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2022

Why is that parents get blamed for their child’s anxiety?

Podcast

Well, frankly I think parents get blamed for everything when it comes to their kids. It’s not just anxiety it’s everything else. Parents get blamed for their kids who tantrum, or their kids who whine, or their kids who struggle in school, or their kids who struggle in life.

Parents just get blamed period. 

It’s tricky because our parenting does have a big impact on our children and our choices do shape who they are — I mean, I think it’s a lot of nature but that nature is shaped by the nurture. Basically I believe we are born with personalities and tendencies and preferences and strengths and those things are impacted by our environment, including our parents.

That makes us awfully powerful but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot that’s out of our control.

I think it’s important, too, to recognize the two-way street of parenting. We do shape our kids but they shape us as well.

There’s a lot of research about this but the information hasn’t really drifted down to commonsense understanding of the reality of parenting.

Some children are more difficult, more sensitive, more reactive than others and we have kids like that, we learn to handle them more gently, which can look like enabling them.

For example, lots of us rock our babies to sleep for a long time. Some babies grow out of it, some babies don’t. And some of us get trapped into remaining part of our child’s sleep routine — like laying down with them or staying in the room with them — until they’re ten or even older. If you talk to somebody about that, they might say it’s your fault for always staying with them. That you shouldn’t have started that so-called bad habit of laying down with them. But if you’ve got a toddler or a preschooler who desperately needs sleep and who falls apart if you’re not with them then of course you’re going to stay with them. It works until it doesn’t. 

It’s not the parents fault that there is now a 10-year old who can’t sleep alone. I think we have to stop thinking about blame and fault and instead say, “Is that still working?” Does the parent still want to lay down with them? Is it preventing the 10-year old from gaining some new skills that they’re going to need? Are they missing out on slumber parties? Is the parent missing out on adult time? 

Basically it worked and now it doesn’t. It’s not helpful to say, “You shouldn’t have done it in the first place” because that’s not even true. You do what works until it doesn’t and then you do something different.

That’s why I say it’s not your fault but it is your responsibility. As parents, when we need or want change, we will have to upend our routines in order to create change.

It’s not our fault if a ten year old still can’t sleep alone but we will need to take action if our child is stuck and we or they are suffering for it. 

I know parents feel guilty when they realize that they are responsible for changing things up because they look back and say, “I should have done it differently.” But that’s not helpful. You did it that way — whatever way it was — because it worked or else you thought it would work. I mean, it made sense for you to do it that way. Now it doesn’t make sense. So now you get to reassess and do things differently. That’s all. No blame. It’s not your fault but it is your responsibility.

There are lots of things like that. Maybe we used to play tennis but now our knees hurt so we start taking swimming instead. Tennis was great until it wasn’t. It’s not our fault we have bad knees and it wasn’t a bad idea to play tennis. It was a good idea until swimming became a better idea. You wouldn’t beat yourself up for playing tennis? Or at least I hope you wouldn’t. So I hope you can find a way to not beat yourself up if you realize your parenting needs to change, too.

When it comes to anxiety it’s super easy to get stuck in patterns and routines that make things worse. Remember 94 to 99% of all parents with anxious kids and teens get stuck, which means you are NOT alone. But you have the opportunity to learn from these stats, to learn from the research and figure out what you’re going to do to change things up.

When we know better we get the opportunity to DO better.

And if we know better and choose NOT to do better? Well, then we need to take a long hard look at what’s stopping us.

In my work with parents I can say that the common barriers to upending anxious patterns are:

  • Lack of information, parents don’t know what to do or how to do it even if they know that something has to change;
  • Lack of support, all that blame they get isn’t helpful and is often hurtful;
  • Their child’s behavior, which tends to get worse when parents try to shift things up.

What happens is the family continues to struggle, everyone and their brother has advice to give, which only makes things more confusing, and the parents feel worse, which makes change that much harder. 

I will tell you right now, that anyone with solid training on supporting anxious kids and their families knows that you got here not because you care too little but because you care, period. You care about your kids, you’re trying to do right by them, and parenting an anxious child is confusing and exhausting. It’s hard to make the right decisions when those decisions aren’t always clear and you’re ground down by the reality of parenting an anxious child. 

But I want you to remember that you did not create your child’s anxiety, that the patterns that we fall into are ones that are common and understandable, and you can do things differently when you’re ready. Note I said when you’re ready, which might be before your child is ready but we can plan for that, too.

Just because what you’re doing is no longer working doesn’t mean you’re not doing a good job. It means that you and your child are growing and your parenting needs to grow, too. That’s all. No shame. No blame. Just the facts

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Am I being protective or over protective?

Podcast

This week’s question came from a parent who is trying to figure out how to support their anxious child and reached out to me with a more complex and personal version of the question, “am I being protective or over protective when I try to support my anxious child.”

Here’s the thing, one family’s protective is another family’s over protective because we can’t take a particular behavior out of the context of a particular family and say, “That is always right” or “that is always wrong.” 

Anxious children come in all shapes, sizes, ages, and developmental needs. Families, too, have different expectations and values. In one family, choosing to homeschool due to a child’s anxiety is overprotection and in another family it’s a great idea. So how do we know the difference for ourselves? Or at least how can we start figuring it out? 

Ok first we have to back up and remember what this whole parenting gig is all about and that’s raising humans to grow up and live their own best lives, right? That’s parenting in a nutshell. And we know, from just looking around us, that there are a whole lot of versions of best lives out there. So part of this parenting and growing up is figuring that out — what version? What are our children’s strengths that we can play to? What are their challenges that we can help them confront and overcome or learn to work with them? 

As they grow, we continuously reassess. Our children change, our values as a family sometimes change, and certainly circumstances can change. Any of that means we go back to the drawing board and say, “Is this still working? Are we still moving forward? Is my child still making progress however that’s meant to look?”

Back to protections, protect should protect; not limit. Overprotections limit. Overprotections keep kids stagnant and stuck whileProtections keep them safe and encourage growth. 

A general example would be making your typically developing preschooler hold your hand when you cross the street is protection. Making your typically developing 12-year old hold your hand when you cross the street is overprotection. That’s easy, right? That’s very clear. We know what to expect from preschoolers and we know what to expect from 12-year olds and we understand the mechanics of crossing the street.

Things get trickier when we’re talking about expectations that are more complicated or nuanced such as managing social media, or navigating romantic relationships, or figuring out how to deal with anxiety.

In cases like that, where it feels more complicated, I encourage you to step back and ask yourself these questions:

  • What are my goals for my child around this topic? 
  • What skills around this topic will they need when they’re adults? 
  • How can I help them to begin to build those skills now in ways that are developmentally appropriate?

