How Child Psychologists Deal With Their Own Children's Anxiety

Hill Street Studios via Getty Images Parents can play a major role in helping kids learn to cope with anxiety. It’s all too easy to react from my own perspective, but taking her perspective gives me more empathy for her.” ― Abigail Gewirtz, child psychologist and author of “When the World Feels Like a Scary Place: Essential Conversations for Anxious Parents and Worried Kids” They pay attention to their own anxiety “Children learn about emotions in general ― and anxiety in particular ― by watching us parents deal with our own anxiety, by seeing how we react to their worries, and through discussions of fears. Once we have a handle on our own emotions, we can help our children identify and label their worries, validate them, and truly listen to their concerns.” ― Gewirtz They acknowledge that anxiety is natural “I have four daughters ― twins age 18, a 12-year-old and 10-year-old ― and I can share, in my almost two decades of parenting, the reality is that part of your child’s development from baby to toddler to child to tween and teen, will be filled with anxious moments and emotions. Rather than dispensing advice, I’ll try to elicit her thoughts about what might help, and then help her sift through options, weigh pros and cons, and come up with ideas I certainly wouldn’t have thought of.” ― Gewirtz “Instead of saying something like, ‘You have nothing to be scared of,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry this is scary for you, let’s talk about why you feel this way.’ Listening helps give my kids space to express their feelings. I ask them to tell me how strong the anxiety is either by giving a 0 to 5 rating or by drawing a picture of a thermometer and marking off the level.” ― Graham They pay attention to behavioral changes “Anxiety in children can be present behaviorally and physically with the following: problems sleeping, changes in appetite, irritability, racing thoughts or having a lot of worry thoughts and fears, difficulty concentrating, muscle aches, fatigue, clingy behavior or not wanting to leave home or be away from parents, worrying about one’s safety as well as others, needing to be perfect and not make mistakes or ‘do things wrong,’ as well as signs of biting nails, skin picking, hair pulling.