Anxiety sucks. There’s just no other way to look at it. It’s a horrible, potentially debilitating monster that grabs hold of someone and hangs on for dear life. And if that someone is your child…it can completely turn your world upside down. If you or one of your kids has suffered from it, you know what I mean. If not, then you’re still wise to listen to this episode because the likelihood you’ll have a brush with this disorder at some point is pretty high.

Today, we’re going to talk about why anxiety happens so frequently in teens, how to spot it, how to explain it to your teen, and how to help them power through it with confidence. This is a long one – but I promise you it’s full of actionable advice and I have special bonus for you – so stay ‘til the end.

I’m Ann Coleman, attorney turned podcaster and parent educator and you’re listening to Speaking of Teens – a weekly show where I get into the science of parenting teens and tweens and provide you with the guidance that I could have really used when I was struggling through my son’s teen years.

The number of teens between 13 and 18 who suffer from a diagnosable anxiety disorder is simply staggering. The percentages have been rising steadily for nearly 20 years now. Anxiety increased by 27% for kids and adolescents from 2016 to 2019 . Almost 32% of adolescents will suffer from some form of anxiety disorder by the time they turn 18…with girls twice as likely as boys to suffer from an anxiety disorder between puberty and age 50.

I mentioned some of these issues in episode 9 where I talked about the role schools should play in helping kids with their mental health. But today I want to talk to you about what you can do if anxiety hits your family.

And you’re going to think “what hasn’t this women had or been through” but it’s a fact – anxiety has been with both me and my son our entire lives. When I was a kid and suffering from it, my parents had no clue what was going on. They had me tested for food allergies and came away convinced that if I ate chocolate, it (as my mother put it) it would “tear my nerves up” (remember, I’m from Alabama)!

I would get anxious (and in kids that usually manifests as irritably and anger)…so every single time I would get anxious, I can still hear my mother asking me “what have you been eating?” My anxiety was never validated for what it was – feelings in my mind and body that I didn’t understand and didn’t know how to manage.

Then along comes my son, who, looking back now, clearly had indications of anxiety from birth. And unfortunately, I didn’t deal with it much better than my own parents had. You can go back to episode 10 to hear our family’s story and how anxiety totally rocked our world. So, I want to provide you with the information and tools my parents and I didn’t have to deal with anxiety.

Let’s first talk about the basics of anxiety and how to spot anxiety in your teen or tween. There’s a difference between being nervous and having an anxiety disorder, and I’ll explain how this works in the brain in a minute.

Because of how the teen brain works, some level of fear or nervousness is just a normal part of life. As the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says, it “often hums along like background noise” for most teens. Being nervous is an emotion, and like any emotion, it’s a signal – it indicates something needs attention and that’s a good thing. For a teen, maybe it’s telling them to prepare really well for a class presentation they’re giving the next day, or maybe it’s telling them to study harder for a test or practice harder for upcoming baseball tryouts. Generally, teens can figure out what this type of nervousness is telling them and then do something about it.

Dealing with an occasional bout of nerves is one thing but an anxiety disorder is a whole other level of fear and nervousness. This is where it’s no longer a hum in the background – it runs screaming to the front, demanding attention, and taking over the kid’s life. At that point, you see it interfering with things like relationships with friends and family, school, extracurricular activities. And depending on the child, this anxiety can manifest into a variety of disorders; social anxiety, generalized anxiety, panic disorder or even specific phobias.

And the difference between childhood anxiety and adolescent anxiety is that in childhood, they’re generally afraid of something happening to us, or other real disasters, or even of monsters under the bed, storms or the dark. But as they move into adolescence those fears begin to revolve more around them - their appearance, their popularity, their academic performance. It can easily escalate into school refusal (trying to stay at home from school because they feel too anxious to go).

And while some kids know they’re anxious and why they’re anxious and even realize it’s a problem, others have no idea what’s happening – they’re just rendered incapable of coping – they may have these fears and worries but they’re not at the surface level where they realize what they are. They may not understand that it’s anxiety making them feel the way they do – making their body feel or act weird.

