Navigating Anxiety in Children When You're Also Struggling With Anxiety With Kristen
- Shannon Jackson
- Jan 28, 2024
- 3 min read
Kristen McNeely is an LMFT who primarily works with children who have ADHD, anxiety, and other emotional behavior disorders that result in challenging behaviors in the classroom. Because Kristen knows firsthand how much anxiety can impact children, she started her private practice to consult parents and provide support to their anxious kids.
And since Kristen’s area of expertise is in childhood anxiety, I couldn’t think of a better guest to have joining me today! Kristen will be answering many of the questions that parents who are struggling with anxiety often have about anxiety in children. So let’s get into it!
Navigating Anxiety in Children When You're Also Struggling With Anxiety With Kristen
Causes and Signs of Anxiety in Children
Kristen shared that anxiety can appear very differently in each child. Still, some signs include irritability, intolerance of loud noises, difficulty with textures, difficulty sleeping, and trouble focusing at school. Many of the symptoms of anxiety in children overlap with ADHD, and Kristen says that the underlying cause of these behaviors might simply be anxiety.
We know that there is a genetic predisposition to anxiety, but Kristen also mentioned that parents might unknowingly (with the best of intentions!) provide accommodations for their child’s anxiety. Over time, these accommodations only enforce the anxiety. Eventually, this can create a pattern of avoidance.
Tips for Helping Your Child Navigate Big Emotions
Kristen says that teaching kids to distract themselves away from anxiety can be problematic, and I asked if she could explain why this can be unhelpful! In response, she shared that learning how to sit with anxious thoughts and feelings is much healthier in the long run, as distraction can often lead to avoidance in the future. She shared that in general, teaching your child how to acknowledge uncomfortable emotions sets them up for much more success in the future, and I couldn’t agree more.
Kristen also mentioned the importance of not providing reassurance all the time! If you struggle with anxiety, you’re probably pretty familiar with wanting to ask for reassurance from others. While some amount of assurance is healthy and normal for children, it’s important for parents to not constantly provide reassurance. Similarly, Kristen doesn’t recommend following a rigid schedule with children. Because when that schedule is broken, it can often lead to increased anxiety.
Advice to Parents Who Might Also Struggle With Anxiety
Kristen and I talked about how many parents with anxiety worry that they might create anxiety in their children by revealing that they’re struggling themselves. Kristen mentioned that as parents, we are biologically hardwired to comfort our children when they’re in distress. Knowing that our response is biological helps to take away some of that guilt! She mentioned that once we remove some of that guilt, we can bring more awareness to our anxious patterns. As we begin to learn how to regulate ourselves, we model a healthy example for our children. So this is your reminder to drop the guilt and remember that it’s okay if you’re struggling too!
I hope you enjoyed this episode with Kristen! She had even more wisdom to share in the full podcast episode, so you won’t want to miss it!
Connect With Kristen!
Website: https://kristenmcneely.com/
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to a healthy push Podcast. I'm Shannon Jackson, former anxiety sufferer turned adventure mom and anxiety recovery coach. I struggled with anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia for 15 years. And now I help people to push past the stuff that I used to struggle with. Each week, I'll be sharing real and honest conversations, along with actionable and practical steps that you can take to help you push past your anxious thoughts, the symptoms, panic and fears. Welcome. You're right, we're meant to be. Alright, today on the podcast, I have Kristen with me. And Kristin works a lot with parents of kids who are struggling with anxiety or displaying signs of anxiety. And I'm just so excited to have this conversation because it's much needed. I know there are lots of moms, dads, caregivers, listening, who are struggling with anxiety themselves, but also trying to support their kids as well. So this will be a really helpful conversation. Kristen, welcome to Healthy push podcast.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, I'm super excited. So let's just start tell us a little bit about you, who's Kristin.
So I am a licensed MFT, and a board certified behavior analyst in California, I got my start working with kids on the autism spectrum, actually working in homes and then consulting in schools. And then I was hired full time by a local school district. And that was about 10 years ago. And at the time, the majority of the kids on my caseload were on the autism spectrum. And now fast forward 10 years later, I would say the majority of them have ADHD and anxiety and other emotional behavior disorders that result in challenging behaviors in the classroom. And so that's really representative also the shifts that we've kind of seen nationwide, as far as increases in anxiety, and how significantly it can impact kids. And so I started a private practice a couple of years ago, where I can consult with parents and give them support to help their anxious kids.
