Child anxiety
As parents, we all want our children to feel happy, secure, and confident. However, when a child experiences anxiety, it can be challenging for parents to know what to do. We often fall into traps that seem to help in the moment, but over time make the anxiety worse. Dr Eli Lebowitz, a clinical psychologist and anxiety researcher, has explored these common traps, which he calls parental accommodation.
What is parental accommodation?
Parental accommodation refers to how parents change their own behavior in response to their child's anxiety. This could involve:
trying to protect our child from uncomfortable feelings
avoiding situations or activities that may trigger our child's anxiety
providing constant reassurance that it will be ok
participating in recurrent checking or ritualized actions
removing obstacles and challenges (or doing things for them)
spending extended periods of time discussing worries
changing family plans to revolve around our child's comfort
Why is accommodation a problem?
While it may seem like accommodating a child's anxiety is a supportive response, Dr Lebowitz's research has shown that this approach makes anxiety worse in the long run. When we accommodate our child's anxiety, we inadvertently reinforce the idea that anxiety is something to be feared and avoided. This can lead to a vicious cycle where the child's anxiety worsens over time, and we feel increasingly powerless to help. It can feel like anxiety is taking over the family.
What can we do instead?
Becoming aware of the different ways you might be accommodating your child's anxiety is a great first step. Mentally walk through a typical day and make a list of all the ways you might be accomodating.
We want to move from accommodation, towards;
1. Acceptance of our child's emotions, and
2. Confidence in our child's ability to cope with difficult feelings.
Acceptance of our child's emotions
Acceptance of our child's emotions can be harder than it sounds. Some barriers can be:
we might just not want them to feel that way (it's hard to see our child upset)
from our adult perspective their feelings seem silly or out of proportion
we may struggle ourselves when we feel similar feelings
we might feel anxious about them getting anxious!
Accepting our child's feelings involves empathy and tuning into our child’s emotions. We want to show them that we see, believe and understand how they feel, and put language around the emotion based on your knowledge of their world. You might say something like “Wow this is feeling really hard, I believe you” or “It sounds like trying something new and different is feeling scary and you don’t know what to expect, is that right?” or “You’re dragging your feet this morning, i’m wondering if maybe you’re feeling worried about your new class?”
Normalising children’s emotions is super helpful too, this might sound like: “Sometimes i feel nervous when doing something for the first time too”. We are much more able to manage our emotions when we don’t feel alone in them, your presence and understanding is powerful here.
Think, ‘I can help make this feeling make sense’, as opposed to, ‘it is my job to make it all better’. Save yourself a job!
An important note is that emotions and behavior are different and separate. We can accept and validate our child's emotions, while also not allowing dangerous or hurtful behaviour, or changing our own behaviour or boundaries.
Confidence in our child's ability to cope with difficult feelings
We don't want to stop at just acceptance of the emotion, we also need to demonstrate confidence in our child's ability to cope with the emotion. We want to communicate that while some feelings are hard and uncomfortable, that emotions are normal, come and go, and aren't dangerous. We actually need and want all of our emotions, they have important jobs! Express clearly that we know that our child (with our support) will find a way through this. This helps children be less fearful of uncomfortable emotions, and ultimately feel more confident in being able to approach new or challenging things.
Dr Lebowitz's research has shown that the most effective way to help children with anxiety is to encourage them to face their fears in a supportive and structured way. Moving with small steps towards the challenge, not avoiding it. A big part of our children facing their fears starts first with us not removing the opportunities for this to happen. Take a deep breath, and remember = acceptance + confidence.
Parents also play a crucial role through how we model healthy responses to our own emotions, and by encouraging our children to engage in activities that promote joy, relaxation and connection.
Parenting can be hard so if you feel stuck working with a psychologist can help, feel free to get in touch. Crysta has completed training in SPACE. SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions and is a parent-based treatment program for children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD, and related problems.
SPACE was developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center and has been tested and found to be efficacious in randomized controlled clinical trials.
For more detail read ‘Breaking free of child anxiety and OCD’ by Dr Lebowitz, or check out his Ted talk below:
Rethinking Treatment for Child Anxiety and OCD Dr. Eli Lebowitz • TEDxWrigleyville