If what we’re doing is not building those the skills that we know they need, then it might be overprotection. Remember, protections protect but leave room for skill building and over protection limits, it doesn’t find ways to give kids the opportunity to learn the skills they will need as adults.

This is so hard when we’ve got anxious kids who don’t want to learn those skills. Who are perfectly happy with you managing things for them. Again, step back and think about your child as an adult. Think about what they need now to get them there, to adulthood with the skills that they need whether they like it or not.

This doesn’t mean that you let an 8-year old fend for themselves when they’re scared anymore then you’d let a preschooler cross a busy street without teaching them how traffic works. But it does mean that at a certain point you’re going to ask them to do the things they need to do, knowing that you’ve given them the support and information that will allow them to do it.

For example, if you’ve got a 12 year old who reasonably knows how to cross the street but doesn’t want to, then you might insist. You might say something like, “I don’t have time to walk you to the ice cream shop to get you that milkshake so if you want to get a milkshake you’ll need to get there on your own.” And we’d say that with the full confidence that we’ve given them the knowledge and skills to accomplish that safely. 

They might be scared. They might insist they don’t know how to do it. But a milkshake might be just the incentive they need to find out they can.

When it comes to anxiety, we might need help drilling down to the small steps and small skills they need. We might need help understanding what’s protective and what’s over protective because some anxious kids are pretty dramatic. I don’t mean this in a dismissive way at all. I mean that their fight, flight or freeze is so big or so consuming that it’s hard for us to get perspective and know whether or not what we’re asking of them is reasonable. That’s all part of the planning and work of supporting and raising anxious kids.

If you are feeling stuck or your child is feeling stuck, know that this is part of the anxiety process. Feeling stuck just comes with the territory and usually means we need to stop and reassess what we’re doing and whether or not we’re off track in helping our child acquire those skills they’re going to need. If you need help with that. Let me know. 



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Is my child manipulating me?

Podcast

This week’s question is, “Is my child really anxious? Or are they just manipulating me?” This is one of the questions I ask in the Parenting Pitfalls quiz because it’s one way I assess for patterns of anxiety in a family — that is whether or not people tell you that your child is manipulating you or if you wonder if they’re manipulating you. So let’s talk about that a little bit.

First of all, when people use the word manipulation to talk about a child’s behavior, what I know for certain is that family is struggling. Manipulation is another word for “doing things to get what we want” but it’s a really negative word. The truth is, we all do things to get what we want. We may be extra nice to our boss even if we’re annoyed by them because we want to get a raise. Or we might pretend to like a book we dislike so that other people in our bookclub will think we’re smart. 

According to Kohlberg’s moral development, children tend to behave selfishly until around the age of 7. They are reward oriented — behaving in ways that serve them rather than because it’s the right thing to do and they are selfish — looking out for their own self interest rather than ways to serve others. Now I know you’re going to give me examples of your child’s selflessness at younger than seven. It’s not that they don’t do lovely things like give a toy to their sibling, or bring you flowers, or give up the last cookie because their friend is crying — it’s that they do those things because they want to. They want your praise, they want your approval, they want their friend to play instead of cry. This again, is developmentally appropriate. And we help them learn our moral code with that praise and approval. That’s part of the teaching we do. 

I’ll tell a story about my daughter here with her permission to illustrate this. When she was about five she figured out that if I said no to something like a popsicle just before dinner, she could get a popsicle by going to her dad and looking very sad and saying, “Gee, I sure wish I could have a popsicle” and he’d say, “Well, go have one then.” Of course she was manipulating him because she wasn’t telling him the whole truth by explaining why she didn’t have one. But that’s typical manipulation. She didn’t know that lying by omission was a thing. We had to tell her that. If anything she was showing some good problem solving and people skills. 

From 8 to 13, their moral code is still about meeting rules and getting praise. Kids want approval. They are growing into the idea that morality can be more personal and that the greater good may sometimes mean they will miss out but they definitely haven’t mastered it. Heck, we adults struggle with this so of course we can expect children to still be learning and exploring what it means to behave in a moral manner.

Back to manipulation. Manipulation, as in manipulating people to get your own way, isn’t a moral issue for kids the way it is for us. A child who is anxious and who is avoiding through fight or flight or freeze, is definitely trying to get their own way. If they don’t want to do the scary thing like sleep alone, or talk in class, or go to the baseball game then they may meltdown, cry they may threaten to hurt themselves, they may punch someone or punch a wall and then parents often give in. Is the child being manipulative? Is the child really that scared? That in danger? Or are they pretending to be to get their way?

My take is it kind of doesn’t matter. We need to take threats seriously, always, especially when there is threat of harm. They might be exaggerating their threats but exaggerated threats have resulted in real harm when we don’t take them seriously. They are trying to get us to take their fears seriously and yes, they may blow those fears up so that we will. 

That doesn’t mean we help them avoid. It may mean we need to start smaller in addressing their anxiety because the big stuff is too big at the moment. Or it may mean that we need to create a plan that keeps kids and other people and things safe even as we continue to challenge their avoidance. (I will add that when a child blows up their fears so we take it seriously, they are also blowing those fears up for themselves. I don’t know how many of you read Anne of Green Gables. But there’s a chapter where she’s imagined a haunted forest and she’s done such a good job of imagining it that she is terrified to walk through the woods. Her imagination has run away with her. Our anxious kids do this, too. And sometimes that manipulative behavior may raise things to another level not just for us but for them.)

So I guess what I’m saying is that the question isn’t helpful because a child can be both anxious and manipulative and being manipulative doesn’t mean that your child’s struggle isn’t real.

When things get to this level of crisis, it’s time to get help. This is just such a difficult place to be as a parent and as the child or teen whose behaviors have become so damaging. 

If you’re curious where your family falls in the Parenting Pitfall quiz, which is about the family patterns that keeps us stuck in child or teen anxiety, I’d love for you to come by the site and take the quiz. If you have questions about your results, let me know. You’ll also have the opportunity to sign up for the free Get Yourself Grounded email course when you complete the quiz but you don’t have to fill anything out — like your name or email — just to take it or to get the results. 

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Is it ok if I miss school because of anxiety?

Podcast

This is  from a message I received on the podcast page from a young teen, facing down the start of school and feeling overwhelmed. I don’t have more info from this person about their anxiety like how it started or the shape of it or how they’ve dealt with it so far. I do know that they’re going to be a sophomore this upcoming year and that they are looking for support to tell their parents that it’s ok for them to take a break when they need it.