I love it, you do such such good work. So let's start off with a note, the majority of people that I work with will say, I have always experienced anxiety is something that I struggled as a kid, it showed up when I was very young. So let's just start by like, what are some signs of anxiety and kids?
Yeah, that's a great question. And I mean, same, so I can remember I remember as a kid, struggling with anxiety and having parents who really didn't know how to support me. I think for each kid, it can look a little bit different. Some kids who are what we would consider highly sensitive, are more anxious. So these are your kiddos who really struggle with loud noises. They probably have difficulty with clothing, textures, especially socks, I find a lot of parents that I work with, tell me that their kids have issues with socks. They might have difficulty sleeping, starting the bedtime routine or staying in their beds the whole night. When they're particularly anxious, they might be irritable. They also could have trouble focusing at school. And sometimes this makes people think that they have ADHD because there's some difficulty focusing when really anxiety is the underlying cause. So it really it can present in a variety of ways.
Yeah. Oh, for sure. I feel like the go to for me was my stomach. Just so many tummy issues and not understanding what that was. And I'm sure you probably see that pretty often, too. Yeah, absolutely.
And I think parents get stuck in this difficult position of saying, you know, you're not sick, you, you know, you're not sick. And kids interpret that as well. They don't believe me. And then there's a lot of defensiveness and it gets really tricky when the truth is their stomachs do hurt. It's just from anxiety, not illness.
Yeah, for sure. So I want to start by like, what are some causes of anxiety in kids like really noticing, okay, my kid is more anxious than what seems to be quote normal. I hate using that term, but they seem to be anxious quite often. What are some causes of kids experiencing more anxiety?
That's a good question. We definitely know there's a genetic predisposition to anxiety. We also know that a lot of times parents will, with the best of intentions provide what we call accommodations for anxiety. And these are things where the goal is to help support the child and their feelings, right. But then in the long run, these accommodations actually reinforced their anxiety. They either reinforced getting out of what's triggering for them, they reinforced the message that whatever is scaring them is actually scary or that they can't handle it. So I'll give you an example. Some younger kids might have separation anxiety. And so they might have difficulty going upstairs to get a sweatshirt when it's time to leave the house. They don't want to be by themselves. And so parents will go with them. Or they'll say, nevermind, you don't need this sweatshirt. And that's great support in the moment. But in the long run, when things like this happen over and over again, it really does reinforce those avoidant messages. And that's kind of how anxiety develops is this consistent pattern of avoidance? And anxiety just kind of builds and builds and builds from there? Yeah,
oh, it's so tricky. Because I think, you know, as a parent, right, you want to help your kids as much as you can. You always want to fix things for them and make them feel better. And yeah, I think it's very easy to fall into those tendencies and not really see, over the long term. What is this actually going to do for my child? Yeah, really hard in the moment to step out and say, Okay, let me pause. What might be healthier for me to do for my kid? Exactly.
And I think anxiety can be so tricky, too, because one of the things that I think it does is it tries to tell us, if you can just fix this one thing, everything will be fine. And so but that's not how it works, it jumps around. And so another example, recently, I was on a Facebook group, and a mom had posted about her anxious child and how he was afraid to go to sleep at night. And she finally got him to sleep in his own bed by having dad sleep outside the door of baby monitor in the room, and a fancy lock on the window. And it's just heartbreaking for me to see how much time and effort and money parents feel like they have to put into managing this anxiety. Because the truth is, it might work for a little while, but eventually his anxiety is going to tell him something new, about sleeping, and why none of those things are actually going to work. So it's just so important to get at that root cause and that pattern, rather than kind of jumping around and addressing the what of the anxiety. Yeah,
oh, it's like search just like adults, right? When we're struggling with anxiety. And we think if I can just solve this one thing, or if I can find this one fix, it's all gonna go away and get better. And it's like, I wish that were true. It's not. So something that I hear a lot is my child's displaying a lot of anxiety. I know that this is sort of something that I need to help them with, I need to support them with, but I'm feeling like, I gave it to them. Like I'm feeling like or parents saying, I'm afraid I'm gonna give them my anxiety because I'm really struggling. They see it. It's, it's so tricky. I can see how tricky that is. So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.
