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The Parent Book.
Therapist-written support for parents
What helps
Anxiety

Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common things parents bring to us in therapy, and it looks different at each age: the toddler who won’t be put down, the seven-year-old who can’t sleep, the teenager who has stopped going to school. These pages are for parents at any of those stages, because what helps changes as a child grows.

What the library says about this, in one place. It is also online at theparentbook.com/help/anxiety

What to do first

Anxiety is one of the most treatable things children bring to us. It’s the body deciding something is dangerous before the thinking part of the brain has had a say, and it isn’t a flaw in your child’s character, or in yours.

  1. Tonight, don’t argue with the worry. Name it: “Your body has decided that’s dangerous, and I can see how hard that is.” Naming it does more than reasoning with it.
  2. This week, notice what your child is avoiding, and pick the smallest possible version of it to do together. Avoidance is what keeps anxiety going, and avoiding slightly less is all you’re aiming for.
  3. Tell the school: a form tutor who knows will handle a Monday morning differently, and you’ll no longer be the only adult dealing with it.

What helps

  • Stay calm first, talk later. Sit close and slow your own breathing. Being next to a calm adult helps a child’s body settle, and that does more than anything clever you could say. Save the words for when the worst has passed.
  • Name the feeling out loud. Try “That sounds really hard” or “You look really worried.” Naming the feeling makes it seem less strange, and it shifts brain activity from the alarm centre towards the language centre.
  • Praise effort, behaviour and process, never just results. Say “You kept going when that was hard”, not “You’re so clever”. The first tells your child what worked; the second adds pressure.
  • Admit your own mistakes out loud. Do it often: “I burnt the dinner.” “I forgot the appointment.” “I read the email wrong.” Your child copies how you deal with your own mistakes far more than anything you tell them.

Some tips to try

Short pieces from the library, and a first thing to try from each.

  • When the Worry Will Not Settle. An anxious child rarely tells you they’re worried; it comes out as stomach aches, refusals and repeated questions.
    • Name what your child’s body is doing, briefly, in plain language.
    • If the worry goes on for weeks, or your child needs the same answer again and again before they can settle, talk to your GP.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/when-the-worry-will-not-settle
  • Hiding Behind Your Legs. Many young children take a while to warm up; stay close, let your child answer in their own way, and don’t call them shy.
    • Stay close at first, and let your child move away when they’re ready.
    • Talk to your health visitor or GP if your child doesn’t warm up even when given time, if their fear is severe and gets in the way of everyday life, or if they talk freely at home but have not spoken at nursery or school for a month or more, or for two months if they have only just started there.
    • Tell the health visitor or GP too if your child rarely responds to their name, rarely shows you things they are interested in, or doesn’t seem to react to sounds or voices.
    • If your child is frightened of one person in particular, don’t coax them towards that person. If you think someone may be hurting your child, or your child tells you so, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day. If the person lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. A national child protection helpline will talk it through with you. NSPCC, 0808 800 5000. Email help@nspcc.org.uk. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm by phone; email 11am-4pm, seven days a week. An email sent when the service is closed is not received. If the NSPCC service is closed and the concern cannot wait, call the police on 101. You can also contact the child’s local out-of-hours children’s social care, social work or social services team. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. Help is free.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/hiding-behind-your-legs
  • The Child Who Looks Fine. A teenager with good grades and teachers who say everything’s fine can still be anxious and exhausted.
    • Take the tiredness and irritability seriously alongside the good marks.
    theparentbook.com/quick-tips/the-child-who-looks-fine

The rest of each tip, with more to try and why it works, is in the library.

Something to do together

A way back to the room. A short noticing game, and for younger children a slow breath traced with a finger. Practise them together on calm days, so your child already knows them on a hard one.

What it is for. In our experience, an anxious child is helped more by something they can do themselves than by reassurance. If they learn this when nothing is wrong, they will already know it on a harder day.

  • The first step. Choose a calm day and tell your child what it is: “This is something people do when a worry gets loud. Let’s try it now, while nothing’s wrong.”

Safety. After something frightening, let your child choose their senses, and do not ask them to close their eyes.

When to get help. This is practice, not a treatment. Talk to your GP about recurring panic, worry that stops your child going to school, sleeping or eating, frightening intrusive thoughts, or several weeks of waking in fear. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, that they are hurting themselves, or that they do not want to be alive, stay calm, thank them for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page.

The other five steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

If you want to read further

Worth your time

Who else can help

For almost everything, the NHS is the right first move, and it costs nothing.

  • YoungMinds. The UK’s young people’s mental health charity, with a free Parents Helpline, webchat and email, and a plain A to Z of the things parents worry about. When you want to talk through a worry about your child with someone who has heard it before, or read a clear first explanation of a named concern. Not a crisis line. Parents Helpline 0808 802 5544 · Mon, Thu, Fri 9.30am-4pm; Tue, Wed 9.30am-6pm · Webchat Mon-Fri 9.30am-4pm; email parents@youngminds.org.uk · Outside those hours the parents line is closed. The urgent routes on this page are open when it is not. www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-helpline
  • NHS: mental health advice for parents and carers. The NHS’s pages for parents, in one place: anxiety, low mood, anger, bereavement, arguments with teenagers, exam stress, and how to talk about feelings. When you want the NHS’s own account before anyone else’s. www.nhs.uk/mental-health/children-and-young-adults/advice-for-parents
  • Place2Be. Parenting Smart, written by the child mental health specialists who work in primary schools: short, practical articles and films on friendships, behaviour, worries and routines. For a child of five to eleven, when you want something you can read in ten minutes and try tonight. Place2Be’s counselling itself is only through partner schools. parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk

The full list for anxiety, with what each organisation does and when it is the right call, is at theparentbook.com/help/anxiety/services

Published by Kensington Square Therapy. Company No. 16707111. Written by therapists registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS). This page is not therapy, and not a substitute for professional support. The full library is at theparentbook.com.