, or to change it. When you change things — whether it’s your behavior, or the environment — that will change things for your child.

When we recognize and address the parenting pitfalls of anxiety, and change what we do, that’s how our child changes.

Child anxiety tends to enmesh parents and children. It gets us all tangled up and forgetting or misunderstanding what belongs to us and what belongs to them. It’s the parental dilemma but on steroids. If you are unsure of where to start, I encourage you to go to childanxietysupport.com/pitfalls that will lead you to my quiz based on the research about how parents get stuck in parenting their anxious kids. Once you’ve taken it if you have questions, please reach out to me.

How do I change my anxious child? Read More »

How do we know when to push our anxious child and when not to push?

Podcast

How can we tell between a child’s anxiety about an activity and their genuine dislike for an activity?

This is such a good question but I’m afraid I”m going to disappoint you with not such a great answer and that is, you might not be able to tell. And in fact, your child might not be able to tell.

And part of that is because if you think about it, we’ve got reason to dislike doing things that scare us. It’s why I’m never going to learn to ski. Going down hill fast is my idea of a terrible time because it scares me. I wear the brakes out on my bike because I keep ‘em on when I’m going down hills.

So I dislike going fast downhill and I dislike it because it scares me; it’s not fun.

But using my brakes on my bike and not learning to ski doesn’t hamper my life in any way. Now someone who loves to ski might say I’m missing out but it’s a choice I’m perfectly content to make.

On the other hand, there are other ways I’ve confronted my fears like public speaking. It scares the heck out of me but I’ve also learned to enjoy it. The results are worth it to me. So I have had opportunity to face my fears and learn to cope with my anxiety to access the opportunities I want to access.

With kids it’s harder because they don’t really have the far range thinking to figure out what’s worth it and what’s not. So we have to be part of that decision-making with them, which is really difficult. For one thing, we might have strong feelings about what’s worth it and what’s not.

If I’d grown up in a family where skiing was my parents’ favorite winter sport, maybe I would have conquered that fear because it would have been part of the family functioning to go skiing. I don’t know. Maybe it would have been worth it, right? To not miss out with the family. Or maybe I would have thrown such a fuss that I would have stayed at the lodge sipping cocoa.

It depends on a lot, doesn’t it?

When you’re trying to figure it out, you’re going to have to look at the big picture. Generally anxious kids have anxiety that shows up in many different places. Figuring out where to address it, where to start, is part of figuring out how to parent a child with anxiety.

How we make decisions in addressing our child’s worry will depend on how we consider a number of things:

How is our family functioning? Where are we — all of us — struggling most?
How is our child’s functioning? Where are they feeling most limited or unhappy?
How much time and energy do we have to tackle things right now? Are we ready to dive in and do big work? Or do we need to focus on small wins?
How anxious is our child? Are we talking about every day niggling fears or are we talking about great big disruptive meltdowns?
How motivated is our child? How interested are they in change?
Are there skills we need to address first either in ourselves or our child? Are we able to cope when they’re not able to cope?

It’s a long list and we haven’t really dug into the details involved in each of those decisions. They’re all worth a conversation.

Choosing where to address our child’s anxiety is intensely person. It depends so much on what we value and what we hope our children will value. If we know our child meltdown when we push, we have to know what’s worth pushing and how to do the pushing so there’s growth.

We need to be realistic about our kids and their capacity

And we also need to be realistic about ourselves. Learning to parent an anxious child means shifting our perspective as well as changing our behavior. That perspective change is critical and that’s a bigger challenge than remembering to respond with this when our child does that. We need to know why we respond that way and we need to buy into it.

For some kids and families we need to start super small. We need some easy wins before we head to the big targets. This is especially true for very sensitive children and very sensitive parents. We need time to acclimate and experience ourselves as a family that can do this hard work.

For super motivated kids and families, we can start with the heavy hitters. We can sprint right to the top and dive into bigger exposures.

As an example, we might have two families with 10-year olds who are still asking parents to stay in their room until they fall asleep and that’s where the parents are hoping to see some change.

But maybe one child is dealing with the recent death of a beloved pet. Or is having a hard time in school. Or has no interest in sleeping alone. And the other child is more motivated. Or has less pressing worries outside of sleep.

And we can look at the parents. Maybe the parent of one child has been working overtime. Or is worried about budgeting for the holidays. Or gets completely wound up when their child is crying. On the other hand, the other parent has a good friend who has offered to sit with them while they deal with bedtime. Or has a great meditation practice that helps them stay calm. Or is just fed up enough that they’re clear that this is what they want to do.