When my son was really little, still in a car seat, he would tell me he wasn’t feeling good and when I’d ask where he didn’t feel good, he’d say “tummy-throat”. We finally decided he must be describing that feeling you get in your stomach, chest, and throat when you’re anxious – that “I’ve swallowed a soccer ball” feeling – your heart beating fast, not breathing good, feeling like you’re about to be eaten by wolves…how awful for such a tiny little boy.

And teens can be the same as toddlers. They can experience all sorts of physical symptoms of anxiety but not even understand it’s because they’re worried, fearful, or anxious about something. Those daily stomach aches that no one can figure out – it could be anxiety.

As a teenager, my son would literally spend hours in the bathroom throwing up or with an upset stomach (and by then we knew it was anxiety) but he would still not be able to put his finger on the reason he was anxious – his anxiety is so generalized that it’s hard to pinpoint just one thing! More often than not, when I would ask what he was anxious about he’d say “everything”! And that’s true.

Physical symptoms can include rapid heartbeat, leg cramps, headaches, stomachaches, sweating, trembling, feeling jittery inside, difficulty breathing, dizziness, weakness, or lethargy – the list is endless really because it simply depends on the person – anxiety can manifest physically, a million different ways. And when kids don’t realize these physical symptoms are because of anxiety, it can make them more anxious (what’s wrong with me – why is my heart beating so fast – why am I so dizzy), which makes those symptoms even worse. It’s cyclical.

There’s one particular symptom I want to make sure you understand because it can be very frightening for both you and your kid. It’s called dissociation and while certainly not everyone with an anxiety disorder will experience it – if they do, it can appear to be something much worse than it is.

Dissociation is the brain’s way of checking out – of coping with or avoiding something it can’t handle in the moment. It can happen with severe anxiety or during a panic attack (but it also happens with trauma or post-traumatic stress). About half the population will experience this phenomenon in their lifetime and then there are others – only about 2% of the population that are actually diagnosed with a “dissociative disorder”. So, with anxiety, we’re just talking about experiencing this dissociation as a symptom of the anxiety that might happen here and there, not as an ongoing disorder. Your teen may describe it as feeling like “not being in their body” or feeling “like nothing is real” or that “they don’t feel real” – or they could be even more vague – “I don’t feel like myself” – that’s what my son would say, and I didn’t understand at the time. It’s a feeling of being disconnected or detached from your surroundings, your memory, or even from your own body – they may even describe looking at themselves from the outside – things in the environment may appear distorted or foggy.

I actually wrote down a text I got from my son when he was in 11^th grade, I think. I sent it to his therapist. Looking back later, I realize he was probably experiencing dissociation (along with the generalized anxiety and major depression he’d been diagnosed with):

“mom something is very, very, very, wrong in my brain”

“I feel like I’m not me”

“Mom something is really really wrong”

“I feel like my brain is mush or that someone else is controlling me and blocking my memory and brain power”

So, obviously for them and for you these feelings can be really scary. Just know that if it’s associated with the anxiety, it’s both very temporary and not harmful.

Usually, you’ll be in a better position to recognize these physical or cognitive issues as anxiety when you combine them with what you know is going on in their life and other more noticeable behavioral symptoms like irritability, anger, even all-out rageful behavior, totally zoning out and being unable to focus (which can look a lot like ADHD symptoms – so be aware of that), avoiding things like being around other people, their extracurriculars, even school, restlessness and being extremely bored and wanting to be with friends 24/7 – to the point of obsession, procrastinating, being perfectionistic, needing constant reassurance.

And if they happen to experience a panic attack, they may say they feel like they’re dying, that the world is ending, that something horrible is about to happen and they can experience all of the above physical symptoms and more – it can scare them so bad that if they can identify what caused it, they will likely try to avoid it in the future.

Anxiety can also lead to suicidal thoughts, self-medicating with alcohol, weed or other drugs or engaging in other risky or self-destructive behaviors – this is when you absolutely must seek help for them from a counselor or even the hospital if things escalate

The first step in helping your teen is to teach them about anxiety. As I said a few minutes ago, a lot of teens with anxiety will not understand what’s happening to them. They may not associate the physiological feelings like fast heartbeat, hot face, trembling…with being nervous – they may interpret those feelings as being sick or associate it with another emotion altogether. If they have more severe physical symptoms of anxiety like headaches, stomachaches, reflux, or dissociation, it’s very doubtful they will understand this is related to anxiety…they may think something is really wrong with them which can make the anxiety worse. And they certainly won’t understand the neurological underpinnings of what’s going on. All of which is extremely important for them to get – because once they do, it will be much less scary, and they’ll be able to address the anxiety directly.

