Parents Don’t Cause Anxiety – But We Will Catch Theirs. Here’s Why, And What to Do

Parents don't cause anxiety kid

Parents don’t cause anxiety. But as parents and the important adults who love them so much, we will certainly catch their anxiety. This is one of the ways we keep them safe: their distress raises ours, to give our bodies what they need to fight for them or flee with them. The is the phenomenal and beautiful power of attachment.

Here’s the rub though. Our capacity to catch their anxiety is vital in times of threat. But when their anxiety is not in response to danger, but in response to things that are safe but challenging, growthful, their anxiety will raise ours in the same way it would if they were in actual danger. The drive to protect them will be every bit as powerful, but unnecessary (because they are safe).

If they are safe, we have to be clear about what we are protecting them from. Protection is there to hold them back from danger, but if on the other side of their anxiety is something safe, growthful, important, this is what the drive to protect will potentially hold them back from. These are also the experiences that will show them they can handle the distress of anxiety, and do the things that are safe, but which feel bigger than them.

Their anxiety will call up ours, as it is meant to. What happens next is up to us. We will send back anxiety, or we can short circuit their anxiety by sending back calm. We will lead by co-regulation or follow in co-dysregulation.

If we calm our own nervous system, it will eventually calm theirs. This doesn’t mean we cause anxiety. We don’t. It means we feel the anxiety that is in them first, as we are meant to. They will catch our anxiety back, or they will catch our calm.

As a parent myself, I know finding calm when our young loves are feeling distress is one of the hardest things we do. It’s also one of the bravest.

Calm breathing will calm our nervous systems enough to bring felt safety to theirs. It softens our faces, our necks (think tilted gently to the side), and our voices. Then, we have everything we need to meet them with love AND leadership: ‘Yes I know this is big. And I know you can handle this. You have more courage in you than you know. I’m going to help you see that for yourself.

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Mattering is about feeling valued and feeling like I’m doing something that adds value. It doesn’t have to come from grades or schoolwork, and for so many kids it probably won’t. There are so many ways to help kids feel seen and valued that have nothing to do with schoolwork, but which can work to engage them in schoolwork. Little things make a big difference. 

We also have to let our teachers know how much the matter. They are the greatest key to ‘mattering’ (or unmattering) in our schools and for our young people.♥️
If we want to meet their learning needs, we first have to meet their relational ones. If we want them to be open to learning, they first have to open to the adult they are learning from - and they won’t be open if they don’t feel seen, safe, and cared for. It’s not always easy, it’s just how it is.♥️
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For a short time, we’re taking 25% off books, plushies, courses, posters, and a bunch of tiny treasures that can help build courage and calm in kids and teens.

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We know there are too many kids struggling right now, including those from loving, responsive families and in loving, responsive schools. 

One of the places these struggles will show themselves is at school, even in the most loving responsive ones. Sometimes these struggles show themselves with a roar, sometimes with nothing at all.

Too many kids are feeling no sense at all that they matter. They don’t feel they are doing something that matters, and they don’t feel that they matter to others.

Too many of them will go weeks at school without hearing their name in a way that makes them feel seen, cared for, and valued.

Too many of them are showing up at school but are noticed more when they don’t, even if only by the unticked box beside their name.

For too many kids, we are asking them to show up when they don’t feel like they have anything to offer, or anything at all to show up for. Why wouldn’t they struggle?

This week I had the greatest privilege of speaking to a room of 300 school well-being staff about how to support all children, how to catch the ones who are struggling, and what we can do to buffer, protect and heal all young people at school.

If you are a parent of a young person who is struggling, I want you to know that schools are working hard to hold them, lovingly and safely.

I know there are also many parents who haven’t had this experience, and your children haven’t got what they need. I know that. I want you to know that change is happening. I want you to know what I see when I work with the wellbeing staff at these schools. They care. They really do. They are so invested in supporting your children, seeing the child behind the student and showing up big for all of them. The work is happening. There’s a lot to do, but it’s happening.

Yes we need more resources, and yes more people, and yes we’re asking more of our schools and teachers than ever, and yes the world is asking more of our kids than ever, but the work is happening.

Thank you to the Department of Education Queensland for working with me, and thank you to the wellbeing staff, teachers, and leadership who are giving everything they can to be there for our children. You matter.♥️

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