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S3/Ep 19: Why You May Be Feeding Your Child's Anxiety
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Most parents of anxious children are doing everything right — and still watching their child struggle. That's because loving your child and accidentally enabling their anxiety can look the same.
Dawn Friedman, licensed counselor, parent educator, and founder of Open Book Parenting, shares the invisible ways anxiety takes over family life and the practical shifts that can finally help both parent and child find their way through it.
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Transcript
Welcome to Guardians of Hope
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to season three of the Guardians of Hope podcast. We are a community of parents, educators, health, legal, and tech experts dedicated to positively impacting children's lives. The thoughts and opinions of my guests are not my own. This is a platform for sharing. Welcome everyone.
Understanding Child Anxiety with Dawn Friedman
00:00:15
Speaker
if you've ever watched your child spiral into anxiety and found yourself doing anything to make it stop, Whether it be canceling plans, avoiding triggers, or stepping in before your child even asks, you're not alone.
00:00:29
Speaker
According to my guest today, you're also not to blame, but you might accidentally be making things worse. Dawn Friedman is a licensed counselor and parent educator specializing in child anxiety She's the founder of Open Book Parenting, and most importantly, she's both a former anxious child and the parent of one.
00:00:52
Speaker
She joins us today to talk about the invisible patterns anxiety creates in families, why our most loving instincts can backfire, and what parents can do instead to actually help their children break free.
00:01:06
Speaker
Dawn, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Impact of Anxiety on Family Dynamics
00:01:12
Speaker
Well, I can't wait to dig in So you specialize in the patterns anxiety creates in families, not just the child, but in the entire household. Can you walk us through what that typically looks like? And how does an anxious child start to quietly reshape how an entire family operates?
00:01:34
Speaker
Sure. I'm so glad you asked that because if parents can get this piece, they are on their way to interrupting those patterns. So it's not that your anxious child is running the show so much. It's that anxiety is running the show.
00:01:50
Speaker
And the thing that we need to understand is that anxiety is really catching. We are meant to catch anxiety from each other. It's a way that we keep ourselves safe. If you jump because there's a lion about to pounce on you, i am going to notice that and I'm going to jump too and then we're both going to run.
00:02:07
Speaker
So when your child gets anxious, it is likely that you get anxious too. If your child starts to twitch and worry and whine and cry, you're going to feel some kind of way about that. You're going to feel irritable or worried yourself or sad for them. You are going to react. The problem comes when our reaction is to try to protect their child from their anxiety.
00:02:33
Speaker
That's the kind of patterns I'm talking about. So if you have a child who is afraid of dogs and gets nervous every time you go for a walk, Because down the block is a dog that barks and scares them. And you start saying, we don't have to go by that house. We're going to go in the other direction.
00:02:50
Speaker
We're avoiding dogs and not helping our child learn to confront their anxiety and learn that you can walk by a barking dog and feel scared and still be safe. So that's where our avoidance becomes part of the patterns of anxiety. Now you're very clear about um not blaming the parent, right? But you talk about the parenting pitfalls, like you just shared an example of, that um unintentionally feed anxiety. So what are some of the most common things that you see um that parents genuinely believe they're helping by doing, but they're actually keeping their child stuck?
Reassurance and Its Pitfalls
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah. and And one of the things I want parents to understand is that most parents, the research says 89 to i think 97%, it might even be higher, of all parents with an anxious child do get stuck in these pitfalls. We're just going to do that. That's just part of it. And part of this is because our non-anxious children, it works for them. So I have two kids and my older child doesn't have clinical levels of anxiety. So that child would worry about, say,
00:04:05
Speaker
burglars, like lots of five and six year olds start worrying about what if a robber breaks into the house. And with that child, we could say, well, here is the here are the things that keep us safe. We lock the doors at night, we lock the windows. And that child would say, that feels really good to hear. Thank you for explaining it to me. i am less worried now. Our youngest was very anxious. And so when we explained to her we lock the doors, we shut the windows. She would say, that feels really good. Thank you for explaining it. Can you explain it again? and we would say, yes, here's the locks and here are the windows. And she would say, great. What if they break through the locks? Because that was not allowing her to just sit with her anxiety. So anxiety
00:04:48
Speaker
wants certainty. It wants promises. i I always tell parents the most common question an anxious child is asking is, am I going to be okay? Is it going to be okay? Please tell me how it's going to be okay. And that reassurance, it's going to be okay. You're going to be fine. I'm going to be here. It's it's going to work out.