So, let’s talk about how you can explain all of this to them and provide them with specific tools to move through the anxiety. You’ll need to have this discussion with them when both of you are calm – not when they’re actually experiencing anxiety.

So, tell your teen that fear, stress, nervousness, worry, whatever you want to call it, has a purpose. That just like any other emotion, it’s a signal - it’s calling our attention to something that needs to be addressed in some way. When we’re nervous about a test it’s telling us we need to study more. But when these feelings of fear, worry or nervousness happen too frequently or too intensely, it can start inferring with your daily life – that’s when it’s called an anxiety disorder. And it’s really important to then tell them how anxiety manifests in their still growing adolescent brain – this is how you can explain it:

From around age 10 until they’re in their mid-20’s, the rational, thinking area of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is still being programmed and so it’s not that great at its job. At the same time, another part of the brain - the amygdala – is super jumpy and hyperactive. The amygdala is the threat detector of the brain – kind of like the security guard. Its job is to sound an alarm when the brain, through one of the 5 senses, detects a threat nearby. The amygdala’s alarm triggers the sympathetic nervous system to release chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol in the brain and body causing a response called fight or flight – this is what makes the heart race, makes you breath shallow, blood rush to your hands. This fight or flight response is meant to help us flee from the threat or stand our ground and fight off the threat.

This physiological response is accompanied by emotions, which could be anything from a little nervousness to all out terror or slight annoyance to fury, depending on the situation. Now, this response can be really useful in truly threatening situations, a car accident or a grizzly chasing you – it allows you to lift a tire off someone or run like hell to get out there. But our society has evolved quicker than our amygdala and it doesn’t know it. So, even though we don’t have to fight off many wild animals like our ancient ancestors, the amygdala still sees “threats” all around us.

So, in adults and teens alike, the amygdala alarm goes off my mistake all the time, sending us into fight or flight response for no reason. For example, if someone throws a paper wad toward your face, you’d duck or put your hand up automatically – that’s your amygdala protecting  you in case it’s a rock being thrown at your head. An adult might yell at the person, their heart might skip a beat but then as soon as they see it was paper and not a boulder, the prefrontal cortex would step in and tell them to chill out, and they would. However, remember, the adolescent prefrontal cortex is weak, and the adolescent amygdala is even more jumpy than an adult’s.

So, what happens is a teen’s amygdala overreacts and thinks all sorts of non-threatening things are threats and the prefrontal cortex is just no help – so a teen’s fight or flight response goes off the rails all the time over nothing. In other words, a teen’s amygdala causes all these fight or flight chemicals to go surging through their brain and body, making them nervous or angry or both, over nothing (a “look” from a sibling, telling them they can’t attend a party or just asking them to pick their socks up out of the floor). So, these reactions they have – that probably even confuse them sometimes – this is what they need to understand is happening.

Another thing they need to understand – their thoughts alone can trigger the amygdala – negative thoughts, sometimes called automatic negative thoughts, negative self-talk – they’re basically conclusions they jump to or assumptions they make about a situation. And because of how their brain works, teens make these assumptions much more frequently than adults. Teens have much more negative self-talk than adults do. Some of this they may verbalize to you but most of it they keep to themselves.

For example, your daughter posts a selfie on Instagram and gets fewer likes than usual or fewer than someone else – her brain runs wild with all the reasons that may have happened – “nobody likes me”, “I’m ugly”, “that was a stupid caption”, “I look horrible in that top” -  and before you know it – boom – amygdala alarm goes off and she’s storming around the house or snapping your head off.

Common responses to the amygdala alarm – screaming, yelling, cursing, stomping, slamming doors, throwing things, or in my son’s case, putting his fist through every solid wood door in our house.