Any combination of this — a motivated child but a waffling parent or vice versa — makes it a whole unique proposition.

You know you’re pushing too much when you get overwhelmed either with your own emotional reactions or with your child’s. The people who I work with don’t tend to be people who are unreasonable with their kids. I tend to work with people who identify as gentle parents or respectful parents or attachment parents — there are a lot of terms that basically mean highly attuned, thoughtful, sensitive parents who care deeply about their parenting. These parents tend to go much easier on their kids than on themselves. They tend to sacrifice their own well being for the sake of their children in ways that don’t serve the family well. So I am less concerned that they are being too pushy with their anxious children and more concerned that they are pulling back too soon.

Or they are focusing on one area that is less important than another. So they are putting their energy in an anxious area that doesn’t necessarily align with their family values because they are trying to do what they think they ought to do. Parents of anxious kids — especially the ones who act out — are generally dealing with a lot of criticism and concern from others. Sometimes what we need to do is get really honest about what matters to us most. Maybe we don’t care about sitting with a sleep 10-year old but we do really want them to go to soccer practice.

See, those are very personal decisions.

When you’re trying to figure out when to push and when not to push, I’d say where are you and your child most unhappy? Where is the easiest win? Start with that easy win and build on it. You both need to start experiencing your child as someone who is capable and brave. That can be very tiny. It can be a child who tolerates being alone on one floor of the house for two minutes longer than they used to tolerate it. Celebrate that success and go a little further. When you’ve got a handle in that area, look for where you’d like to take those skills next.

When it comes to parenting anxious kids, it’s a dance we’ll be doing all of our lives together. We’ll always be learning how to support without creating dependency, how to cheer them up even when we ourselves are scared, how to cope with our anxiety as we continue to celebrate their growth.

How do we know when to push our anxious child and when not to push? Read More »

What if my child’s anxiety is rooted in real fear?

Podcast

The example that came in with this question was specifically about a child who was being bullied at school and so was afraid to go to school. Well, that’s not an anxiety disorder, that’s appropriate anxiety. If the situation is not safe then the child’s anxiety is serving its purpose. That is what anxiety is supposed to do. We cannot address anxiety unless things are safe.

So before we can face our anxiety, we need to be clear. Is this appropriate anxiety? Is it keeping us safe from something that is truly dangerous? Or is it dysfunctional anxiety? Is it keeping us from growing through our lives?

Sometimes this is an easy thing to figure out. If you have a child who is afraid of your neighbor’s friendly toothless basset hound, that’s pretty simple. A friendly toothless basset hound is unlikely to be harmful. You can definitely do some exposures to help your child confront their anxiety in that situation.

But sometimes it’s more challenging. If a child is refusing school because they are being bullied as in our questioners situation, then school is not safe. If a child is refusing school because they were once being bullied but now are safe and are protected from the bully or the bully has been removed, that’s a bit more complicated.

It will take careful planning because we’re not just dealing with the anxiety, the child also needs support in healing from the experience of being bullied.

In other words, if a child’s anxiety is rooted in appropriate fear then we need to get them safe. It is not dysfunctional anxiety; it is protective anxiety.

Once the child is safe, facing their anxiety in supported ways can be a truly healing experience. This might mean trauma-informed counseling. This might mean helping the child connect to resources that allow them to see themselves as someone who can access supports and advocate for themselves.This also might mean changing the environment entirely, for example, if that particular school is an overall poor fit, changing the school is not avoiding; it’s choosing a better fit.

I want to stop for a minute and dig into this a bit more from the parents perspective. Because it’s been my experience that we, as parents, often need to address our own neglected experiences of harm in order to take care of our anxious kids. Sometimes we struggle to assess for safety because we ourselves struggle, due to our own anxiety, to know what is safe.

I’ll use a very clear example from my own life. I have always been afraid of water. I think, as an aside, that this is related to undiagnosed and unaddressed vestibular and proprioceptive sensory issues. In any case, I am very afraid when I am in water over my head. It’s something I avoid. Because of this, it was difficult for me to watch my children swim in deep water. Heck, I can’t even watch the shipwreck scenes in Castaway. I mean it, this is a big fear of mine. Anyway, because of this I was not involved in teaching my kids to swim. I had to farm that out. I also had to sometimes walk away when they were swimming with their dad. I just can’t really assess safety in those situations. I know this about myself and I built supports that allowed my children to grow despite my own anxiety. They both love to swim. I’m never gonna like it but that’s ME. I can’t visit that on them without limiting their lives.

Like I said, that’s a very clear example.

