All of us have anxiety – it is an important emotion.

We need it to survive, stay safe and make good choices. Some of us are hardwired to be more anxious than others. As a therapist, I feel that more and more children are struggling with anxiety for many reasons and many parents struggle with how to help their kids cope. We want to make sure our children control their anxiety so it doesn’t control them. We don’t want their worries and fears to get in the way of enjoying and participating fully in their lives.

As parents it can be very difficult to help an anxious child. We often resort to reasoning with them and trying to use logic to talk them out of these irrational feelings. Unfortunately, this can just makes things worse. Once the brain is anxious for a certain amount of time it begins to organizes itself around that and remain in fight or flight mode for longer periods. An anxious brain does not always respond very well to rationale  and the child often becomes more invested in convincing you how scary a situation really is. Children can also widen their repertoire of things to be frightened of, leaving parents baffled and swinging between feeling empathy and frustration.

Children don’t always show the typical or obvious signs of anxiety that we might think of. Sometimes demanding behaviour, extreme bossiness, temper tantrums and sleep disturbances can all be symptoms of worry or anxiety.

Here’s what to do:

• Talk to Your Child’s Doctor. If you feel your child’s anxiety is regularly getting in the way of them enjoying their life, if they constantly have trouble sleeping or complain often of stomach aches, nausea or headaches, contact your child’s pediatrician.
• Fight or Flight Response. When a child is feeling anxious, their fight or flight instincts might kick in. This means their brain is not letting them think rationally, so when a parent tries to rationalize the situation, the child feels like they aren’t being listened to. Instead, ask lots of questions about how they are feeling, and put some urgency in your voice, without sounding anxious yourself. This will show you get that they are worried, and will help them get back to a place where they can hear the logical things you have to say.
• Give it a Name. Don’t talk about your child being afraid, because this makes it seem like something that they can’t fix. Give it a name, like the “worry bug.” For older kids or teens, just refer to it as the “worry that gets in the way.” Then you can work together to come up with ways to reduce it. This helps kids to control their emotions.
• Get Connected. Spend more cuddle time with young children and spend more alone time with teenagers. Children feel safe and more secure when they feel deeply loved.
• Set Limits.  Kids are exposed to a lot of adults themes – and they are not socially or emotionally prepared to deal with these. Set limits on behaviour and the things you kids are exposed to. When kids see that parents don’t have control, they get nervous about who will take care of them and this aggravates anxiety. Turn off scary news reports on TV or hide frightening headlines.
• Scaling. Get your kids to rate their anxiety and use deep breathing or positive imagery to bring the number down.
• Calm Yourself. Sometimes children come by their anxiety honestly. Use the same techniques to make sure you are calm. Kids often gauge their responses based on ours.

I use the two together because they are bound. Respecting others necessitates understanding of their boundaries. As parents, in our efforts to raise our children, it sometimes feels easier to be prescriptive rather than fine-tuning our approach to their individual needs. Who has the time?! While the time often seems impossible to find, I believe that the short-term effort would mean very long-term gains.

Every child, like every adult, has a different set of boundaries. Even from very young ages, some may enjoy lots of cuddling while others can barely sit on our laps for more than a few seconds. Some kids naturally communicate about everything while others show more reticence. When we understand and respect the individual personalities and boundaries of our children, we are essentially telling them that we accept who they are.

Only from a position of acceptance can children truly grow. Children who are told to be something that they don’t feel at that moment is possible for them, become defensive and cling to the selves that they fear they are in danger of losing. Secure kids are kids who will extend themselves and take risks regardless of their starting position.

How do we as parents change the way we act and more importantly, feel? I think if parents accept that by respecting the boundaries of our children, we will raise them to be the best that they can be, change will feel easier. This becomes more challenging as our children grow older but the truth is that the more challenging it feels, the more important it will be!

I believe that prescriptive parenting serves us and not our kids. We often have to stand by and watch our child “fail” at something because we believe that there is a lesson that they need to learn. For this reason, I like to think of “failure” as showing our children enough respect that we have faith in their ultimate choices.

Believe me, as a mother of four I understand how difficult this is and sometimes not possible at all! No one said parenting was easy. Often it feels very counter-intuitive as we consciously put our protective selves aside, knowing that this will be the best for our children. I am a parent and I struggle with this daily.

Sharing our experiences as parents, our triumphs and our setbacks can be so helpful. I would love to hear what you think about this.

Hi Jennifer,

I’ve always felt my daughter was maybe gifted somehow. She is 8 years old and extremely hard on herself. I think she is a perfectionist and gets very upset if she doesn’t do something perfect the first time. She then shuts down and won’t redo something. I am hoping this website might help me respond to these outbursts. She also has difficulty handling conflict with her peers. Her father (who doesn’t live with her) doesn’t think these are things to worry about but I do.

- Julie

Hi Julie,

Thanks for your question. You may be on the right track with your daughter. Gifted children have many of the characteristics you are describing. Giving up quickly, melting down when they can’t master something right away, anxiety, struggles with peers, even tactile or taste issues. They can also be very dramatic and get incredibly upset, crying and sobbing, claiming that life is awful and can be very difficult to soothe at times. Gifted children have big emotions. I call them tidal wave emotions because they can have a hard time regulating.

Think of it this way: the left brain which understands patterns and sequences is logical, mathematical and reasonable. In gifted children, it also understands too much. The right side of the brain, whose job it is to regulate emotion, can’t cope with it all. These kids tend to be worriers, stressing out about things before they even happen. At six years old, they could be lying in bed worrying whether they will have a good job when they grow up and get really worked up about it.

They become overwhelmed by these emotions and begin to feel that their emotions control them and not the other way around. They often have trouble sleeping and self soothing. Learning a new task like bike riding can be a nightmare because they expect to be able to do it right away and when they can’t they fall apart screaming, “This is stupid… it’s impossible! And I have the worst life.” It is challenging to parent a child like this and very difficult to help them learn to calm themselves and organize these feelings. It is however very important that they learn to master this ability and develop resilience.

If your daughter is in the regular school system, they do test children for gifted-ness in grade three. If you are in a private school, you may consider having your child tested privately. This will help you understand your daughter and help with school placement but you will still need to help her develop the skills to cope with what life throws at her.

It can be incredibly frustrating to parent such a reactive child. The parenting bond, as much as you love her, can get frayed by this behaviour and can cause us as parents to withdraw, become frustrated or try to constantly talk these kids out of their feelings. Then, this adds to their anxiety and emotional disorganization. Try really listening to her feelings and try to understand her before you correct her even if those feelings seem unreasonable. Spend extra time cuddling and connecting with her this will also help.