I am your anxious and panicked kid, all grown up, and I’d like to tell you a few things you may not know about your child.
You may find yourself with a child you believe is acting out; purposefully trying to be difficult, and for no reason. You have tried everything and you’re at your wit’s end, which means now you’re yelling when you don’t want or mean to do so.
Your child keeps complaining they can’t sleep when they haven’t even tried. They’re having tantrums over smaller and smaller things; melting down faster than ever. They keep losing or misplacing valuable things, they seem to purposefully forget how to help around the house, or refuse to come out of their room.
Let me explain what is happening to your anxious child.
The most important thing to know is that your child is not actually “acting out” or “being difficult for no reason.” There is ALWAYS a reason that kids melt down or have tantrums.
Try to describe, out loud to someone you know, the feeling of complete and utter frustration. Here’s the catch: You can only use the limited vocabulary of a 6-year-old.
Hard, right?
Kids don’t have the words to describe how they feel—hell, adults can barely do it, why do we think kids can? When you don’t have a language that articulates the exact sensations you’re experiencing, your already-large emotions become even more exacerbated.
There’s a battle that exists in the space between experiencing a bad feeling and not being able to articulate the bad feeling. And it’s in this space that anxious kids fall and melt down.
This is going to sound odd, but your anxious child doesn’t know how to “try to sleep.” Not without some help. What they are looking for is comfort and soothing. The transition from day to night, from awake to asleep, from loud to quiet, is acutely difficult for anxious people. Transitions are uncertain and scary.
An anxious kid needs help down-regulating. Anxious kids need to be taught how to self-soothe in ways that are healthy. That’s what you’re there for—to walk them through. To set up routines you’ll help your kids implement and stick to.
Anxious kids need more help than your non-anxious children. If your child is having tantrums that you can’t explain, that are getting worse, the tantrum is the frustration they feel being unable to express themselves and what they need.
Ordinary kids experience everyday life without too much tumult. They don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day and they’re just fine with that. Things are vague and abstract? Not a worry.
But anxious kids are not fine with that. We need things to be concrete; we need to know what’s going to happen. This is what anxiety is—the dread of uncertainty. The dread of discomfort. The fear of feeling fear. Of course, no one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow or the tomorrow after that, but teaching your child how to break down abstract concepts like time is a good place to start.
My sister, Kara, did something with one of her daughters that was eye-opening for me. Every night at bedtime, she walked her through the day she’d just had. Then, she walked her through what would happen tomorrow. She told her what to expect so that she knew what was coming.
She created a SENSE of certainty. Watching this blew my mind. It was the simplest thing in the world, but it was life-changing for me. Now, before I go to bed, I run through the next day so I don’t feel paralyzed when I wake up.
When your anxious kids have questions, answer them. When they ask hard questions like, “What do I do if you don’t show up?” Don’t say, “I’ll show up”; or “That’s not going to happen.” The question isn’t whether or not it will happen; the question is What should they do?
We don’t know what to do in the face of uncertainty, and being able to have a plan, or talk things through, both soothes and alleviates anxiety.
When their questions are brushed aside with insincere answers, kids will never learn how to self-soothe, manage difficult situations, or make life-saving decisions in crisis.
So answer them. What should they do if you don’t show up? Who will they live with if you die? Tell them. Knowing what will happen creates a sense of certainty, and they not only need this from you, they need you to teach them how to do it for themselves. Answering their actual questions does both.
Many people worry that acknowledging these types of questions will trigger anxiety in their children, but they have it backwards. Withholding answers to their questions is what will trigger anxiety in them.
Anxious people are constantly pushing back against reality. The true cause of suffering is our inability to accept things as they are; we get caught on “if only” and “what ifs.” When a child is told not to worry when they are already worried, when a child is told that their parent won’t die when they ask what will happen to them when they do die, they feel gaslit. These denials and dismissals teach children that their questions aren’t important or worthy of being answered. If this continues, these kids will grow up learning to deny and dismiss their needs.
Answering their questions will free them from feeling trapped and will allow them to grow and move forward. To deprive them of answers is to keep them trapped in their extreme anxiety.
So, parents of anxious children, try to remember that your child knows things you don’t, like how it feels to be chronically worried. You have a lot to learn from them, and you have a lot to teach them, but you can’t teach them what you don’t know.
We tend, as a people and a society, to be short-sighted. We don’t project far into the future, anticipating outcomes of current events (I’m looking at you, climate change!) and preparing to either thwart or face them head on.
What if, instead of waiting until issues are already set in place, we work to do the harder thing first, so that we can set our child up for success as an adult.
There are plenty of incredible books out there for parents of children. Here are two of my favorites to get you started: Freeing Your Child From Anxiety by Tamar Chansky, and The Worry Cure by Robert Leahy.
Finally, instead of beating yourself up for not knowing what to do, learn what to do, and then tell your child that you’re sorry.
You’re sorry that you haven’t known how to handle their particular worries, but now you’re learning. Admit when you make mistakes, tell your child that you didn’t know what to do in this or that instance, but now you’re learning. But most importantly, apologize for your mistakes.
Then, ask your kid if they’d like to go on a worry adventure with you, and learn all about this extraordinary depth of feeling your child possesses, together.
But here’s where real change comes. Parents of anxious kids are so bent on helping their children, they look for solutions instead of trying to understand anxiety, where it comes from, what it feels like, how it manifests differently in everyone, and where it might live inside you.
When we learn about our own anxieties, we can learn the tools we need to manage our anxiety. And it’s only when we understand how to help ourselves that we can truly understand how to help another person. At the very least, it will help us empathize, and that’s a hell of a running start.
Children never “act out” for “no reason.” There is always a reason, but their vocabulary to articulate the reason is limited.
Walk them through transitions. Help them by being a bridge for transitions. Be the bridge between day and night, now and then, today and tomorrow. Walk them through what is going to happen.
Don’t lie! Be honest with your kids. They know when you're lying, even if they don't have the words for it. If you lie, they may have trouble trusting you.
Research! The way to understanding your child’s anxiety is to begin to understand what anxiety is, how it manifests, and where it lives and how it manifests inside you.
And just remember, everyone’s got something, and this is your kid’s something. Maybe it’s one of many somethings, but no matter how many somethings your child has, learning about each one separately and together, in order to live with more ease, is the absolute best gift a parent of an anxious child can give.
Amanda Stern
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