Other examples from my own life are more challenging. I also struggle with social anxiety and so when my kids had a social challenge it could be difficult for me to assess whether or not the situation was truly safe. I can look objectively at them swimming in a pool with an attentive adult nearby and know it’s ok even if it feels scary to me. That’s not necessarily true with social situations.

In those cases, it took more effort to figure out what was mine and what was theirs. This became particularly salient when my daughter, who had been homeschooled all through elementary school, decided to attend middle school.

Can we just stop and acknowledge the tremendous bravery of this kid who decided her first introduction to traditional school would be in seventh grade. Needless to say, my own experience of middle school was terrible. I say that it’s needless to say because ain’t that the truth for many of us. In particular I did have a bully in eighth grade so when my daughter dealt with some mean kids, I had to work very hard to recognize that her experience was not my experience. That her school was altogether a safer, more attentive environment than mine was. That she had parents who were involved and able to coach her through difficult social situations, while my parents were simply unable to be there for me in that way. In short, I had to recognize that her anxiety was not my fear and so she could safely confront it.

I didn’t need to pull her out of school. I didn’t need to march to the guidance counselor’s office and demand that they move my child to another classroom. I didn’t need to call up the other kids’ parents and ask for a mediation. In short, while our situations had similarities, my daughter was safe. She was anxious, for sure, but she was safe. And so we were able to come up with a plan that allowed her to confront her anxiety, deal with the bully, and grow stronger through the experience.

SWhen we check for safety around our child’s anxiety — when we stop and assess are they safe? Is their anxiety protective? Or is it limiting? We also need to check in and see if we need to address our own history and take care of some old wounds.

This is all very tricky. I often say that parenting is the most triggering thing you can do. It’s hard work. It’s heavy lifting. But ultimately I believe that our experiences in parenting are opportunities for growth and healing.

I think sometimes in an effort to be clear and concise, I send the message that anxiety is always and easily cured by exposure and that’s definitely an oversimplification. Anxiety is complex, people are complex. Exposures, frankly, are also complex. Addressing anxiety must be personalized and fit not just the individual but also the individual’s family. School refusal is one situation that brings up all of this. The child’s real experience, the child’s perceived experience, the child’s temperament, goodness of fit in the school, the family’s history, the family’s needs, the surrounding culture. And on and on and on.

There’s not one right way to do this. There’s not a singular best practice. It’s personal. If you need support, you know what to do. Reach out. Let’s talk.

What if my child’s anxiety is rooted in real fear? Read More »

Why do kids love to play about things that scare them?

Podcast

This is part of a longer question so let me set up the scenario for you. The parent has a 5-year old and this 5-year old saw part of a scary movie when they were visiting cousins. It sounds like it was a horror movie but the parent didn’t give a lot of details about it. In any case, the child is now obsessed with this movie particularly in their play. Like pretending to be the bad guy or pretending to run from the bad guy. But the child is also still clearly scared because they’re having trouble sleeping and say it’s because of the movie.

So why is that? Why do these themes come up in their play? If they find it so scary, then why do they keep coming back to it?

I’ve seen this with other kids around real life scenarios, for example, a child who saw a tree in their yard come down during a storm and becomes obsessed with the weather or makes a point of seeking out big trees on the playground. Or a child is scared of robbers at bedtime but always wants to play robbers at recess. Or you might be seeing this with your own child around Halloween decorations right now, being scared of them and also kind of obsessed with them.

To understand what’s going on here we need to understand how children process things. We process things by talking, right? If we have a worry we generally want to talk it out.

Children do this, too, but they also process things through play. The younger they are, the more we’ll see these themes — these anxious themes — show up in play. This is one reason why play therapists keep certain toys around, certain standard toys like a doctor’s kit. Lots of kids worry about the doctor and lots of kids need to process scary parts of it like getting shots and so doctor’s kits give them a way to do that.

I can’t tell you the number of kids who would spend their entire therapeutic hour giving me shots over and over again. They loved it and they would direct me to be scared. They’d say, “You have to get a shot and you should be crying.”

This is the way they work to make sense of it and also to give themselves some control over it.

Learning that we have control over our lives is one way we learn to manage our anxiety about what is NOT controllable. When children play with things that scare them or make them anxious, it helps them to explore it under their own steam. If a thing has happened TO them that they did not expect or welcome — like a falling tree, or a scary movie, or the sudden appearance of an animatronic witch in the yard of the house next door — talking about it helps them process and move through it.

But just like We may need to talk about it so much that we start to bore our friends or even ourselves children can get stuck in their play and may need our help to move on. They may need us to help solve the problem they’re repeating.

