Helping parents help their anxious children

Anxiety is now the most common mental health condition affecting young people. In Australia, nearly 1 in 3 young women and 1 in 5 young men aged 16–24 report experiencing an anxiety disorder.1 Behind these statistics are families navigating the daily challenges of school refusal, panic, sleep difficulties and emotional overwhelm.

As professionals working in education, health or community services, you are often the first point of contact for parents when a child’s anxiety starts to interfere with their life. Increasingly, parents are looking to us for not just empathy but direction. They want to know what they can do at home to genuinely support their child’s wellbeing without reinforcing the problem.

What do we tell them?

Well-intentioned help can accidentally fuel anxiety

When a child is anxious, the natural instinct of any caring adult is to protect them. This often involves making life easier in the short term. Parents might speak on their child’s behalf, allow them to avoid stressful situations, or provide constant reassurance. In moderation, these responses are understandable. But over time, they can prevent the child from learning to tolerate discomfort or solve problems for themselves.

This is what psychologists call accommodation: adjusting the environment or routine to prevent anxiety triggers. The research is clear that while accommodations reduce distress in the short term, they are strongly associated with worse anxiety symptoms over time.2 In other words, avoidance feeds the anxiety loop.

The goal is not to be unkind or harsh. The goal is to help parents step back in ways that allow their child to step up.

What children need: support, not rescue

Children learn to manage anxiety by facing their fears gradually and repeatedly, with support. That process is called exposure, and it is a cornerstone of all evidence-based anxiety treatments.

But exposure without support is just distress. That is why the parent-child relationship is key. When parents remain calm, confident and connected during moments of challenge, they give their child a powerful message: “You can do hard things, and I’ll be here while you do.”

This is co-regulation in action. And it works far better than lectures or logic.

What we can do as professionals

Whether you are a teacher, counsellor, nurse, support worker or psychologist, there are simple but powerful ways to support parents:

• Name the pattern

  Help parents see how their well-meant responses might be reinforcing anxiety. This often brings relief and a sense of clarity.

• Validate their experience

  Many parents feel guilt or shame about their child’s struggles. Normalising these emotions is a first step to change.

• Promote a plan of small steps

  Encourage parents to work with their child to set goals for manageable, repeated exposures. Facing a school gate, ordering food, calling a friend – each act builds tolerance.

• Coach rather than fix

  Invite parents to move from solving problems for their child to helping them solve problems themselves. This might mean asking questions, offering encouragement, or just being present.

• Model calm confidence

  When professionals speak with clarity and compassion, parents often begin to borrow that confidence for themselves.

A hopeful message

Anxiety can feel overwhelming – for the child experiencing it and the adults trying to help. But with the right support and guidance, parents can make a significant difference. The science tells us that even modest shifts in adult responses can lead to meaningful improvements in children’s resilience and independence.3

Helping anxious children starts with helping the adults around them respond with confidence, connection and consistency. That is where real change begins.

Anxiety Coach is a one-day professional development course for child & family specialists working with children and their families struggling with child anxiety. Find out more here: https://www.parentshop.com.au/professionals/anxiety-coach-family-specialists

References

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (2023).

  National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing

  .

• Lebowitz, E. R., Scharfstein, L., & Jones, J. (2014).

  Child-reported and parent-reported behavioural accommodations in childhood anxiety disorders

  .

  Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology

  , 43(2), 326–338.

• Ginsburg, G. S., Becker-Haimes, E. M., Keeton, C. P., Kendall, P. C., Iyengar, S., Sakolsky, D., & Albano, A. M. (2018).

  Results from the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Extended Long-term Study (CAMELS)

  : primary anxiety outcomes.

  Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

  , 57(7), 471–480.