00:05:09
Speaker
That is the most common pitfall. And of course, what parent isn't going to want to reassure their child But when we see it's avoiding uncertainty, it's avoiding the idea that ultimately life is not something we can control, then we understand how that's a pitfall.
00:05:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Managing Anxiety: Strategies and Self-care
00:05:28
Speaker
Now, let's take it a step further. When the child is in the middle of, let's say, an anxiety spiral meltdown or shutdown mode, what should a parent do in that moment? And just as importantly, what should they not do?
00:05:46
Speaker
So the most important thing to do is to recognize when our anxiety is creeping up because of their anxiety. The example I always give to is that as a therapist, when a really anxious client comes in to see me, I start to feel anxious. I'm like, I want to help them. I want to be a really good therapist. I want them to leave feeling better and having answers. And if I go with that, then I'm responding to my anxiety about their anxiety. I have to separate it.
00:06:16
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i have to say, i really want to be a good therapist. I really want to do a good job. And I need to let them have this experience so I can understand them and how to help them have it. So sometimes the most important thing we can do is to do nothing but take care of ourselves to understand when our anxiety is driving us into that reassurance. driving that into that, trying to protect them from our anxiety. So the good news is, is you can access that. The first thing you should do is take really good care of yourself.
00:06:48
Speaker
The second thing you should do is nothing. Just wait a minute. Your child is going to be anxious. We do not have to fix it for them. It's not our job. We do not have to reassure them so well that they can do the thing. That is not our job either. How it's going to look depends very much on that individual child And the individual circumstances. So I'd love to say, do this and it'll work. It's more complicated than that. We're just trying to build our child's tolerance for uncertainty and for the discomfort of being anxious.
00:07:24
Speaker
Mm hmm. but You said it's not our job. um A lot of parents feel like it's our job to ease everything, to, you know, kiss the boo-boos, make everything go away.
00:07:37
Speaker
um so it's really hard to grasp that, Dawn. I'm just trying to think of, like, putting myself in that situation. what would I do? you know, like, how do you how do you comfort parents when you tell them that?
00:07:53
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And I hear their screams because I have been there and I continue to be there. i i mean, my adult children, my adult child is still an anxious human and she she will still reach out to me and I can feel myself get pulled into the reassurances. And actually, just so people know, the parenting pitfalls are not just parenting pitfalls. When they first started looking at these kinds of anxious patterns, they were looking at it in the context of couples, of like a husband and wife and one was anxious. So these are just part of anxious patterning. Okay. So we're all just going to accept that this is part of how we experience it. But my example is when my daughter was in middle school and just so everybody knows, she has given me permission to tell stories about her, which is really kind of her, but she also feels it's important that these messages get out there. so when she was in middle school and she had a lot of social anxiety, because what 13 year old isn't socially anxious And she would come home and say, i think my friend might be mad at me. I'm not really sure she said this, but she said it like this. Do you remember how middle schoolers, maybe you remember?
00:08:59
Speaker
Yes. I have a middle schooler now, so I totally get it. And I would want to, and she would go, do you think she's mad at me? And I'd want to go, oh, she's not mad at you. Why would she be mad at you? Here's all the reasons. And she would go, great. And then she would come back, right? Just like Are we going to be robbed? So then I had to start saying, and she got really tired of it, but now it's almost a joke with us. I know it feels like that, but that is a feeling, not a fact.
00:09:25
Speaker
We don't actually know if she's mad at you. She might be, she might not. We're just going to have to wait and see what happens tomorrow. And that can feel neglectful. But what we're saying to them is, I don't know what will happen, but I know you can handle it. And I will be here with you, loving you through it, which is very different than trying to fix it for them. Exactly. i think that is the right tool. I mean, I agree with you. i think that will set up anyone for success. Like you said, partner, child
00:09:57
Speaker
whoever that you're emotionally supporting, I think that's a great way to look at it and ah a better way for parents to understand that we're not neglecting you, we're just giving you enough space to figure it out yourself.