How can you tell? Given that repetitive play — like giving your therapists a million flu shots — can be part of processing, how can you tell when they’re stuck?

Look for small changes in their play. They may up the ante, like begin to give the shot more ferociously. Or they may start explaining more ahead of time. Or they may offer more comfort after the shot. Even small changes show that they are working with their fear and exploring its limits and its control.

What is their attitude about the play? Do they seem like they’re having fun? Are they gleeful? Or are they worried? Do they seem more upset after playing or do they seem relieved or ready to move on? Children may become “obsessed” with things that scare them. If they seem controlled by the play rather than controlling it, that’s Alan an indicator that they’re stuck.

If they don’t seem stuck, if their play seems enjoyable, if they’re mostly having fun and if you see changes however small, they likely don’t need our help.

If your child does seem trapped in their play then you can do things to help them get unstuck. You can show them a way out. IN the therapy room we use a lot of cages or other traps. I had a whole set of toys that represented typical childhood fears like skeletons and mean guys and spiders and zombies — and kids loved to put them in jail or bury them in the sand tray and put the lid on top.

You can offer that, too. Let your imagination go and think about ways to conquer fear through play.

Now one thing I want to mention is that sometimes anxious play can be upsetting to us. For example, a child may connect more with a bad guy. They may want to be Darth Vader in the big good vs evil battle. We might worry — why are they identifying with the wrong side? Well, the answer to that might be as simple as Darth Vader is kind of cool. He’s got a great voice and a cape. It also might be that pretending to be the thing that kind of scares us is a great way to master that fear. Pretending to be the robber means the robber can’t scare you anymore.

It’s just another way to process things.

This is also why at certain ages kids might be obsessed with fighting or weapons. They’re trying to feel safe. Play is a safe way to practice being safe. And it’s imaginary, remember that. It’s no more an expression of real wants and wishes than our watching Breaking Bad is a sign that we all want to cook meth. Adults play via video games, TV shows, and reading books, right? And kids play by playing.

Play — as long as no one is getting hurt — should have free range. Again, that means no one has to play when they don’t want to, no one should be forced to play in a way that they don’t like — but if everyone is safe and having fun then it’s fine. We adults sometimes get hung up on play — about what it means, about how it’s happening — but especially if we recognize play as a way to work through tough issues, we need to let kids do the things that they do.

Now one thing though. When we say “fun” in regards to play, it kind of diminishes the importance of play. Maybe I should use the term “satisfying” instead. Play is truly a child’s work. It is how they process and experience and learn to manage the world. It is vital. And it’s often outside of the understanding of adults who want play to be clean and clear and, I guess, nice. Play is not always nice. It’s serious. It’s important. It matters to children deeply.

If you want to read a good descriptions of play, check out the third chapter of the book Ramona the Brave. It’s a great book about child anxiety (if you haven’t read it or don’t remember, it’s the one where Ramona is afraid of the gorilla without bones) and the description of Ramona and her buddy Howie playing brick factory is a terrific reminder of what play can be. I’ll leave you with this short description of their play,

“Brick Factory, [is] a simple but satisfying game. Each grasped a rock in both hands and with it pounded a brick into pieces and the pieces into smithereens. The pounding was hard, tiring work. Pow! Pow! Pow! Then they reduced the smithereens to dust. Crunch, crunch, crunch. They were no longer six-year-olds. They were the strongest people in the world. They were giants.”
from Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary

Why do kids love to play about things that scare them? Read More »

Is it better to make my anxious child sleep on their own?

Podcast

Last week we talked about whether or not co-sleeping causes separation anxiety and concluded that no, it’s more complicated than that and this week’s question is related so I scheduled them right next to each other. This one is: Is it better to make my anxious child sleep on their own? Let’s go through the whole question with some details disguised to protect the confidentiality of the family. This family has an older child — older elementary — who wants to sleep with heir parents because when they sleep alone, they wake up afraid and come in. The parents find this disruptive for everyone’s sleep but also want to be supportive. They want to know, is it better to ask their child to sleep on their own even when they’re scared? Or is it better to give in and let them climb into bed with their parents.

As I said last week, this is a super common question so it’s no surprise it came up from two different families in the audience so close together.

Let’s get away from “better” as an adjective because it implies a “worse.” Instead let’s ask, “Which is more effective in supporting my child in their anxiety.”

Now you might remember last week I said that if a family is happy co-sleeping, then great. Go for it. But this family is not and I totally understand. It’s ok to want to sleep by yourself. Will you be doing your child damage if you insist on it? Even if they’re scared? No.

Let me explain more about that.