First, young friend, I’m sorry that you’re struggling. I also struggled with going to school at around your age and used to beg my mom to let me stay home. I want you to know that I hear you and I support you in figuring this out. I hope that you will continue to talk to your parents and I encourage you to think about getting counseling. If your parents aren’t willing or able to help you connect with a counselor, I hope you will reach out to your guidance counselor at school. And if that doesn’t feel accessible or appropriate to you, there are lots of great workbooks about anxiety and you can look on Amazon at reviews or go to the library to check them out. 

The important thing for you to know is that ultimately anxiety needs to be faced. I don’t mean in a pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of way or a tough love kind of way, I mean that the cure for anxiety is learning to deal with your anxiety. That’s the crux of it. How you do that is very personal and doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Just hold it in your mind that facing your anxiety is going to ultimately help and then you can think about how best to do it.

Some of us face anxiety in the same way we get into a cold pool — we just jump right in. We let ourselves get kind of smacked in the face with the discomfort and hang in there until we acclimate. 

That is not me. That’s not generally how I do it. I’m a slow to warm person and when I get in a pool, I get in at the shallow end and creep my way towards the deep end slowly, slowly getting used to the water until it feels comfortable.

Both ways are totally legit. Both ways end up with us fully in the pool. So you get to think about the way you want to acclimate to anxiety. Most of us who are anxious are shallow end people. Our anxiety is so big and can feel so overwhelming that we need to start small. That’s just fine.

Which leads me to school. Again, I don’t know the details of your specific anxiety experience so I’m going to take about school refusal in a general way and I hope that you can make sense of it in the context of your unique experience.

Generally school refusal in the teen years is about social anxiety. For me there was some of that and also just a general disillusionment about school. It was hard to feel motivated to go when I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of it. Looking back, I wish I had reached out to the guidance counselor more and talked to them about what I needed to see if they could help me figure it out. That’s why I mention that as a first step. 

But the social anxiety piece, that was complicated by some bullying I experienced in seventh and eighth grade that colored the way I saw my peers. That may be part of your experience, too, and if so my heart goes out to you. I want you to hear and to know that school is NOT representative of the so-called real world it’s preparing you for. School is school. Yes, there may always be mean people you’ll have to deal with but you’ll have more freedom to figure out HOW you want to deal with it when you’re an adult. OK? It really does get better and the people who say that your teen years are the best years of your life, well, I feel bad for them because their best years are behind them. For most of us, the teen years are tough years and life gets better as we get older. Truly. I’m telling you being a grown up isn’t as scary as you might think and actually is a lot of fun.

All right, back to anxiety. 

Here’s the deal about missing school because of anxiety. When we avoid things because we are anxious about them, we are rewarding that avoidance so it gets harder and harder to face the scary thing. Avoidance begets avoidance. So I’m not able to advocate that as a coping mechanism.

That said, we can also consider what school is offering you. School is about academics and it’s about socializing. If a particular school experience is a poor fit for someone and that’s causing anxiety — like if the bullying is making school unsafe or a child or teen has learning needs that aren’t being addressed by the school — then pulling that person from school might make sense IF we have a plan for academics and socializing.

In other words, I wouldn’t recommend that a child or teen leave school to do fully online school alone at home without any social opportunities. And I do mean face-to-face opportunities, not just online ones.

Being online is fine, having online friends is great, but we all need the practice of socializing in real life.

We need to figure out how to manage social expectations around eye contact and back and forth conversation. That’s not to say that there is just one way to do that. I often talk to families whose children are neurodiverse and their needs are different and that’s fine. An autistic person shouldn’t be forced to mask but they do need to figure out how they want to support themselves while navigating social life. Like do they want to mask, do they want to work on specific social skills, do they want to figure out how to find a community that doesn’t demand this of them. Which is to say learning how and if you want to fit into the mainstream world is part of the job of growing up but also finding the places in the world that loves and accepts you is important, too. And those places do exist. 

For example, sometimes when I’m working with families, we’re talking about ways to find a social support system for their child that will let their child be exactly who they are without demanding that they be different. There are spaces like this. They can be harder to find especially for people who live in small communities, but they’re out there. 

Some of us do best with a wide circle of friends but lots of us are happy to have one or two people who really get us and can support us. That might mean finding a tutor who understands how we learn and can help us work with our skills and talents. That might mean finding a mentor who shares our passion for a specific hobby or topic. 

If leaving school doesn’t make sense or truly isn’t available and you’re going to have to go, I still think looking outside of school for pro-social opportunities can help us deal with the social demands of school. It’s not as painful to eat alone in the cafeteria if we know that after school we’re going to go to the library and hang with our D&D group or go to choir practice or whatever activity where we can remember that school is not the end all and be all of our experience.

I know that’s big work and we’re talking about the day to day coping in going to school when you are anxious and would rather stay home. 

Remember the metaphor of the pool. Think about ways to take baby steps. Again, your guidance counselor can be a help here. I hope they are. And parents can be advocates. And if you have one teacher who seems to get you, reach out to them. Back to baby steps. What do you need to get through your day at school. If you painted your ideal day at school — acknowledging that you’d rather not be at school but let’s just paint your ideal day there — what would help? Is it breaks? Is it being able to listen to your music sometimes? Is it being allowed to wear sunglasses or your hood up? Is there a particular class that is more challenging? Mapping our your day may help you come up with some specific coping tools to ease you into that cold swimming pool. 

But full on avoidance isn’t it. Basically you’re going to need to think about how to face your anxiety as best you can. 

I wish I could give you more specific advice but obviously that’s beyond the scope of a podcast so I hope that I’ve given you some places to start and some ideas. I’m thinking of you and know that other members of the listening audience are thinking of you, too. 

If you need crisis support, please call 988 for local resources and help.

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Is failure to launch caused by anxiety?

Podcast

First let’s talk about what failure to launch is. What do we mean when we use that term? Failure to launch is generally used to describe a young adult child who is struggling with the transition to adulthood.

Maybe they’re struggling to get a job, to get their own housing. Maybe they meant to enroll in school and haven’t been able to or have dropped out. Sometimes parents talk about their adult children who have difficult connecting with people their own age or out in the quote real world. Perhaps they aren’t keeping up with their responsibilities at home like cooking for themselves or their family or cleaning up after themselves.

But failure to launch in itself isn’t a diagnosis. It’s more of a cultural description about our social expectations for older teens and young adults and the way that some individuals struggle with these expectations.

And speaking of culture, failure to launch only exists in the context of these expectations. Some families may expect adult children to live at home for some time. Some parents may have different goals for their adult children. But when I hear parents use that term — failure to launch — I understand what they’re describing is their family’s frustration and worry about that adult child’s functioning. And that adult child may share that worry or may not.