Also, explain to them that, stress increases the amygdala’s reactivity (and obviously, all teens are under major stress), plus, the higher their stress, the less likely they will be able to call on their prefrontal cortex to calm them down. Same thing when they’re sleepy or hungry. All of that makes the amygdala more likely to be hyperreactive.

And like anything during adolescence, because of the brain’s major plasticity during these years, the more the amygdala overreacts to something, the more likely it will overreact to that same thing in the future – and the more the amygdala overreacts – the jumpier it gets in general – the more hyper vigilant it becomes to everything around it – this is how an anxiety disorder develops.

So, that’s what they need to know about anxiety and how it works in their brain and body.

Now I’m going to tell you about some specific tools you can teach your teen to use to push through the anxiety in the moment. First, explain to them that these tools are simply a way of temporarily coping with the anxiety – not a way to avoid it but a way to push through it – deal with it head on – which is what we want them to do (we’ll talk more about avoidance in a minute).

One of the most basic ways to deal with anxiety in the moment is to breathe. Just the simple act of focusing on breathing will help bring their anxiety level down at least a few notches. So, you want to teach them a breathing technique. This is something you can do with them – or guide them through when they’re feeling anxious, but they can also use it by themselves when they’re not with you.

“Just Breathe” – it seems so cliché – it’s such a simple thing. But the reason it works for anxiety is because it helps reverse the fight or flight response in the body – all those physiological feelings – shallow breathing, increased heart rate, etc. caused when the sympathetic nervous system releases all those chemicals in the brain and body.

Controlled breathing engages the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the rest and relax response. So, it helps reduce the levels of cortisol and adrenalin and brings the heart rate back down and helps turn down the anxiety.

Now, some people don’t like breathing exercises, they feel it makes them hyperventilate (it won’t if done properly) – but if this doesn’t work for your kid, we have more tools.

Also, this may not work at first – they may require some convincing – that’s why I recommend talking to them about it and showing them how to do it when they’re not anxious. There are tons of different breathing exercises but the one I did with my son that he found helpful is called square breathing (and it’s called by other names too like box breathing). It’s just breathing in through the nose to the count of 4, hold for 4, breath out through the mouth for 4 and hold for 4 – keep repeating until they feel calmer. I would have my son put his hands in mine and look me in the eyes as I counted and breathed with him (not an easy thing to do – count and breath at the same time). We would usually do it for at least 3 or 4 minutes by which point he had calmed somewhat, and we could talk.

And a side note here: putting his hands in mine added that touch element we talked about back in episode 6 – connecting by using gentle touch – providing their brain with a wash of oxytocin – so this also helps calm them.

Now, the key is breathing deep from the diaphragm instead of the chest. You can even just practice breathing in for the count of 3 and out for the count of 5 or in for 5, hold for 5 and out for 5, whatever they like, breathing out is what engages the parasympathetic nervous system. There are plenty of different exercises online, so I’ll be sure and link some good resources in the show notes and in the download I’m going to give you.

Another in the moment tool you can teach them, is called grounding – it’s a method that breaks the cycle they can get into - when anxiety causes those physiological changes in your teen’s body that they don’t understand - which then makes them more anxious, which can then increase the intensity of the feelings in their body. So, grounding is a method that diverts their attention long enough to break that cycle and move them further away from the anxious thoughts and feelings. The most common technique is called 5-4-3-2-1 and it’s based on the 5 senses. And if I didn’t say this already, just like with the breathing, show them how to do this when they’re not anxious.

Have them start 5-4-3-2-1 by sitting down and taking a couple of deep breaths (from the diaphragm) in through the nose and out through the mouth - then begin. The first thing they do is name 5 things they can see (because that’s the easiest one) then 4 things they can feel (another easy one), 3 things they can hear (think birds, a car, music), 2 things they can smell (who knows) and 1 thing they can taste. If your teen gets anxious a lot – keep their favorite sour candy or gum on hand for this exercise.

Tell them to keep repeating the exercise from the beginning, naming different things each time – until they feel calmer. If they don’t feel like they can remember what to do, make them a note to keep in their purse or wallet and even post it in the house a few places so they can get the hang of it.