So one of the trainings that I participated in recently was some evidence based anxiety treatment, the trainer said something that I thought was so poignant. He said, kids are hardwired to seek out their parents for comfort when they're distressed like biologically as humans, that's what we're what we're hardwired to do. And parents are biologically wired to want to comfort their kids when they're in distress. And so I think that helps take some of the guilt away is just knowing like this is our biological instinct is to seek each other. That's what one of the unique things about human animals is that we are designed to seek each other out for that support. And so I think having that, that guilt taken away, first of all, and then having an awareness of our own anxiety and our own anxious patterns, and what we're modeling for our kids can be really helpful. Oh,
it's so hard to look at ourselves, though, because they think we see right, my child's struggling and maybe I can easily fix this. And oftentimes, with you know, anxiety in general, you sort of have to allow right make space allow for it to be there without trying to fix but of course, and when you're struggling with anxiety yourself, you are oftentimes really latched on to this idea of control. Like, if I can just control all things, right? If I can fix this for them, if I can make this better if I can take this away. And you're not looking at what you actually as the parent have control of because they think we can of course take the anxiety away from our kids. We can't, you know, just make it go away. But what do we actually have control of as the parent? So what does that look like? What is helpful to look at when you're the parent and noticing? I'm wanting to fix itself for them and make this go away? But I have to take a step back and, and really recognize what do I have control over them? What's going to be helpful for me as the parent to do?
Yeah, I think in those moments, you know, it is really helpful, like you're saying, to kind of make space for those feelings, no parent likes to see their child in distress, regardless of what that type of distress is. And so I think just kind of allowing for some of that, to know that it's okay for them to be distressed right now. It's okay, if I need to take a minute to kind of regulate myself, so that I can better support them. I think that that's okay. And that's healthy. It's a really good modeling for them to see that when we are feeling big emotions or feeling dysregulated that we can model holding space that we can model just pausing and taking a minute. And then yeah, exactly like you're saying, We can't control their response, we can only control our response. And that's a big part of the treatment that I work with parents on too is that we will have a much better time moving kids through anxiety if we focus on what our behavior is, rather than trying to force them to do something in an anxious moment. So yeah,
can you give an example of that? Because I know people are probably like, What do you mean, I get it, but what do you mean? Yeah, so
if we go back to like that sweatshirt example, let's say, rather than having the goal be, I'm going to force my child to go upstairs and get their sweatshirt, I would work with the parent on, we're just going to wait. So either they're going to get their sweatshirt in or not. But you can only control whether or not you go upstairs with them. And so you are in control of staying downstairs and waiting for them to get their sweatshirt if they choose not to they choose not to. This is a big part of the treatment that I do with parents because my therapy is parent based. And so what we find in kids with anxiety is that especially significant anxiety is that parents are usually providing accommodations throughout the day. And so what I do in my treatment plans is we go through and we it's called mapping actually, we map out all of the accommodations that parents are providing throughout the day. And then we look at okay, which ones can we fade? Which ones can we reduce? And then what we see is that as parents change their own behavior, and give kids an opportunity to kind of step into their fears that they experienced that success, and they're literally laying new pathways in the brain. Of of oh, it's not actually scary, or oh, I can handle this. So does that help a little bit?
Yeah, for sure. And that's so cool to be able to see. I'm trying to you mentioned something that is really important, and that the regard of the parent, right, being able to focus on what they actually have control of and something that you mentioned was regulating ourselves, which is hugely important. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what do you mean by if we regulate ourselves, it will teach them and also be helpful to them? What does that mean?