So why might an adult child struggle in this way?

Well, we need to acknowledge that there are factors outside of the individual that may create these problems. For example, it’s a lot more difficult to move out on your own then when I was a young adult. Back then minimum wage in Ohio was $3.35 and my share of the rent was $187.50. Now minimum wage here is $9.30 but if I lived in that apartment today my share of the rent would be around $1200. Which is to say it was much easier to launch in the past. So let’s definitely acknowledge that.

Now back to the original question, is failure to launch caused by anxiety? And the answer is maybe. Sure, sometimes. Or anxiety may play a part. Like all things, it’s complicated.

But let’s talk about anxiety, specifically young adult anxiety that keeps that person feeling trapped at home longer than they want or perhaps longer than their parents want. Yes, that’s a thing. Absolutely. And it deserves care and attention.

One of the reasons I don’t like the term “failure to launch” is because of its emphasis on FAILURE. And my experience in working with those families is that everyone is already feeling overwhelmed with the idea of failure. Parents are dealing with criticism — why haven’t you kicked that kid out of there already? Why are you holding them back? And certainly the young adults themselves are facing their own sense of failure in not accessing whatever it is they believe they should be able to access by now. Failure just isn’t really a helpful way to frame it. Instead, like all developmental challenges in growing up, we can consider where and how people are getting stuck. 

If we’re talking about anxiety specifically, the idea of failure is going to make everyone much more anxious. I think it’s more helpful to talk about lagging skills. That is to say, that the adult child is needing to work on and improve specific skills that will help them move on and launch. 

We’ve said before that anxiety is about avoidance and it’s also about dread. I hear more and more and more from older teens who have very real dread about the future. And it’s no wonder if you glance at the news. They’re worried about being able to handle the demands and some of them become so overwhelmed that they freeze. That’s anxiety. What they need from us is help to face those fears, tolerate the distress of stepping out of their comfort zone, and adults who believe in them.

As parents, when children — even adult children — are struggling or have struggled or have faced very real challenges and setbacks, it’s hard not to steel ourselves for more of that. We may unintentionally send a message that they are not prepared to handle the quote “real world” end quote. We may do this by rescuing them or by second guessing their choices when they do make an attempt to reach out. We may try to take charge by calling their bosses or college instructors or making ourselves necessary when really we’re supposed to be making ourselves obsolete. 

These are hard lessons for parents. Again, with anxiety, it makes sense that we fall into these parenting pitfalls where we mean to help and instead perpetuate the anxiety. If we do too much caretaking, too much interfering, too much helping we end up sending the message that they can’t handle things on their own.

What I’ve heard some parents say when we talk about this is, But what if they CAN’T handle things on their own. What if they really can’t? Well, then we work on creating baby steps to move them forward and to put ourselves out of a job. It’s not an easy 1 – 2 – 3 kind of plan. It’s a tricky, sticky, deeply individualized plan.

I’d recommend that the adult child get their own counseling and that the parents get education and support, too, separately but complementary. The adult child has their own work to do but the parents will need to learn and understand how they can best support them in reaching their goals. If the adult child is unwilling to get counseling, the parents can still do their part and get their own help.

The SPACE program, which Child Anxiety Support is partially based on, has been shown to be effective in helping families who are struggling with launching. You can see what I have to offer or go to spacetreatment.net to find other practitioners doing this work.

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How do you distinguish between ADHD and anxiety in children?

Podcast

This is a great question because ADHD — Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder — is often co-occuring with anxiety in kids and in adults but they can also look very similar. Let’s dig into that a little bit. Let’s talk about the ways anxiety can look similar to ADD or ADHD? Well, some of the symptoms show up in both diagnosis. Symptoms like:

  • Fidgeting
  • Distraction
  • Difficulty keeping track of things
  • Do not seem to listen
  • Problems staying focused
  • Problems staying organized
  • Forgetfulness
  • Impulsivity

These symptoms are present in ADD and ADHD because the child’s brain works differently. They tend to struggle with executive functioning, which basically means the part of their brain that does the planning and organizing works differently than neurotypical people. People with ADD/ADHD may be able to hold a lot of thoughts at once — I tell kids it means they have a busy brain — and tend to struggle with staying on task. This can be confusing since they also are able to hyper focus, which means to put all of their attention on one thing no matter what else is going on. This is the child who can lose themselves in building legos even if there is a literal tornado going on around them. 

Ok back to the symptoms that are also present in Anxiety.

Anxious children may also fidget, get distracted, have trouble focusing, listening, being organized and keeping track of things. They may be forgetful. This is because they are on high alert. Anxious children are often keyed up. They may be quick to respond to perceived threats so may seem impulsive. They may also struggle with executive functioning because their planning, organized brain is off-line since they are living in their more reactive brain. Anxious children may spend a lot of time in fight, flight, or freeze mode and so they aren’t thinking with their calm, cool and collected higher order brain.

It gets even more complicated when we consider that about one third of those who are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD also meet criteria for an anxiety diagnosis. There are some studies that indicate that number might be even higher.

Let’s consider why this might be true.

First of all, we live in a world where we expect people to have neurotypical brains. That means our systems — our schools, our workplaces, our childcare centers, our parenting books — assume that we all have brains that function like the average brain. Those children and teens whose brains work differently have to contend with being quote WRONG end quote. They may not get the circle time activities, or appreciate the social nuances of middle school. They may not get why the workplace protocol operates the way it does. They may feel like square pegs getting shoved into round holes and that can create real anxiety. If they feel that they are always missing the point or missing the boat, that’s going to make them feel anxious about their day to day functioning. 

Think of a child who struggles with impulsivity. They are the kids who are reaching out to touch the museum display before you can tell them, “Don’t touch!” They are often in trouble and aren’t sure why or how to be different. You can see how it would make a person anxious, right?

The other thing is that this high impulsivity — this immediate jump from a thought to a behavior — can also happen with an immediate jump from a thought to another more anxious thought. If a child has anxiety and has ADD/ADH, they are more likely for feelings to run away with them. If they think about a dinosaur, they may immediately go to thinking about being eaten by a dinosaur. That executive functioning that helps them slow down and be logical isn’t as strong as that impulsivity. 

Remember in previous episodes we’ve talked about the information processing bias the comes with anxiety — anxious brains tend to be more negative, spotting potential danger even in neutral situations. As you can imagine, when ADD/ADHD is also present, it’s simply easier to jump to the worst possible conclusion more quickly.

Where it definitely matters is when we’re thinking about medication. Stimulant medication, which we use to treat ADD/ADHD, can make anxiety worse. But that’s a discussion to have with your doctor. 