Now, both the breathing and the grounding exercises are basically a form of mindfulness. A way to bring the mind back into the present moment – of focusing on nothing but right here, right now – I talked about mindfulness towards the end of episode 8 and in the download for that episode in the show notes called Emotional Awareness Strategies I have a lot of resources. If you can get your teen started in the practice of mindfulness, it will be a huge win against anxiety.

Because that episode 8 was about your emotions, not your teen’s, there’s one resource that I didn’t mention in the download that I think is worth doing so here. It’s an online program from the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion for teens ages 14 through 18 and it starts September 28^th, 2022 and it’s been shown in their own research at least to help with anxiety and depression – it really sounds awesome – I’ve had it bookmarked for a couple of years so I’ll link to it in the show notes (I’m not an affiliate or anything like that). Having these tools is helpful, but only if you and your teen have planned in advance for these anxious moments. Decide what they feel is most helpful. Do they like the grounding method better than breathing, would they prefer to do one then the other, would they rather do a different mindfulness technique, or go for a walk, or sit in a certain chair and listen to a particular song? Whatever it is that helps them calm down, plan that in advance. Everyone is different so you may have to try several different things but at least discuss the options with them and have a plan.

Now, let’s talk about what else you can do, other than these specific tools, to support them in working through their anxiety. First, remember your emotion coaching. We talked about it back in episode 6 (connection before correction). You’re really going to need to remember this when you have a teen with anxiety. Anxiety will come out in all sorts of strong negative emotional reactions and all manner of misbehavior so go back to episode 6 and refresh your memory about emotion coaching.

They still may not realize this is anxiety so rather than trying to point that out to them, put that aside for the moment, use empathy to put yourself in their place, imagine what it’s like to have their anxiety and be going through what they’re going through at their age. Provide a gentle touch if they’re open to it – maybe they don’t want to do breathing because, again, they may not be to the point of understanding this is anxiety and maybe it isn’t – maybe they’re just angry or jealous or whatever.

So, you have to listen with curiosity to figure out what they’re feeling, validate their emotions by reflecting what you hear and use emotion words. If it turns out from what you hear them say that you think they’re nervous or anxious or afraid, give them those words and then play it by ear to see if they want your help with breathing or grounding. Remember, you don’t jump in with advice or try to fix things – this is how they learn about their emotions and with your support will learn how to regulate them on their own – so resist the temptation to solve the problem for them – help them work through solutions

After they’ve calmed down, you can then discuss those emotions and remind them of the discussions you’ve had about their brain, how their amygdala works, and how their own negative thoughts can trigger these emotions and how their prefrontal cortex is too weak to help so they have to work harder to realize what’s happening and calm themselves with tools and support from you.

 

Emotion coaching is one of the ways you can be a nonanxious presence for them. This is what William Stixrud and Ned Johnson talk about this in their book “What do you say”. It’s almost impossible to emotion coach without becoming more emotionally aware and emotionally regulated yourself. Again, that’s in episode 8. Providing a calm, supportive environment in which you are not jumping in with your own anxiety and trying to control the situation or fix everything, shows them you have faith in them. It shows them you know they can handle this situation with your support. That they are resilient and can handle what life throws at them. By standing back and providing empathy and connection and listening to them and not freaking out, you’re communicating to them that everything’s going to be okay. If you’re okay, they’re okay.

You’re showing them that life is messy. Shit happens. Sometimes we freak out over nothing and then we realize it and apologize. Sometimes we’re able to catch it before it happens. We all make mistakes. We learn and we move on and we love them no matter what.

So, we have to work on our own stress – our own anxiety – our own negative self-talk. This is paramount to being a good parent. Studies show that stress is contagious – especially from mothers to kids. And stress makes us react to their emotions with less intention, we yell back, we argue, we lecture, we punish, we control. When we control and check up on them constantly, we’re showing them our anxiety – our fear for them and that’s giving them this message that we don’t think they’re safe – we’re providing them with an anxious atmosphere where their own anxiety will flourish.

Beyond just being emotionally aware and regulated, here are a few other tips for being that nonanxious presence for them:

Watch your use of the word “no”. This is based on scientific research. The word no releases some of the stress hormones involved in the fight or flight response and it will absolutely set many teens off. And before you think it, let me just say – my attitude used to be – “well tough do do” – he better get used to hearing the word no, because he’s going to hear it his whole life”. While that may be true, I’m not saying let them do whatever they want – always say yes – it’s just approach “no” differently.

