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Anxiety Grows Like a Snowball

When we see a child showing signs of increasing anxiety, we hope that it will be a stage that they will pass through.

Although some children might grow out of it, for many, the anxiety will grow bigger, if it is not addressed.

Why Does Anxiety Tend to Increase in Severity?

Anxiety is fuelled by avoidance and reassurance.

When we see our children distressed, we naturally want to protect them from this angst, and they instinctively feel the urge to avoid whatever is making them feel uncomfortable.

Avoidance and too much reassurance are two of the reasons for increasing anxiety.

Why Is Handling Increasing Anxiety Counterintuitive?

Usually, we listen to our bodies.

If we are freezing cold, our teeth will chatter, we will get goosebumps and we will know to put extra clothes on or move to a warmer place.  If we are hungry, our stomach will rumble and we will know to get some food.  If we accidentally touch a hot stove, we immediately receive a message to remove our hand.

However, with anxiety, we actually need to do the opposite action (term from DBT).  But doing the opposite action is hard, and feels very counterintuitive.

What is Wrong with Avoiding If It Makes One Feel Better?

Sometimes it just feels easier to avoid.  All the feelings of angst disappear and automatically everyone feels calmer.

The problem is this is a short-term fix.  It makes one feel better in the immediate moment, but it doesn’t help when the situation arises again in the future.

In fact, now it becomes even harder to face whatever the difficult situation was.

Furthermore, anxiety is a bit like a “Whac-a-mole” game at a fair.

In this game, the mole pops up from different holes, and the person playing the game has to hit the mole back down with a mallet.  

Anxiety is very similar.  It starts to pop up in many areas of one’s life.

Suddenly, parents will notice that their child who has always felt comfortable going to an after-school activity, now says they will only feel comfortable if a parent stays with them.

Next, they feel uncomfortable being left at the Grandparents’ house, even though they used to be just fine being dropped off.

Sleep may also get affected as well as school performance/school attendance.

How Does Reassurance Impact Anxiety?

Again, it’s very natural to provide reassurance when our children are feeling anxious, and they do need comfort and validation.

They do need to know that we are there for them, and that we are on their side.

However, we want to be careful to limit the amount of reassurance.

I usually recommend providing  enough reassurance to calm the child, and then seeing if it’s possible for the child to take a small baby step in the direction of facing the anxiety.

If we provide too much reassurance, then this confirms to the child, that they were right and the situation really is dangerous and needs to be avoided.

(Sometimes we are so concerned about our children that we strengthen their anxiety without realizing what we are doing.  For this reason, I have written a free ebook: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Your Child Is Anxious , which you can access here.)

It is helpful to externalize the “worries”.

You may wish to call these thoughts, “the worries” or you could call them “worry bugs”, “worry dragons” etc.

It’s important for your child to see that the worries try to play tricks on us.

We do not want to believe them.

They (the “worries”) try to predict the worse scenario possible, even though the “worries” do not have fortune-telling powers.

It’s important to disprove the worries by stating the facts, the reality and the evidence of what is real.

We also need to support our kids in slowly moving towards whatever is worrying them.

As they do this, they feel more comfortable and confident and realize that the worries were trying to make this into a much bigger problem that what is reality.

What If My Child Has Justifiable Reasons to be Scared?

If your child has realistic fears, then this is not what we would call “the worries”.  Anxiety is a future-based, agitated, negative-oriented thinking pattern, that does not match with a real threat.  It is a perceived threat.

What Is the Recommended Treatment?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), by a licensed mental health professional (Registered Clinical Counsellor or Registered Psychologist) is the recommended course of action for children, teens and adults, and has the most positive outcome in research studies.  For young children, CBT, can be taught through fun ways such as through stories, puppets and art.

The most important factor with anxiety is to closely monitor it.

If increasing anxiety is negatively impacting your child’s life and stopping them from doing things that other kids are enjoying, then it’s important to get help, as it’s much easier to teach a child about anxiety and how to manage it when they are younger. When anxious children become teenagers, this can become much more complex and harder to treat.

Managing Anxiety Goes Against Our Natural Instincts

Helping your child manage and conquer their anxiety can be complicated and against our natural instincts.  As parents and educators, it’s important that we understand the dynamics of anxiety and how to address it versus reinforce it.

In my “Brain Science” groups, I teach children (in-person and Zoom class available) and parents (I meet with parents on Zoom for 15 minutes at the end of each session to teach them a summary) how to understand worry and anxiety and how to manage it.  My next groups for 7-9 year olds (in-person group sold out) and 10-12 year olds (space still available) will be starting Tuesday, January 16th, 2024. I also run an ONLINE group for 7-10 year olds.  For more information and to register, please click here.

Warmly,