It also matters when we’re talking about school accommodations since your child or teen will need to have an assessment and diagnosis in order to inform the IEP or 504 plans.

But when it comes to treatment, we’re addressing the child and their symptoms and having a clear diagnosis may help with case conceptualization but those of us who work with kids tend to expect things to overlap and be complicated. Knowing if it’s anxiety or if it’s ADD/ADHD may be less important than trying things to see if they’ll work. Sometimes it’s in trying things that we learn what is the most pressing issue. I can think of times when I was working with a child who came to me with an ADD/ADHD diagnosis and as we dove in and made plans with their parents to address their concerns and their child’s challenges, we were able to figure out where anxiety was most present and how to address it with each individual child. In other words, often it is through working with the child that we are able to make recommendations for a better diagnosis and case conceptualization.

How do you distinguish between ADHD and anxiety in children? Read More »

How do I make a decision about anxiety medication for my child?

Podcast

This is not a question that I can easily answer for the podcast because not only am I not a prescriber, but I haven’t met your child or teen. 

I personally feel very cautious about treating child anxiety with medication andI definitely don’t think you should rely on a podcast for that information. Think of this just as a kind of intro; ultimately you need to reach out to your child’s doctor and talk to them about it.

When you’re thinking about medication for your child, what that means obviously is that you and your child are struggling in some way and you’re wanting to know how best to help. 

It’s important to understand that medication is not a cure for anxiety. It’s not like having a headache and taking ibuprofen, and then you feel better. Medication is part of an anxiety treatment plan.

Not every child who meets clinical criteria for an anxiety diagnosis is going to need or benefit from medication. Again, this is very personal. It depends very much on the child and on their environment and on what else might be going on.

The first thing you should do. Is make sure that what you’re dealing with, what your child is dealing with is in fact anxiety.

Anxiety sometimes gets misdiagnosed as other things. Other things sometimes get misdiagnosed as anxiety. So if you’re considering medication, your child is going to need a thorough assessment from someone who is able to do that, and that would be a counselor or a social worker, a psychologist. 

If you wanted to a full neuro psych workup, that would be someone who is sitting with your child and doing a full assessment of how their brain works, how they might be struggling, what their strengths are. Honestly, I think that is really your best bet when you’re thinking about medication, because a neuro psych is going to be qualified to also diagnose ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Counselors, and social workers are able to do some of that depending on their training, but a neuro psych has that background and the ability to do the full workup. If your child is seeing a counselor, obviously that counselor will know them really well but a neuro-psych is doing a more formal assessment. 

Before you go to medication, it’s important that you try other avenues first. Having your child meet with a counselor for treatment would be a great thing to do. 

Talk therapy, play therapy, basically cognitive behavioral therapy in whatever form is most accessible for your child is a first step in treatment. Also, and you know that I’m going to mention this, you getting your support in order to make sure that your family is creating the healthiest systems for your anxious child is also a first course of treatment. 

A program like mine or another kind of support group, working with your own counselor, family therapy — these are all things to do to make sure that your child is getting the skills that they need. Those are the first steps before you look at medication. 

If it does turn out that it is an appropriate treatment for your child, there is no one who will say, just give your kids the meds and don’t do anything else because meds are only part of it. our child is also going to need to learn their skills. You are going to have to need to learn your skills. And then together with the people who are helping your family, you can start thinking about medication. 

I’m going to link here to a PDF made available by the American academy of child and adolescent psychiatry. That is their specific guide  on treating anxiety disorders with medication, and they’re going to give you information about what medications are available and how they work and how to get access to them. 

A really important thing to know is that there aren’t really a lot of medications that are FDA approved for children, particularly younger children. Now that said there are medications that people use off-label that means it hasn’t specifically been approved for the treatment of kids by the FDA. But there are studies that show that they can be effective and the physician prescribing it believes they can be effective. They are using evidence-based information to make that decision. But you do need to know that because as you’re making your decisions, you should have all the facts right in front of you.

If the child or teenoes meet criteria for medication to be part of their treatment plan the goal is the calm down the anxiety enough for them to access their other treatment, their counseling, their cognitive behavioral therapy and the skills that you’re working at at home, 

That is to say that medication alone is not the recommended form of treatment for kids; it’s medication, along with something else.  

You need to have a plan for who else is going to be supporting your child. What is the plan to get them off medication eventually? Is that going to be part of the plan? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t — that’s between you and your child’s prescribe and of course your child, as they get older and have more decision-making about their medication. But sometimes we’re going to use medication  or a shorter time so the child can access those skills with the hope to eventually take them off their medication. 

Sometimes we’re doing medication for a very short time over specific anxious periods, such as the child who needs to get on a plane or is dealing with short term things that are really difficult. 

Generally when children are prescribed for anxiety, they are given antidepressants and those are the SSRI. Or the SNRI and those change the chemical neurotransmitters in their brain to help regulate anxiety, mood, and social behavior.  

Children who are on SSR eyes, sometimes show an increase of suicidal ideation.  Don’t be so alarmed by that, that you say, absolutely I am not going to allow my child to get on medication. No, it just means that if medication is appropriate for your child, you need to have a plan about that and in that case, I do strongly recommend counseling. 

If the child is on SSRI, I think that it is just that much more important to make sure they’re in counseling. So there’s someone else’s eyes on them, someone who is trained to assess for suicidality and who can support your family in just keeping an eye on your child. 

Another medication that sometimes children are prescribed are Benzodiazepines, we sometimes call those benzos. Those are used for short-term treatment because they can be addictive. And also sometimes the prescriber will say we’re just going to use Benadryl. So if the child is scared of flying and they need to take a flight, That the doctor may say, we’re just going to do some Benadryl or we’re going to do some beta blockers or something like that. 

Those are short term solutions, the SSRI. And SNR eyes tend to be longer-term solution. Benzos, benadryl things like that are kind of one-off medications that might be used in specific circumstances.

Again, these are things you need to talk about with doctor with because treating anxiety is complicated, which goes to, how do you find someone to prescribe this for your kids? 

If your child is going to get medication for mental health then that prescribers should be someone with a psychiatric background, whether that’s an actual child psychiatrist, or a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I think it’s best to go with those kinds of doctors because they do get more training about psychiatric medication and specifically how to prescribe those for growing kids and how to change things up as the child continues to grow. 

I know it can be hard to find a prescriber and sometimes the wait lists are really long so first I encourage you to go to your child’s general practitioner or pediatrician and start the conversation. They may be able to get you in somewhere more quickly. They may feel comfortable making those prescriptions themselves and supervising them and then that’s a conversation to have with them. Why they feel comfortable doing that, how they would know if they weren’t comfortable doing that, what are special things you need to look for?  