Sometimes parents share their concern that asking their child to face their fears will be traumatizing. So let’s talk about it.

First let’s consider the context of the parent-child relationship. Is this a relationship where the child is getting their basic physical and emotional needs met? Like are you supplying food, clothing, shelter, and basic emotional support? Is this relationship a safe place for your child to share their feelings? Is it safe for them to be less than perfect? Is there unconditional positive regard — a general love, respect, and acceptance for the child themselves? And note, this does not mean blanket approval for their behavior or every little thing they do, it means for themselves, who they are. So it’s perfectly ok to grouch about them leaving their dirty dishes in the sink. And it’s ok to not want them to climb into bed with you.

Rejecting behaviors is not the same thing as rejecting them.

In a generally loving, respectful relationship where children are generally getting their needs met there is not just room to demand more of them — like that they learn to sleep alone — it’s also necessary.

It is not traumatizing to be reminded that children are separate from their parents. They are meant to grow and to outgrow us. If they rely on us too much — beyond what is developmentally appropriate — that is more likely to be damage them than if we push. Gently but firmly pushing our kids is part of parenting. It’s a tricky balance. We want to push enough that the reluctant growers learn to grow but not so much that we push them beyond that which they are capable. And that’s where parents of anxious kids get stuck. But I want you to lean on that loving, respectful relationship. When they’re toddlers we stop them from running into the street even if they really want to, even if it makes them really mad. Right? We protect them and ask them to learn the rules by reminding them and they grow. They grow and learn the rules and learn not to run into the street and they might hate us in the moment but they don’t hate us. It doesn’t hurt the relationship.

Likewise, an anxious child who wants to co-sleep isn’t going to like it if their parents say no. But that doesn’t mean the parents should automatically say yes. Instead the parents can set those boundaries. When we say no to the anxious child, we are saying, “I believe you have the capacity to handle this. I believe you have the capacity to grow through it.”

Now some kids need more support. They need us to help them make a plan. This is what the child Anxiety Support program is all about. It’s about making that plan — with all the information and research we have about anxiety, with all the lessons I offer to better understand your child — and then executing that plan. With lots of help and opportunities to share anti-anxiety skills with your child. So. Jus know that if you’re struggling with that whole making a plan thing.

Back to trusting your relationship with your child

What we know is that connection mitigates trauma. This is something Bruce Perry teaches about in his neurosequential model. I’m going to simplify it by a lot with this example. Imagine you have two young children who both lost their homes in a fire. One child has been in and out of foster care, does not have a strong relationship with a caregiver and the other child is in a home with a loving, supportive and consistent good enough caregiver. We know that the child without strong relationships is going to struggle more with the trauma of the fire than the child who does have those safe, consistent caregivers. That’s because we are built to withstand trauma in the context of appropriate community. It doesn’t mean we won’t have trauma — it doesn’t mean that losing your house in a fire won’t bother you — but it means that this child will have greater capacity to heal.

Your child — in that generally loving, respectful relationship — can handle hard things like facing their anxiety. It doesn’t mean they’ll like it. It doesn’t mean they’ll be thrilled when you push them but it does mean that with a developmentally appropriate clear plan, strong supports, and realistic expectations they can indeed handle it.

When we don’t make a plan. When we continue to let their anxiety guide the family decision making, we are far more likely to be causing harm because what we’re doing is telling them that they’re right. They can’t handle it. They aren’t strong enough. It is too dangerous.

Now this doesn’t mean just kicking them out of the bedroom and telling them they’re on their own. Remember, I’m talking about making a plan. The plan says, I know it’ll be tough but you can handle it. Here’s what you can do instead. The plan says, You are strong enough. Here are some of the skills you can draw on. The plan says, you are safe and protected.

Again, if you’re having a hard time creating and sticking with a plan, that’s what my membership is all about.

Is it better to make my anxious child sleep on their own? Read More »

How do I change my anxious child?

How do we know when to push our anxious child and when not to push?

What if my child’s anxiety is rooted in real fear?

Why do kids love to play about things that scare them?

Is it better to make my anxious child sleep on their own?

94 to 99% of families are stuck in patterns that make their child's anxiety worse.

Are you?

Follow Me

October 2022

How do I change my anxious child?

How do we know when to push our anxious child and when not to push?

What if my child’s anxiety is rooted in real fear?

Why do kids love to play about things that scare them?

Is it better to make my anxious child sleep on their own?

94 to 99% of families are stuck in patterns that make their child's anxiety worse.Are you?

Follow Me

94 to 99% of families are stuck in patterns that make their child's anxiety worse.

Are you?