Yeah, so I think that it's, you know, kids are sponges, right? And so they see how we handle big feelings. And so and this is not meant to guilt or shame anyone, I am perfectly guilty of not staying regulated, and every single moment, it's hard. But kids see that when if we get anxious, and then we have big feelings, and we don't use some kind of coping mechanism to kind of come down and breathe and stay calm. They see that that's how we handle big feelings. And so by taking a few deep breaths, or by saying, you know, I need a minute, I'll be right back. They see that that's okay. It's okay to do that. They say it's okay to have the feelings and they see that we're capable of bringing those feelings down. I think one of the trickiest parts of anxiety is that it can make us feel very out of control. And so when we are able to model those really healthy coping mechanisms, where we do stay in control or we regain control, that's just such good modeling for kids. It shows them that they can do it too. Oh,
for sure. Like just that slowing down period. I mean, not even relating to anxiety, but of course if my five year olds, this is like a daily practice. You need to tell her the you You need to take a minute to yourself. It is so hard in that moment that when, of course is a mom, right? You're so overwhelmed. You're very often overstimulated, you have so much going on. And you're just like, I know, this is not going to be good. If I don't take a minute to myself right now. Yeah,
I think you know, that's one of the things a bit, you know, I have three kids, they're eight and a half, six and a half and two and a half. And I was definitely a highly sensitive kid. I was very easily overstimulated. And nobody told me how that would impact me as a parent, and it makes me so sad, knew how being highly sensitive, and having kind of that predisposition, would impact me as a parent. And I think that a lot of parents have anxious kids are the same way. And so I think that it's even easier for us to feel guilty about, you know, our parenting, or, you know, times that we mess up because we feel our kids emotions even more deeply. And so when we aren't able to stay calm, we feel that. So yeah, I just I wish that I had known, but now that they do know, now I can be more intentional in you know, taking a second knowing that that's okay. And really knowing that that's actually really healthy modeling for kids. So yeah.
Oh, same. Same, like if I had known that, right, it would have been so helpful. But and I think a lot of people in my community, right often say I'm, I'm so sensitive, I'm such an empath, I take everything on. And it's really helpful having all that awareness, but then being able to actually, you know, take the actions that are going to be helpful for you and your, your child so that they can learn. I think, you know, something when you were talking about accommodations, I was thinking, is this an accommodation? So, I work with a lot of parents, right, who struggle with panic disorder, agoraphobia, like, really intense anxiety. And I think one of the things I often hear is, I do not let my kids see me feel anxious, I do not let them see me panic, because I am so afraid that that's going to cause them harm. It's gonna scare now. It's gonna be too much. What are your thoughts with that?
I have a friend on Instagram once who posted a comment on one of my reels. And they said, we tell parents to avoid avoidance. And I thought that was so perfectly said. I myself went through a period of panic attacks and agoraphobia that kind of came about after a health crisis. And my kids at the time were like two and four. And there were definitely opportunities where they saw me kind of getting really heightened. And I felt like it maybe I just told myself this because there was no other option. But I felt like it was good learning opportunities, I would explain to them exactly what happened in very kid friendly terms. You know, Mommy got really scared, Mommy was feeling really worried about what was happening there. And my body felt XY and Z. And so I started to have really big feelings about this. And I've learned to just sit, right, I know that those feelings will pass, it's not possible to stay in a panic state forever. And so that's why I just stopped. That's why I just sat and waited. And I think kind of walking them through that, again, is just such good modeling. It's never fun for kids to see a parent upset, of course. But I think it actually becomes scarier for them when there's not a way to explain it.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I was a kid, I my mom struggled with panic and agoraphobia. And I don't remember how old I was. But I remember multiple instances of knowing having this knowing there was something that was wrong, and feeling scared and feeling like oh my goodness, what's what's going on? And my mom, really doing what she thought was best at the time, right, protecting me from it, not bringing more attention to it, like really trying to make sure I didn't see it. And it made me feel more scared. But I always tell my students and clients who especially moms, you as a kid can feel scared and be safe at the same time. And I felt that in that moment, even though I was scared, I always felt safe with baby balm. And it wasn't that I didn't feel safe. It just felt oh my gosh, this is overwhelming and I don't know what the heck is happening and it would have been so helpful, right if my mom and kid friendly term said, here's what's going on or after the fact, here's what just happened. Yeah, my goodness, so helpful.
Because especially, you know, anxiety, very imaginative, imaginative kids. very imaginative. Yeah. And so when they can't make sense of what's happening, they make up their own story of what's going on. And who knows what story it is that they're telling themselves. And so if we as parents can just really explain it to them. I think it really minimizes their anxiety in the moment. Yeah,
I love that. So it's something that you say or you say, teaching kids to distract themselves away from anxiety might be problematic. Yeah. Can you tell us why distracting away from anxiety for a kid might be problematic?