I think it’s also important to know that all of us who work with anxious kids, anxious families. We are seeing them through the lens of our background. Because I have a clinical, mental health counseling background, I see it through the lens of counseling. How can I support families in shifting those patterns? What kind of psycho-education can I offer what is the longterm treatment plan and bringing those skills to kids? 

However, when you talk to a medical prescriber, they’re going to see it through the context of their medical training and background. So they may recommend meds and maybe that’s the right choice, maybe it isn’t, but that is how they’re going to see it. They’re going to see it from a medication standpoint. 

You get to ultimately make the decision for your kid. You can talk to a therapist and you should, you can talk to a doctor and you should, you can talk to your child’s teacher, their school counselor, but ultimately you’re going to make the decision. So ask yourself, What is the information I am missing that will help me make that decision. What are the questions I have that need to be answered? What are the concerns that I need to have addressed? And I think it’s really important when we’re talking about meds to say. How will we know if it’s not working? What will our plan B be? And how will we get the child off them? If this is going to be a temporary plan? 

I hope this was helpful if you have other questions please post them and I’ll be happy to answer them on a future podcast

How do I make a decision about anxiety medication for my child? Read More »

How do I help a child with separation anxiety go to sleep?

Podcast

How do I help a child with separation anxiety go to sleep?

I like this question because the person answering it already knows something that a lot of parents miss, which is that sometimes our bedtime challenges with kids have to do with separation anxiety.

Now remember anxiety is more than a preference. Lots of children would prefer to sleep with their parents or have their parents lay down with them to help them fall asleep. And this is absolutely fine as long as it’s fine for the family. Bedtime routines and co-sleeping are personal family choices and if it’s working for the family, great. The concern is when it’s not working for the family. The concern is when

—A parent wants time alone in the evening and can’t get that time because they have to lay down with their kids

—Or when parents and kids are losing sleep

—or when a child would like to go to a slumber party or sleepovers at a grandparents house but they’re afraid and so are reluctantly missing out.

It’s also ok to focus on change because the parents want change. MaybeThey’re sick of laying down with their kids, they’re sick of tantrums when they try to leave, they want their beds back to themselves and can’t get their kids to move out. 

Often the parents I talk to feel guilty because when they push their children to sleep on their own, the kids seem truly unhappy and afraid. the parents may worry that their own need for space or time alone or privacy is selfish.

To that I say, if it’s not working then it’s not working. And the answer isn’t always that parents  just have to suck it up, buttercup. No. This is especially true when we’re talking about anxiety — if we’ve identified separation anxiety as the issue — then it needs attention because anxiety does NOT get better without a plan. 

If you’re not sure whether or not it’s separation anxiety you can look to see if worries about separation are present in other areas for the family 

For example a child who struggles with playdates or getting dropped off at school. Perhaps the parent has trouble leaving the house without the child. I’ve talked to parents whose kids will chase the car down the road because they don’t want their parents to leave.  

Sometimes parents report to me that they aren’t able to go down to the basement to do laundry or that their child will check in if the parent is in the shower for too long. 

But often the problem starts with sleep issues. (I’ll say as an aside, if it’s not anxiety and is a preference — if separation anxiety isn’t present anywhere else — it’s still ok to change things up if you need things to change. It’ll probably just be a bit easier.)

Starting with sleep can make sense for anxiety intervention because it is a regular routine for the family. Remember that anxiety is about avoidance and what the child wants to avoid is separation from you so what you’re going to need to do is separate. 

This sounds simple but of course it’s complicated. In the child Anxiety Support program, specifically the Strong Kids, Strong Families course, we talk about the way to design a personalized plan to address your child’s anxiety. 

The plan needs to include what to do when things go badly. This isn’t pessimistic, it’s realistic. Children who don’t want to do things that scare them will try not to do them. They will cry, they will beg and plead, they may meltdown and get destructive. We need to know what to do when this happens. We need to recognize it as an anxiety response and prepare to care for our kids through it. And for ourselves. 

It’s not easy to see our children struggle and it’s not easy to be the target of that struggle. Not only will we feel impatient and even angry, we also are likely to feel guilty or worried that what we’re doing will somehow harm our child. When we plan for the worst case scenario then we are ready to lovingly, respectfully and supportively address the anxiety.  We know what to do. We already have a response plan in place.

Every child and family and parent is different so your plan needs to make sense for your child and for you and it needs safe for everyone. 

I remember talking to a parent about addressing sleep issues with their child and as they talked through their fears about what might happen, they recognized that some of their fears were unrealistic. 

They also realized that like their child, they were avoiding their own anxiety. Just as their child was avoiding separation because they were anxious about being alone, the parent was avoiding upsetting their child because the parent was anxious about their child’s meltdowns. 

This is why the process is so important; not only are you helping your child to face their anxiety, you are learning to address and manage your own anxiety about your child. This is good stuff. It’s why facing child anxiety heals the whole family.

You might notice here that the first step in helping a child with separation anxiety go to sleep — which was the original question — is not focusing on sleep. It’s focusing on the anxiety. Sleep comes later. Sometimes much later. Sometimes much later that night — I would assume people were going to get to bed late the night that start their intervention — and sometimes much later in the process.

But not always. Often when kids get a taste of their ability to face their fears, they do better. They get stronger. They grow more quickly. It depends on the child, it depends on the plan, it depends on the parents ability to execute that plan, and it depends on how entrenched the family is in their child’s anxiety. The longer the family has been avoiding dealing with the anxiety, the harder it might be to get unstuck. But what a great motivator to deal with it now, right?

If you need help for an under five and getting them to sleep, I’d encourage you to check out Macall Gordon’s work at LittleLiveWires.com. But if your child is five or older and you’re still struggling with bedtime separation, please reach out to me. If you go to my contact page you can reach out to me via the form or even schedule a quick free consult to learn more about the program and see if it’s a fit for your family.

How do I help a child with separation anxiety go to sleep? Read More »

Is social anxiety disorder caused by traumas and bullying?

Podcast

First let’s talk about what social anxiety is and how it’s diagnosed.

Social anxiety is not being introverted and it’s not being shy. Social anxiety is when a child struggles to function in social situations. An introvert may prefer their own company and a child who is shy is a child who is slow to warm up in social situations but they’re able to get there. In social anxiety, the child’s anxiety prevents them from participation. 