The goal here is to reduce your teen’s emotional reactivity – reactivity caused by chemicals released in their brain due to no fault of theirs. Causing their amygdala to react over and over again not only causes drama and upheaval in your home for everyone who lives there but it can also lead to an anxiety disorder. You don’t want that. You are not pandering or spoiling or teaching them they’ll never hear the word no by softening the blow a little bit. And I can tell you from personal experience that trying to work around “no” is definitely the best solution. This was one of my son’s huge triggers and for some reason I just couldn’t get it through my head. I was too stubborn and had that authoritarian control and obedience thing stuck in my own brain and just didn’t get it. This doesn’t mean you need to say “yes” to everything. What it means is finding a way to put a positive spin on the answer or to throw them a bone so to speak.

Remember in episode 16 we talked about how to deal with a rule that you just could not negotiate? We said to start off with something positive (then we were talking about something positive related to the reason they want to change the rule). I think we used the example that your teen wants to drive with more than one friend in the car and you just can’t allow it for safety reasons. So, you could say something like “I love that you’re such a loyal friend and want to be the person to drive everyone everywhere – let’s revisit this rule in 6 weeks” something like that. You can do something similar with random questions that you need to answer in the negative. Give them a small positive or put a positive spin on it. Don’t let the first word out of your mouth be “no”. You might say, what if I take you over to their house and pick you up in a couple of hours (when they don’t need to spend the night because they need to get up early tomorrow). Instead of just saying “no, you can’t spend he night, you’ve got to get up early in the morning, remember?” Let the first words out of your mouth be something you are going to let them do. Or, ask them to let you think a minute if you can’t come up with something on the fly – tell them you want to think of something that will work for both of you rather than just saying no.

Dr. John Gottman who did the studies and coined the term emotion coaching also found that there’s, what he calls, a “magic ratio” of positive to negative interactions with someone. That magic happens at 5 to 1. That means for every negative thing someone hears from you, in order to keep your relationship positive, you need to say 5 positive things. That’s a powerful statement. That means you can be cruising along all positive with your teen and 1 negative thing can blow the last 5 interactions out of the water. One “no”, 1 “nag”, 1 lecture, and you’re starting at square 1. Please remember that.

So, another thing you can do to provide a nonanxious presence is to have more positive interactions by reminding them of their positive qualities. Help them combat their negative thinking about themselves by telling them positive things about them. When you see them do something nice or they go out of their way to help someone, or they do what they should without being asked – don’t just say thank you or that was nice. Say something like, “I love how you’re so kind to little kids” or “Boy, you really worked hard on that project”, or “I really enjoy our rides home from school in the afternoon”.

Or as Stixrud and Johnson say, let them overhear you saying nice things about them to someone else. That can be especially powerful since it certainly looks a lot less like blowing smoke – it seems much more sincere. That will truly make them feel good about themselves.

Something many parents do without realizing it is to focus on the issues we worry about for them. For example, you know they’ve been worried about their history grade so every day after school you ask them how history class was, or if they have history homework or when their next history test is. Doing this emphasizes what they’re anxious about and calls attention to it at the same time is shows them you’re worried about this as well! Don’t do that! Instead, just be there for them without freaking out, without showing them you’re worried too. Use your emotion coaching, listen, and reflect. Remember that making a big deal out of something will not only feed into their anxiety and show them you have no confidence that they can handle it. It will prevent them from sharing other even more important things with you. Just be their safe harbor - their safe space.

Finally, one of the most important things you can do for your teen to help them through their anxiety is to not accommodate their avoidance. Let me explain. Avoidance is one of the easiest ways for someone to cope with their anxiety. Flying makes you anxious? Just drive. Dentists make you anxious? Don’t go. School makes you anxious? Stay home.