Yeah, you know, there's certainly a time and place, there's a better way to use distraction. You know, when you're feeling panicked, some of those grounding techniques, I wouldn't necessarily consider total distraction, but they are kind of a way to refocus. Again, for me, it's that avoid avoidance. So when those feelings are coming about, it's so much healthier, to sit with those feelings, and just to acknowledge them, and then to let them pass than it is to distract away for me, distraction becomes like an avoidance. And that's just really what we don't want to do. Generally speaking, so yeah, I know, that was a tricky one.
Yeah, it's so tricky, because I remember when I was struggling deeply with panic disorder, and was having panic attacks all the time. I was constantly trying to distract myself and then saying, why the heck isn't this working? Like, why isn't this helpful? And now, right, you know, later in my journey, I understood why it wasn't helpful and why it wasn't quite working. And I was like, Oh, my goodness, yeah, yep. I was trying to avoid. Yes,
and this is really where my training as a behavior analyst has come in so handy for anxiety, because I really understand the principles of how anxiety develops in terms of what we call negative reinforcement. So negative reinforcement is a principle where a behavior grows, because we've avoided something unpleasant. And that is exactly how anxiety develops. So we have this worry thought, so we engage in this behavior to avoid it, and then oh, we feel better. And so then we're more likely to continue avoiding in the future. Whereas if we just sit with that thought, or if we push through that feeling, then we don't avoid and we see Oh, either it wasn't that bad, or Oh, I am capable of handling it. And so it's, it's the exact opposite of that reinforcement.
Yeah, I love that. I, I saw something on your page that really struck me, you had this post where you talked about the parent support spectrum for kids. And you outlined the demanding parent, the protective parent, and then the supportive parent, do you mind touching on those three? Because I thought that was so cool.
Sure. Yeah. So this is actually all from the acronym is space, a space treatment, it's supportive parenting for anxious childhood emotions. It's an evidence based treatment out of the Yale Child Study Center. That's actually the treatment I was referring to earlier, when I was talking about the trainer and the the tendency of kids to seek out their parents. And he talks about this spectrum of support, where on the one hand, we have very demanding parents, these are the parents who say things like, you know, you need to just get through it, you need to toughen up. You know, it's not that bad. And on the other side, we have the protective parents who are the only you know, I don't want you to be traumatized. I don't think you can do it. I don't want you to be upset. As you can imagine, the dads tend to fall on that demanding side, and the moms tend to fall on the protective side, although that's not always the case. And I think one of the most important things to remember because it is often the case is that both are equally problematic. So I will have parents in my session, my initial session, so a lot of finger pointing about, you would stop being so demanding, or if you would stop being so productive. And the truth is, they're both problematic, demanding parents can be very invalidating. And so for a kid who's anxious, and you're telling them to toughen up, and then it's not so bad, they feel really invalidated. And so they get very defensive. And then for a parent who's very protective, they're sending this message over and over again, that the child's not actually capable. So it's very defeating. Neither one of those is better than the other. They're both really problematic. And so the important thing is to come into the middle, or we call the supportive parent and the This is where I teach parents to do what are called supportive statements. And so this is a two part statement, where the first is validating the feeling. And the second is expressing confidence that they can do it. So for example, I see that this is really hard for you. And I know you can do it. So you're really getting both of those pieces. And a lot of times when parents start using the supportive statements that in and of itself will kind of push through for kids to feel more capable, because they're so used to hearing the opposite. Yeah, yeah, that was a really popular posts that resonated with a lot of people. Oh,
it's so good. And you, you know, you look at posts like that, right? And I think of I thought of my childhood, and then I thought of me as a parent now. And it's just so good to have these reflections and self awareness and like, How can I be more of a supportive parent? I'm curious, you say that there are things right not to do if your child is struggling with anxiety. And, you know, one of those things you talk about is not removing triggers, I think this is that part of being a protective parent, right? Like, I'm going to remove all the things that trigger your anxiety so that you don't have to face it. And then, before you know it, your kids like thinking and believing that they can't handle any big feelings or emotions. But you also shared, you know, don't always reassure them and don't always stick to a schedule. Can you talk about those things? Because that are such big things?