There are two aspects to social anxiety. The first is what you might call stage fright where the child’s anxiety is centered around the fear of performance. This isn’t just being afraid of being on stage or public speaking, this is fear of raising their hand in school or ordering at a restaurant or answering the phone or being at an event where they will be seen. The focus here is on the performative aspect of being observed. Most of us don’t want to be the first person on the dance floor, right? Perhaps you can imagine how that feels. The stage fright part of social anxiety is that feeling — that feeling of being first on the dance floor — in any aspect of social performance. So these kids might have trouble getting up in class to sharpen a pencil. They may have bathroom accidents because they can’t ask the teacher to be excused. They might struggle in sports of gym class because they have to practice in front of their classmates or team members. You know, like when your coach lines you up and you take turns running up to kick the soccer ball into the goal. 

The second aspect to social anxiety is about the interaction. This can be present with the performative aspect or may show up on its own. In this case, there is intense worry about disappointing other people or making people mad or having people judge them. They may have trouble making eye contact (and this is separate from children who are on the autism spectrum — social anxiety is often co-diagnosed with spectrum disorders but lack of eye contact is not always an indicator of social anxiety). We all have had those middle of the night worries about having said something stupid after a social event. Most of us can shrug it off; we know people are forgiving and also most people aren’t paying that close of attention to us. But when social anxiety is present, those ruminations about possible social gaffes can be overwhelming. 

Kids with social anxiety fear negative judgment. Their avoidance is around this perceived negative judgment. To avoid it they may limit their socializing or withdraw from social interactions, basically going along to get along. 

In severe cases of social anxiety, the child might also meet criteria for a diagnosis of selective mutism where the child’s anxiety is so great that they are unable to speak to people outside of a select few, usually family members. The child is able to speak — they have no physical limitations — but their fear stops them from speaking.

Our children may ask us to reassure them that no one is mad. They may need to process the event over and over. They may apologize for perceived slights or insults, taking responsibility for things that aren’t an issue.

As an aside, I see so much of this in middle schoolers — such a socially anxious age — where conversation between two kids may halt entirely because they are both so caught up in apologizing for each other. Of course middle schoolers can also be incredibly thoughtless and cruel to each other. It’s a complicated age and the same child who is ultra sensitive in one social context may be clueless in another. There are estimates that up to 30% of adolescents experience some measure of social anxiety — I think it might be under diagnosed since I meet lots of adults who don’t realize that they have social anxiety but instead report that they are just very introverted. 

Which brings us to the original question. Is social anxiety disorder caused by trauma and bullying? The answer is yes, it may be but it isn’t always. 

Some children have a difficult experience in school and this contributes to their understandable fear of continued bullying and unkindness, i.e., social anxiety.

Other children develop social anxiety without a clear precursor. Although there is research showing that children who have separation anxiety when younger — that is struggle to separate from caregivers for longer than is developmentally expected — are more likely to develop social anxiety. 

Interestingly some children with social anxiety who do not have bullying in their background may still perceive some of their social interactions more negatively than they actually were. This is not because they are liars; it is because some children are more sensitive to negative reactions — real or perceived. What this means is that a child may tell you that someone doesn’t like them and even have examples but this is more about their perception than what really happened. So another child might casually say, “Wow, your shoes are really bright blue.” And the child may hear that as critical or mean when the other child was simply making an observation.

All right, so what do you do for a child with social anxiety? 

Remember that anxiety gets worse with avoidance so we want to encourage those children to have more social interaction. Now this doesn’t mean just sending them off to school and saying, “go make some friends!” That’s not going to work for every child. For some? Sure. Kids who are more motivated, who have already built some emotional muscle in overcoming social anxiety, who have some measure of social support — they may be able to simply push through it. But lots of kids need help with skills building.

You can reach out to the school counselor and ask them about social opportunities. Some will have groups — a lunch bunch or a more formal group — that the child can attend. Some may have ideas about getting the child more involved with extracurriculars that interest them and might feel safe. They may be able to connect the child with appropriate peers.

You can also look for social opportunities that are a better fit for your child. Girl Scouts, a church group, 4H. If your child has a special interest you could see about connecting them to peers that way. If you’ve got a child or teen who does a lot of online activities, head to the local comic book store and see if you can get your gamer nerd to open themselves to other nerdoms like D&D or Magic the Gathering. Our little neighborhood library used to host gamer meet-ups to get the kids off-line and talking to each other while still honoring that gaming was an important interest to them. You can try that, too. 

The reason I bring up computer games, is that kids who are social anxious are more likely to have what the researchers call problematic internet usage. That is to say, avoiding real world social interaction by increased used of online social interaction.

I do want to pause here and say that I believe that online relationships are real and important and they matter. But they are not a substitute for real world relationships. It’s great to have good social keyboarding skills. But we also need to be able to interact with people off-line. It doesn’t need to be one or the other and we can encourage real world friendships without denigrating online friendships. This is important when we’re talking about supporting our kids since many will feel rightfully defensive if we turn it into an either/or discussion instead of a both/and. 

If you can’t find the right social environment, you could consider creating one. Social media makes it easier to network with other local parents and perhaps you can find or create the social group that would feel welcoming to your child. It doesn’t have to be a large group. It can just be a couple of kids who are willing to hang out.

You can also talk to counseling practices and occupational therapy practices, which sometimes host social skills groups. Sometimes these are specific to a diagnosis — for example, for autistic kids. But some are open to any child who is needing opportunity and practice in learning how be with other kids. The leaders of these kinds of structured groups know and expect that the kids may be awkward and may struggle. Talk to the facilitators and see if your child is a good fit for the group and that the group is a good fit for the child. Some of the will organize around a particular theme. 

Getting intervention sooner rather than later is important. Sometimes we figure middle school is just awkward and they’ll grow out of it but social anxiety leads to depression if it continues through the teen years. Social anxiety tends to create dependence as children increasingly rely on their parents’ support and intervention. Parents naturally start assuming their kids can’t function on their own, which leads to more parental control, which leads to greater social anxiety. It’s basically an echo chamber. As in all things, parents need to recognize when what they’re doing is hurting more than helping — always a tricky thing with anxiety — and learn to step back.

If you need help with that, I encourage you to check out my program.

Is social anxiety disorder caused by traumas and bullying? Read More »

How can I be more patient with my anxious child?

Podcast

When I heard this question — and I hear versions of it a lot — is what exactly do you mean by that specifically? Are you asking in the moment when you’re getting impatient with your anxious child who’s right there in front of you? Or are we talking big picture? How can I be more patient as we work through our anxiety?

Let’s answer both versions of the question and let’s start with the first one and that’s, you’ve got an anxious child in front of you and you’re feeling impatient. Maybe it’s because you’re trying to get out the door and your child is whining because they’re afraid of whatever’s coming next whether you’re trying to get them to school or to an activity, maybe you’re trying to get them to go to sleep and they don’t want you to leave the room and you’re getting impatient because you really need a break from parenting.