And most parents – actually between 95 and 100% of parents – accommodate avoidance practices in their anxious kids and teens. And who can blame us, right? When my son was at the height of anxiety, he cried and begged and threw up and had stomach issues and just would not go to school. There was absolutely no way we saw that we could force him to go. You can’t drag a teenager kicking and screaming and throwing up, all the way to school. We quickly got him in with a psychologist and whatever magic she did, he was at school the next day. In the meantime, he missed the first several days of 10^th or 11^th grade – I can’t remember. And looking back now, I’m sure we were more accommodating than we could have been. I know his anxiety triggered my own and I’m sure he could see that in my every move. I’m sure he could see that I had no confidence that he could push through the anxiety and go to school because I didn’t put up any fuss.

Because I grew up with anxiety, I empathize too much. I put myself in his place and I know how hard it is and I didn’t want to force it. But had I known about emotion coaching and known how to be aware of my own anxiety and regulate it, and provide that nonanxious presence, I firmly believe things would have been different. As a parent, it’s just SO difficult to see your child in pain. You want to smooth their way, make it easier, make sure they’re okay again. But by accommodating avoidance, you’re doing the exact opposite.

I just read an article in which the author talks about watching Lynn Lyons, psychotherapist, anxiety expert and host of the podcast Flusterclux, deliver a presentation to teachers and school counselors at a New England High School. Lyons says, “Anxiety is all about the avoidance of uncertainty and discomfort” “When we play along, we don’t help kids learn to cope or problem-solve in the face of unexpected events.” In this same article (which I’ll link to in the show notes) a mother of an anxious teen is quoted as saying, “The million‑dollar question of raising an anxious child is: When is pushing her going to help because she has to face her fears, and when is it going to make the situation worse and she’s going to have a panic attack?” “I feel like I made the wrong decision many times, and it destroyed my confidence as a mother.” And I so get that feeling. But I also know that our own anxiety and parenting style plays a role in that fear of pushing too hard. Our own anxiety and fear that feeds theirs. It simply cannot be overstated – parents have to get control of their own anxiety if they ever hope of helping their kids.

The go-to gold standard therapy for anxiety is cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. A sub-category of CBT, which is most effective for many is called “exposure therapy”. The whole point of exposure therapy is, you guessed it, exposure to the very thing that makes you anxious. They do it gradually and it may be in real life or virtual, but the idea is to gradually tackle your anxiety about being in certain situations. Avoiding the anxiety-inducing issue is not the way to go – as hard as it is to stand tough in the face of their anxiety - we are simply reinforcing if we don’t. And we accommodate, reinforce, or enable, a million different ways. We talk to their teachers if they’re afraid to. We make sure they know the plan in advance. We make sure they know someone at the party. We lock the dog in the bedroom. We have to convince our kids that we have confidence in their ability to face their fears – push through the difficulty and do what they need to do. And we sure as hell can’t do that when we’re killing ourselves to accommodate those fears.

By accommodating their avoidance, we are guaranteeing that their world will close in around them eventually. If they avoid what makes them anxious, they will find more things to be anxious about and avoid. Gradually, their world closes in around them. On the other hand, if they expose themselves to the things that make them anxious, they are training their amygdala to be less reactive in the face of those triggers. They have the power to be the boss of their own brain. To tell the amygdala to back off and chill the hell out.

This past few months my son flew twice from Denver to Nashville. The first time, he got on the plane for the trip alone and had a full-blown panic attack and called me from the plane. It was all I could do to not panic myself. I was inside but didn’t let him hear it. I got his calm enough to hang up, but I was so worried the entire trip until he called when he landed.

Then a few months later he had to fly again but with his girlfriend. Apparently, that didn’t help because this time he texted me from his seat “My anxiety is some of the worst it’s been right now”. Now – that’s saying a lot considering the last flight. You talk about feeling powerless to help your child! I was typing as fast as my thumbs would go, this is what I said: Deep Breathe. Calm your mind and relax your body. He replied, “okay I’ll try”. I continued “It’s your brain causing you to think negatively. Talk to your brain, tell it you’re okay. We texted back and forth for several minutes. I took him through grounding and reminded him his amygdala got really activated the last time he flew, and it was remembering that now.

