Never miss an episode! 

Welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm Susan Stiffelman, author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence. As a family therapist, teacher, and parent coach for over 40 years, I've helped thousands of families raise kids with more connection and ease. and fewer power struggles.

And I get to share some of what I've learned with you here. In this series we talk about real parenting struggles and practical ways to address them based on decades of experience and study in attachment theory, neuroscience, internal family systems, mindfulness, polyvagal theory, and of course decades of clinical practice.

You'll hear conversations with guests like Dan Siegel, Janet Lansbury, Mona Delahooke, Tina Bryson, Ned Hallowell, and many others, along with episodes where I answer questions from parents like you. At the heart of my work is a commitment to helping you be the calm, steady, loving, captain of the ship for your children and teens.

Managing dysregulation, your kids and your own, so that you can raise confident, resilient kids who feel safe, seen, and heard. Secure and open to your loving support. You can find out more about my work at SusanStiffelman.com where you can explore a library of masterclasses on everything from meltdowns and chores to helping anxious and sensitive children thrive along with lots of other wonderful parenting resources.

Now let's get started.    Today we're gonna talk about something that touches so many of our families. Anxiety. Whether it's a child who is really clingy during drop off or a a tween who can't sleep 'cause their mind is racing. Or you've got a teen who's just overwhelmed by social pressure or about the state of the world.

Anxiety shows up in all kinds of ways, and it is increasing the. The statistically speaking from 2016 to 2020, the prevalence of diagnosed anxiety, Hmong teens rose by 61% from 10% to 16%. Females are more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders than males, but we're seeing it in both male and female kids, and actually one in seven, 10 to 19 year olds experience.

Mental disorder with depression and anxiety among the leading cause. So it's really important that we take a look at what is going on with our kids. If you're unsure about what to do with a child who's anxious, I wanna share some ideas with you and then let you know that I'm doing a 90 minute, hour and a half class with Maggie Dent on this very topic.

So you can check that out at my website, susan stifelman.com. First, let's get clear on what anxiety actually is. At its core, it's a biological response. It's your body's way of saying, I don't feel safe. And that could be because there's an actual real threat or that there's the perception of one. And in today's world, that perception is dialed way up because our kids are growing up in this age of 24 7 news cycles.

All kinds of exposure to information and exaggerated, not truthful information or news on social media and on the internet, there's climate change fears, very real fears. There's comparison between themselves and others on social media. There's academic pressures, so even if we try to shield our kids, they're gonna feel the uncertainty in the air, and it's like their nervous systems are just on high alert.

But this is really important. Anxiety is not a flaw. It's a signal. And when we understand what it's trying to tell us, we can respond in ways that will calm the system instead of accidentally wrapping, ramping it up. Because one of the trickiest things about anxiety is how differently it can show up. For one child, it might look like what we expect.

It's clinging or it's tears, or it's saying, I can't go, I'm afraid. But for other kids, it could be irritability or outbursts or, or some kids are gonna get physical symptoms like headaches or stomach aches, or some of them will just shut down completely. And then other kids in response to the anxiety they're feeling will overachieve.

They'll strive for perfection because uncertainty makes them feel unsafe. It can even look like defiant. So a child who's refusing to go to school may actually be overwhelmed and terrified. But doesn't have the words or the tools to say so. So when we begin to see anxiety as an underlying driver and not just as a behavior, we can respond in more helpful ways.

So what can we do? One of the most powerful things we can offer our kids is co-regulation. And that just means we stay grounded. So our kids. Can borrow our calm and regulated state, so when we say You're safe, I'm here. We'll figure this out. Together, we're helping their nervous system downshift, meaning they know they don't have to carry the whole burden alone.

And then of course we can teach simple tools. Maggie and I are gonna have a whole, a whole lot of tools for you. But there are a few things like when a child is anxious. They need to discharge some of that nervous energy, so movement can be really helpful or naming what they're feeling. You might say something like, I noticed that it looks like you're feeling kind of tense and tight.

Do you think you're worried? Even simple things like I, I've taught many kids to do something called straw breathing, where you have them put a straw in their mouth and put their hand at the far end of the straw, maybe an inch from the opening, and they're, they're, they're told to blow very, very gently, so gently through the straw so that your hand doesn't really even register the puff of air.

And this can calm their system down the key. Is not to erase anxiety. First of all, it's not possible. It's not even desirable. It's about helping kids build an actual relationship with that part of them that is creating the anxiety where they can say, oh, I know what this feeling is and I know what to do, and this doesn't happen overnight.

But with our support as that calm, present, regulated captain of the ship, our kids can become more confident and resilient even. When the world around them feels uncertain. Now, if you know my work or you've been following me for a while, taking my classes, or you're in my membership, or you've read my books, or you've heard the podcast, you probably know that I'm not interested in just band-aids.

I think sometimes they can be fabulous. You know, just here's what to say, and it may work. But I'm really interested in what we bring to our parenting experiences with our kids, because who we are, what we have lived through the childhood that we experienced cannot help but play a part and inform how we are showing up for our children.