The thing about getting impatient is that there are two things at play here.

One is that we need to remember that when your child is anxious, you’re going to catch their anxiety. You’re going to catch it in part because you’re human and we are meant to catch each other’s anxiety as a way to stay safe.

Anxiety alerts us to danger and so if you’re feeling anxious when your child is anxious, that’s because their body and their energy is alerting you to danger even though there’s no danger there.

And you may feel that as being angry, being irritable, being impatient. So there’s that. You might be catching it from them and that’s normal. That’s part of anxiety.

To that end. I would say that, remember, one of the things we’re trying to teach our children is how to tolerate uncomfortable feelings so we need to tolerate our uncomfortable feelings.

When we’re feeling impatient that’s a really great opportunity to stop and say, oh yeah, this is, this is that uncomfortable feeling I need to learn to tolerate.

Because it’s hard, that’s why we need to practice it.

There are tools that you can do to help bring some more calm (and I’ll mention those at the end of the post because I have an offer for you), but there are tools to create more calm and just as anxiety is catching, so is calm.

As you calm yourself, you’re going to be changing the energy of the interaction between you and your child, which isn’t necessarily going to change how they behave but hopefully we’ll change things for you a little bit.

So there’s that part of impatient when you’re in the moment and you’re feeling impatient.

The other one is more big picture, which is impatience is a really useful parenting tool actually. I know we beat ourselves up a lot for not having the best, most perfect, most greatest calm and patient feelings with our kids.

It’s what we do as parents. But I am a huge believer in your inner wisdom and when you’re feeling big picture impatient with your child, which means, “I’m getting impatient that they never unload the dishwasher. I’m getting impatient because they’re not figuring out how to use the potty. I’m getting impatient because I feel like they’re ready for a developmental milestone!” Part of that is a sign that, yeah, something needs to change.

Your instinct, your impatience tells us that something needs to change. Maybe your child really is ready to grow, and there’s something that’s getting them stuck that needs to be examined, or maybe your expectations are unrealistic and you need to figure out what is realistic to expect of a child at that age.

If you’re not sure whether or not your expectations are developmentally appropriate, it’s pretty easy to find out. You can ask friends who have kids the same age. You can check in with the teacher, the school counselor, a general kid counselor. You can ask the pediatrician and you can look at books. I’ll add that in the child anxiety support membership, we do have a nitty gritty child development course that’s just really quick, easy, almost like information cards that you can just look and say, what’s going on with my kid at this age that could be driving some of this behavior. As kids get older, their, their development gets more and more individualized, which means it’s not like when you know an 18 month old should be doing X, Y, and Z. A nine-year-old is a much more complicated person developmentally than an 18 month old, but there’s still some general things that you can expect of your 9-year old

if you are feeling impatient, that’s one of the first places to look. Instead of saying, what’s wrong with me? Why am I so impatient? What’s wrong with my kid? Why aren’t they behaving first stop and find out, is this a developmentally appropriate expectation? And if it is, then it’s a sign, this impatience that you’re having with your child, that they need your help, they need your help. They’re stuck.

And this is definitely true with anxiety. That’s what we know most about anxiety is that anxiety gets families and gets kids stuck. So naturally you’re going to feel impatient. It’s, it’s sort of how we do an assessment if things are going okay. So don’t beat yourself up about it instead. Say, okay, my impatience is telling me things need to change.

Back to that offer, this is what I want to share with you. I have a quiz at my website. It’s a Parenting Pitfalls quiz. And it’s about that impatience. It’s about that stuckness. The quiz is based on the research that tells us 94 to 99% of families are doing things that get everybody more stuck.

94 to 99% that blows my mind! And that 1 to 6%, frankly, I think we just caught them on a good day. Because if you have an anxious child, chances are you’re going to get stuck periodically. When there’s needs to be new growth, if you’ve got an anxious child, they’re going to get anxious about it.

And they’re going to do things to slow down that growth because it scares them and anxieties about. Unfortunately, as parents we’re trying to help our kids. And instead what we do tends to get them more stuck. We get more impatient, we feel more guilty about it. We feel more stuck because we’re sort of overcompensating since we’re feeling guilty. And that’s how you get patterns of anxiety that impact an entire family. So this is what the quiz is about. When you take it and you don’t have to give me your email to take it, you don’t have to give me your email to get your results. It’s going to give you 10 questions.

And those questions are the common pitfalls that families get stuck in. In other words, if you answer yes to any of them, you are so not alone. So you take the quiz and then it gives you your results and it will tell you exactly how stuck you are.

You will also get an offer for a free gift from me, which is the seven day, Get Yourself Grounded email course. Absolutely one hundred percent free. The point of the course is to give you tools that you can use in those moments when you’re getting impatient with your kid right there in the moment where you’re trying to get them out the door, where they’re whining about the exam tomorrow.

Where you’re both kind of fed up with each other. It gives you tools to unhook from your child’s anxiety and to bring calm to the interaction. Once you’ve taken the course you’ll know me a little better, and that will help you figure out whether or not you feel like your family is a good fit for the child, anxiety, support membership.

If you are feeling stuck, then I’d say you’re a good fit. The child anxiety support membership is asynchronous courses, which means you take them on your own time and community support. And also I’m there too. If you need help, you can reach out to me. There’s message boards, there’s private messaging, and I can help direct you.

I can give you very specific information related to your specific challenges or direct you to other resources on the site to give you a hand. There is no ahead or behind in Child Anxiety Support. There is a central course, Strong Kids Strong Families, and that is very structured, but you don’t have to do it all at once.

You can dip in, you can dip out, you can take a minute. There’s other things you can work on too. The thing is about child anxiety is it’s going to require big structural systemic change in your family. Now that sounds overwhelming, but it’s really not because we tease it out bit by bit to help you figure out what you need to do in the moment.

It builds your skills and teaches you how to build your child’s skills so that you know what to do later on down the line. If you’re dealing with a five-year-old, who’s struggling to sleep alone. And then later on, you’re dealing with a 12 year old, who’s worried about middle school. Those tools will work, whatever the situation is.

So. Bringing tools that will last a lifetime of parenting. You can start just by taking that quiz. Let me know what your answers are. I would really love to hear about it, and I’d really love to hear if taking the quiz brings anything up for you.

Is there anything that you didn’t realize was a pitfall? Did you think it was a help and now you’re discovering it’s a hindrance. How do you feel about that. What do you think? I look forward to hearing from you and I’ll see you all next week.

How can I be more patient with my anxious child? Read More »

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