Yeah. Anxiety loves a few things. It loves reassurance, it loves consistency, it loves rigidity. It loves, you know, knowing everything that's going to happen when it's going to happen, where how with. And kids do really well with that. That's one of the trickiest parts, I think, is that kids do well with consistency, right? They do well, with predictability in some kind of routine. For anxious kids, we have to just be careful. If they start getting so stuck on what what's the schedule, what's going to happen next. That's when it can be really problematic. We want to start teaching them that there are times where we're going to do something differently, we're not going to follow the schedule. And as long as they can tolerate that flexibility, that's okay. I'm certainly not saying have no schedule, by by leaving your family, that's not good. But really kind of teaching them to be flexible is really helpful. As far as the reassurance this is one that's come up a lot actually, in my private practice, there is no amount of reassurance that you can give an anxious child to make them feel better. That's just the truth. I think parents get really stuck on if I could just think of the right thing to say. Or if I can just figure out what exactly is scaring them. So I could tell them, it's not actually scary. That's not the problem. Yeah. And so I think parents feel really, really down on themselves and really frustrated because they can't come up with the right thing to say. But the truth is, there is no amount of reassurance that you can give an anxious child that will help them feel better. It's it's a different approach. Yeah,
yeah. And I think that's right, where the validating comes in and being able to talk about their feelings and you know, you making space for the big feelings and teaching them how to approach it. I want to end on this because they think I don't want this to be people feeling right, like the fingers getting pointed, but I, when I saw this, I was like, oh, there's a lot here. You know, you share the number one mistake that you see with parents helping their kids navigate anxiety. And you said it's not checking in on their own anxiety first. Oh, it's so hard. So can you just share a little bit on that?
Yeah. You know, I remember this summer, my daughter was going to do a summer camp for the first time. And she wasn't really going to know many people or anyone really, there was one friend coming that she knew of but wasn't you know, friends with it was an brand new place, brand new activity. And I was kind of nervous beforehand, because, you know, this is normally something that would make her really anxious, but she was fine. She was fine. She was fine. And then the night before we get into bed, and here come the tears. I don't want to go anymore. I you know all the things. And I was nervous myself. It was a new place. I had never done this camp before. I didn't know you know, people that were going to be with her. And so it was really important for me to be aware of that so that I could kind of check that At and help her manage her own fears. We can get really sucked in with our kids anxiety and trying to and you know, getting scared by it ourselves, which then makes it hard for us to support them. Or again, we can get sucked into that reassurance trap. Because sometimes for parents, seeing our kids anxious is very anxiety provoking for us. And so to calm our own anxiety, we want to calm theirs. And so then we reassure reassure, reassure, and it just becomes this pattern and trap and just not helpful at all. And so yeah, I think one of the biggest things that parents can do is really take stock of their own anxiety, make a plan of how you're gonna manage it, and go from there. Yeah,
I think that's so helpful. I think that's one of the biggest things, right, I learned throughout my journey was that I really have to figure this out. And especially when I was, you know, I think I was in my later 20s When I started thinking about what is my life gonna look like? Like, am I gonna have kids and, and trying to sort all that out and really make the healthiest decisions. And that was such a huge piece of it of like, I really want to make sure that I have a healthy relationship with myself and my emotions and just, you know, educating yourself and really like making healthy decisions for you is super gonna help your kids and, gosh, there's been so much goodness in this conversation, Chris, and I have loved every second of it. And what you share on social media is so so good. So if people want to find and connect with you, where can they find you?
Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at childhood dot empowered. And then my website is www dot Kristin mcnealy.com.
Yeah, I honestly guys, I cannot recommend Kristen. Whether you struggle with an anxious child or not. There is so much insight there and so much goodness that will help on so many different levels. So check her out. And thank you, Kristen, for coming on. I've loved it. Thank you
for having me.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of a healthy push. If you want more, head on over to a healthy push.com for the show notes, and lots more tips, tools and inspiration that will support your recovery. And if you're hoping for me to cover a certain topic, be sure to join my Instagram community at Aldi push and let me know in the comments what you want to hear next.