Later, he actually said as soon as he realized it was his amygdala making him nervous this time because it remembered the last time, he started feeling better. If I had just known these things a few years ago – I just kick myself now. And I don’t want you to be kicking yourself later. Please – Please learn about your own emotions. Learn to regulate your anxiety. Be a nonanxious presence for your kids. Learn to help them push through by not accommodating their avoidance.

A study conducted at the Yale University Child Study Center and published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in September 2020, tells us all we need to know about what a critical role we play in reducing our kids’ anxiety. In the first study of its kind, the researchers compared 2 groups of kids and adolescents ages 7 to 14 – one group participating in cognitive behavioral therapy and the other group not participating in any therapy – but whose parents participated in a program to help them learn how to reduce accommodating avoidance.

The parent-based program, Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions or SPACE, was as effective at reducing anxiety in the group of children whose parents’ participated as cognitive behavioral therapy was for the other group of children. This SPACE program works because it goes straight to the very heart of the issue with kids’ anxiety – parental accommodation. Because kids look to us for protection and reassurance, it entangles us in their anxiety by hooking us into accommodating them, which makes the anxiety even worse and causes us to accommodate even more – it’s a feedback loop. This should prove just how crucial it is for us to change our tactics for helping our kids avoid their anxiety triggers. I’ll have information on SPACE in the show notes.

Now, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says that if your teen’s fears or anxieties begin taking over their life or if it lasts more than 6 months, it’s time to get help from a mental healthcare professional. And of course, if they become suicidal or start hinting or threatening, seek help immediately – call 988 for support or 911 if the threat is imminent.

There are differing opinions about where to start for basic help for a teen’s anxiety. Some recommend going to your pediatrician first. Many pediatricians will actually attempt to treat anxiety or depression in their patients. Many others will refuse to do so, but will refer you to a counselor, a psychologist or psychiatrist. Personally, unless they have special training in mental healthcare, I would not go the pediatrician route. You can make an appointment with a licensed counselor or therapist (preferably one specializing in children and adolescents – even better if they specialize in anxiety disorders). They may, in turn, recommend a child & adolescent psychologist if they feel your child needs to be evaluated to pinpoint the disorder and they may recommend a child & adolescent psychiatrist if they feel medication should be considered.

Just do your homework. Check with friends and relatives and other professionals to find out who people trust. Check your insurance coverage first, check with the providers to see what insurance they accept. And there are usually providers who will provide services on a sliding scale or accept Medicaid.

The problem is that child & adolescent mental healthcare professionals are usually backed up for months – especially the psychologists and psychiatrists. So, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to get in with someone as soon as an anxiety issue pops up and before it becomes a problem. By the time the appointment rolls around, if the issue has resolved, you can always cancel. But I can tell you from experience that being in crisis and not having someone available right away, would be a nightmare. For a little more about mental healthcare and getting help beyond counseling, you can listen to episode 7.

So, here’s what I want you to remember from today’s episode:

You’re going to listen and watch for signs of anxiety in your teen. You’re going to help them understand what anxiety is and how it works in their brain and body. You’re going to teach them some tools to use in the moment when they’re anxious. You’re going to be a nonanxious presence in your kid’s life. You’re not going to help them avoid their anxiety – instead, you’re going to show them how much confidence you have in their ability to show their amygdala who’s boss. Help them keep their world wide open and full of possibilities, scary or not. And get them help as soon as you see it becoming a problem - don’t wait until there’s a crisis.

Now, I want you to remember to go to the show notes and grab the  link to my free checklist that will help you instruct and support your kid through their anxiety. Just go to neurogility.com/19 to get your copy.

Speaking of Teens is the official podcast of neurogility.com, where you can find all sorts of free parenting guides and e-books to help you learn more about parenting your teen or tween.

Remember to go to neurogility.com/19 for the show notes, the free anxiety checklist and the transcript.

Thank you so much for listening to this extended version of Speaking of Teens! I just don’t think I could have made it any shorter. Please share this episode with all your friends – no doubt more than one of them has child that suffers to some extent with anxiety. What I wouldn’t have given for this kind of advice a few years ago.

Don’t forget to come back next Tuesday for another episode – just tap follow in your app and it will just show up for you.

If you need me, I’m here for you – my email’s is acoleman@neurogility.com

Until next week – see ya!