00:10:12
Speaker
Yes. but Yeah. As much as you can figure it out because some things are not figure it outable. Exactly.
Realistic Progress and Facing Fears
00:10:19
Speaker
But it's like you said, it's a feeling, not a fact. And it's okay to feel that way. And here's how you, you know, here's some tools on how to sort through some of those feelings or, you know, like you said, or not. or Or not. Like maybe you're just going to feel lousy tonight and I'm going to sit with you and we're going to cuddle up on the couch and feel lousy together about it.
00:10:42
Speaker
Maybe that's what we're going to do. Yep. So um just ah a quick question relative to that. Going through that as a parent, you know, being an anxious child yourself, raising um an anxious child of your own. Was there anything that stood out to you um in your work or being a parent or an anxious child that has surprised you? that you'd like to share? Well, I'll tell you. So I went back to school to be a therapist when my daughter, i think I graduated when she was five and her brother was 12. And so I did not actually recognize her anxiety as full-blown anxiety and certainly didn't know my experience was anxiety until I became a therapist. And and went, oh I was an anxious kid. I thought I was just oversensitive and difficult and all of those things. No, I had anxiety. I still have social anxiety. And by the same token, so much of what I was doing with my daughter to help her was not helping her because I was stuck in the pitfalls. And it wasn't until I had the training and was doing the work that I went, oh, okay. I have not been helping her. that i i it looked felt like I was helping her. But now I understand why we keep getting stuck.
00:12:03
Speaker
And now I can see how to get unstuck. And I appreciate how hard it is. So I have a lot of empathy for parents who are feeling stuck because, yeah, this is really hard stuff. And it's triggering. Parenting is the most triggering work you can ever do.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. and on that note, just one more question for you, for the parent who's feeling it, um they've been managing their child's anxiety for years, and it feels like nothing is working. um What is the feel real um first real shift that they need to make And what does realistic progress actually look like, Dawn?
00:12:41
Speaker
So realistic progress, I'll start with that first, is that your child starts going towards the things that make them anxious, their world gets bigger. Anxiety makes our world smaller. It makes us avoid more things. So the first thing we can do is start noticing where our world is getting smaller. Where is your child losing access to opportunities?
00:13:05
Speaker
Where is our child not getting to do the things they wish they could do? So if your child doesn't want to say, for example, go to a slumber party, that may or may not be an issue. Maybe it's not something your family does, or maybe your child just would rather sleep in their own bed. But if your child is like, I really want to spend the night with my best friend, and but I am afraid to sleep without you, that is a sign your child is missing out on something because of anxiety. It's not values. It's not preference. So start noticing those places where it's getting smaller and start pushing against that avoidance a little bit. And that doesn't mean you're going to go drop your your kid off and say, I'm not picking you up, suck it up, buttercup. You're spending the night whether you want to or not. It just might mean that you say, you know, we're going to try letting you hang out there later into the evening, or you can spend the night with grandma Or I'm not going to lay down with you at night and we're going to build independence in that way.
00:14:02
Speaker
We're just going to try to make your your world a little bit bigger so you can access more opportunities. And it is okay for this to take as long as it takes. Some kids, they rise to the challenge. They face their fears. They go, go, go. Some kids, it's going to be a much slower process. And that is fine. As long as we're moving forward, we are making progress.
Resources for Managing Child Anxiety
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah. Dawn, thank you um for your time. Do you have a resources or website that parents or my audience can go to to learn more about your work and any tips and tools that you might feature or publish?
00:14:40
Speaker
I have my website openbookparenting.com where you can take a quiz. to see how stuck you might be in the parenting pitfalls that, and then you'll get an opportunity to sign up for my newsletter at the end of that. And I also, also have a podcast that's on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast and that's called, tell me it will be okay.
00:15:00
Speaker
Perfect. Dawn, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it Thank you for having me. It was a joy.