One thing we know about anxiety is that it's very common for an anxious child whose anxiety is not tied to a particular stressor. Or, you know, heightened fear or instability. Often if it seems to be biologically driven, one, at least one parent probably has something similar going on or had something similar in terms of anxiety.

And it may go down the line generationally. So if we see our child anxious or they're, or they express their fears, or maybe they're ruminating or they can't sleep because they're cycling through a, a scary scenario. It's really important that we look at what's getting stirred up inside of us. That might mean that we are really strongly identifying with the challenge that they're facing to bring themselves to a, a more secure state, and we may try extra hard to accomplish that by overly reassuring them or by minimizing their fears or dismissing them or say, oh, you've got nothing to worry about.

That would never happen. That's one. One thing that can happen if we're getting activated about their anxiety 'cause we're sort of identifying with it. It could also happen that we ourselves are striving for perfection and anytime our child is having a problem or a struggle, we might feel it's a reflection on our competency as a parent, which might push us to try harder and harder to talk them out of whatever's upsetting them.

Again, this is a way of using kind of rationalization and trying to engage their left brain by saying, you know, that's a ridiculous fear. Whoever heard of that, or, you know, that could never happen because our own insights are getting stirred up and this is why in all the work I do with parents, I've come this far in my career now 40 years in, I've come to see how vital it is that we look inside of ourselves to see.

What we are feeling about their challenge or their distress or their struggle. If you're familiar with internal family systems and parts work, it would mean acknowledging that there is a protective part inside of us that is activated, that is trying very hard to manage the situation with our distress and our child's distress by rushing to make things better.

And the thing about anxiety is generally speaking, you can't just decide not to be anxious. You've got to work with it. You've got to befriend it. You've got to listen to what it's trying to tell you. And then with great understanding and compassion, invite the part that is perhaps magnifying an anxious situation or a, an uncertainty to evaluate it from a little objectivity and, and.

That has to start though with feeling it, it, you know, let's not run from those anxious feelings either in ourselves or with our children. Allow yourself to feel it, to feel your distress about their distress, if that's what's going on, and help your child do the same. It looks like, sweetheart, it looks like something inside of you.

A part of you has gotten stirred up. Let's see what we can do to bring you back to a place. That feels that safety that I know is so comforting. But this means that we aren't shaming the child or ridiculing the child for having those fears, even if they seem highly irrational, that we show up again as the captain of the ship with presence and with compassion and understanding that whether we lived through it ourselves or we're still struggling with anxiety ourselves.

Or it's foreign to us 'cause we've never had that kind of experience. And so we're troubled by their distress. Whatever it is, the more we can be aware of what's going on inside of us, the better we can show up with that support for our kids. Now again, there's a lot to this because in most of, most of us grew up with parents who sort of used distraction or.

Rationalization to discourage us from diving too deeply into our feelings. And there's something to be said for not, you know, getting lost in a difficulty motion, but at the same time, we inadvertently can send a message to our kid like, oh no, don't be anxious. Almost magnifying it. And yes, they may act like they're fine because they see that we can't, we're not a person they can bring their fears to, but that's not really what we want.

We want them to know they can come to us with whatever their struggle might be. If you resonate with this and you've got a child who's has evidence of anxiety, and uh, if you visit the page about my class with Maggie, it's called Confident Kids, reducing Anxiety. In an Uncertain World, you'll be able to read about some of the other.

Symptoms that we see in kids that may not be as obvious. And Maggie, she's wonderful, brings so much heart and wisdom and grounded guidance to this topic. Together we're gonna explore practical and research based ways to support anxious kids and teens without adding more pressure or fear. And, and again, remember that anxiety doesn't always look like a child saying, I'm anxious.

You know, quite often it can be. Uh, sleep problems or irritability, avoidance, pulling away, shutting down physical complaints, defiance. So it's, it can be masked by other behaviors, but we always wanna get to the root. So that's it. I'm keeping these podcasts short 'cause I know for many of you, it's, it's a short commute and you wanna just be inspired or take a few ideas with you into the rest of your day.

You're doing such important work and showing up to learn and grow as a parent is really a huge part of it, so thank you. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for taking more and more steps to helping your children and perhaps yourself meet anxiety with more understanding and more skill and compassion. Remember, your presence matters, and you do not have to fix everything for your kids.

You just have to show up and make yourself available for them to turn to you for support. And comfort in the most grounded way, and I'm here to help you in whatever ways I can. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Leave a rating or a review. That's so, so helpful.

So now as we wrap up, just a reminder, there's lots of great resources for SusanStiffelman.com. Stay in touch. If you have a question you'd like me to address, you can drop a line at support@susanstiffelman.com or visit the susanstiffelman.com/podcast page. You can even record a question for me as well as submit one in writing, and I'd love to hear from you.

Remember my wonderful class on helping kids cope with the uncertainty of today's world challenging world, especially anxious children. That's with the one and only Maggie Dent.  And now remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.