How To Help Your Young Children Manage Anxiety

We live in an anxious world where stress is as common as apple pie — and while it’s hard to believe our young toddlers might grow into anxious children one day, studies show it’s very possible. According to the Anxiety and Depression Disorders Association of America, anxiety disorders affect one in eight children. But do we really know what it is that makes kids suffer from their nerves?

Dawn Huebner, PhD, parent coach and author of "What To Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety" has one theory. “Anxiety is fueled by over-attention. The more we try to rescue our children from anxiety, the more it takes hold," she says. "Many parents have trouble tolerating their children's discomfort — anxiety, frustration, sadness, impatience — and move in too quickly to fix the feeling. Instead, we need to teach children to tolerate their uncomfortable feelings, and to move through them rather than away from them.”

I am definitely guilty here. If my toddler gets upset about something, I offer him oatmeal cookies and "Daniel Tiger" to calm him down. I realize now that I probably resort to these methods because they work for me — just replace "Daniel Tiger" with "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." But according to Dr. Huebner, my son will only learn to manage these feelings by working through them.

“Worry. Nervousness. Fear. All are normal, healthy feelings, and at times serve a useful purpose," she tells me. "The goal isn't to prevent or get rid of any of these feelings. The goal is to teach children to manage and move through them. The single most important thing parents can do to help their young children manage anxiety is to acknowledge nervous feelings without capitulating to them."

So next time your child gets scared or anxious try saying things like, "That noise startled you! Let's explore to see what it was," or, "It made you nervous when that dog came running over. Hold my hand and we'll say hi to him together," both of which Huebner says will help encourage your child to be brave.

Keep in mind, though, that this encouragement is different from telling your child that there's nothing to worry about. "Saying, 'There's nothing to be afraid of,' is invalidating," explains Huebner. "Saying, 'That makes you scared. Let's hold hands so we can be brave together,' gives kids a path forward."

Bridget Flynn Walker, Ph.D, author of "Anxiety Relief for Kids: On-the-Spot Strategies to Help Your Child Overcome Worry, Panic, and Avoidance," told me that anxiety is not something you can prevent in children, though it is something you can manage. She added that "parental accommodation" — when parents change their behavior to alleviate a child's anxiety — actually increases the chances of that child being anxious.

At my kid's pre-school, there is one boy who is frightened by my son's “scary” Halloween Frankenstein stuffed animal. This boy refuses to come over our house because of it, but our teachers have told us to bring in that scary animal so they could help this boy work through his fears.

Dr. Huebner believes this way of handling the situation could benefit a frightened child. “Children need to do more of the things that are scary to them," she says. "Avoidance cement fears in place. Practicing scary things helps children to see that their fear is a false alarm, and that really they are safe."

So how can parents practice facing fears with their children in non-threatening ways? Try adding a bit of fun to the challenge, says Huebner.

"[Parents] can play with deflated balloons with their balloon-phobic kids, then partially inflated balloons, then fully inflated. They can look at pictures of bees, then go on a bee "safari," challenging their child to be the first to spot a bee. The idea is to acknowledge, then figure out a way to approach the feared object or situation,” she explains.

Personally, I think that if we as parents feel calm and collected and let things roll off our skin, our kids will too. They pick up anxiety from the people around them. Lately, I’ve been getting more massages and acupuncture so I can be more at peace around my toddler, and I'm hoping he will learn from my self-care blissful feeling.

Dr. Walker tells me that if relatives or parents have a history of anxiety, then it's genetically passed along. But even still, it's never too early to address and manage the anxiety in your kids with a little understanding and a lot patience through those tears.

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