5 Tips For Managing Your Child’s Anxiety

A little anxiety can be a motivation starter. That little bit of oomph we all need to push a little harder, study a little longer, or, in my case, get that last load of laundry done.

But for some kids, anxiety becomes more persistent and harder to shake, showing up at heightened levels around everyday activities like going to school, ordering at a restaurant, or even going to bed. Plenty of children experience stress that doesn’t rise to the level of a diagnosable anxiety disorder, but still makes daily life harder than it needs to be. So, what’s a parent to do? Here are 5 tips for managing your child’s anxiety.

1. Take a Breath — Keep Your Cool

Pause for a moment and gauge your own reaction to your child’s stressor. Anxiety tends to feed off of anxiety — if your emotions are elevated, your child’s will likely feel more elevated too. The good news is the opposite is also true. Take a few deep breaths (shown to help with anxiety in and of itself), slow down your talking, and adopt a calm, soothing tone with your child.

2. Allow Them to Worry

Telling your child not to worry won’t keep them from doing it. If they could simply shove their feelings away, they would. Allowing your child to worry openly, in limited doses, can actually help.

Create a daily ritual called “Worry Time” that lasts 10 to 15 minutes. During this ritual, encourage your child to release their worries in pictures, words, or writing — they can even decorate a box or container to keep their worries in. During Worry Time, there are no rules on what counts as a valid worry; anything goes. When the time is up, close the box and say goodbye to the worries for the day. When worries pop up at other times (say, right before school, when you’re in a time crunch), you can remind your child that you’ll talk about it at Worry Time. Over time, you may notice your child doesn’t have enough worries left to fill the full 10–15 minutes — and now you can use that extra time to just talk and connect.

3. Empathize by “Mirroring”

Telling someone that their worry is unnecessary can be invalidating. Your child has different life experiences than you do — do you remember when a dirty favorite shirt or a funny look from a classmate counted as the “worst day ever”? A technique I often use both with clients and with my own sons is called mirroring, or reflective listening. In mirroring, you repeat back what you heard, without adding judgment or solutions. It’s a way to process what they’re feeling together, and it helps your child feel heard — which puts you both in a better position to decide what support they need next.

4. Have a Plan

Once you and your child have identified the source of the anxiety, come up with a plan together. Too rushed in the morning? Try changing the morning routine — going to bed and waking up earlier, setting out clothes the night before, packing the backpack before bed, or building a calming (or invigorating) morning playlist. The more input your child has in shaping the plan, the better things tend to go, since it gives them a sense of control that anxiety often takes away.

5. Recognize and Praise Progress

Point out when the new plan is working. This models for your child how to use these same steps the next time a stressor comes up, and it builds a sense of confidence and a solution-focused mindset that carries forward. If you want another way to reinforce that progress without micromanaging, our post on how to give a nudge without being a noodge has some useful nuance on that balance.

When Your Child Needs More Support

Sometimes outside help is needed to address anxiety and build more effective coping strategies for stress or ruminative thinking. If you think your child may be dealing with an anxiety disorder, or experiencing an unusually high level of stress, individual counseling or teen therapy groups can give them the tools and support to manage it going forward.