The Anxiety Playbook Every Parent Needs: What Anxiety Really Is, Why Reassurance Backfires, and How Brave Kids Are Built.

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to After Bedtime. I'm so excited for today's episode. It's about anxiety. I love anxiety. Well, not for you, not for your kid. But as a therapist, I love talking about it because there's so much that we can start doing today to help ourselves, to help our kids through it. So today's episode is basically your anxiety playbook. We are going to go deep on exactly what it is, what is happening at a brain level, which then becomes the roadmap for how you're going to show up and support your kids through their anxiety. Now, anxiety with kids is one of the most misunderstood things in parenting today.

0:45Yes, it can look like what we probably all think of. Anxious kids who are clinging or melting, afraid to try new things, scared to take risks, holding onto your leg, but it can also be at the root of a lot of tough behavior that we're seeing, like explosiveness, aggression, perfectionism. Anxiety is sneaky like that, and we're going to unpack it. And maybe most importantly, you are going to walk away from this episode with explicit tools, concrete strategies that you can start using today to help your kid work through their anxiety and ultimately become their most brave, confident, secure self, ready to take on new things and explore life and ultimately thrive.

1:26This episode is for you. It is for your kid. It is going to help every relationship that you have in life. Whether you have a kid who is battling anxiety right now, you're trying to prevent it in your kids, you struggle with it yourself. This episode is going to be life changing for everyone. I am so excited. So let's dive in. Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins. The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right. We're Kristen and Dina, child behavior experts, moms and co-founders of Big Little Feelings. And we're not here to give you more pressure or perfect parenting energy.

2:06Nope. We're here to tell the truth, the unfiltered, beautiful, brutal truth about what it means to raise kids and re-raise ourselves in the process. Because parenting isn't just about sleep schedules and snack hacks. It's about healing. It's about breaking cycles. It's about becoming the kind of adult you want your kids to grow up to be. This is the place where we say the quiet parts out loud, and we're so glad that you're here. Okay, besties, before we get into anxiety, let's catch up together. It is summer. My kids are home. They might come knocking on my door any second because if mama is home, they're going to come find me.

2:43And it's so funny, like as the weather has been changing, I've been noticing the shift within me where it's like my routine feels a little bit different. I can focus in the morning when I'm going to work. But then by the afternoon, I'm like, you know what? I really want to go outside. I want to go play. And I feel like there really is this kind of thing that happens with parents that not a lot of us talk about where somewhere is this weird pull between like trying to stay on track with the stuff you have to do. But also then you just want to go live your life. You know what I mean? And don't even get me started on the whole thing that went around last year of like, you only get 18 summers with your kids.

3:21Yes, yes, that's true. And we can do our very best to be present and fun and engaged and soak it up with them. I know I try to do that every afternoon when I'm home with them. And honestly, it might have something to do with the fact that my four-year-old right now is very curious about death. So he is constantly reminding me that mommy, you are going to die one day. Yes, we have those conversations in our house, but either way, it is a reminder to me to like live every day to the fullest. And I'm trying to do that while keeping up with the real life stuff that I have going on too. So yeah, summer makes me feel a lot of like pulled and mixed feelings.

4:00But one thing I'm really excited about is it is rodeo season here in Colorado. So I don't know if you listened to my episode where we talked about when I was going through like the dark middle of postpartum depression, but I went to a rodeo during that time. And honestly, it kind of like saved my life watching a man ride a bull. And maybe, you know, that being his last day weirdly helped me through my own postpartum depression. Anyways, I don't know how to explain it. I got obsessed with rodeo. I went once. And by the end of the rodeo time, because ours is like two weeks long here in Denver when we have it in January, I had gone literally six times.

4:39I was so invested. We had to go to the finals. I found out who won. I knew all the writers' names. It took over my brain. I don't even know how it happened, but it did. And now if you look at my calendar, I have a whole lineup of all the rodeos happening around here in town that are drivable. So we've got one coming up. I'm very excited for that adventure. The other thing is I love Italy. I've been wanting to go to Italy again ever since I've had kids. I have not gone to Europe in years and years and years, and I really want to go. And we are still not going this summer. I do not have it in me to get on the airplane with these three kids right now.

5:20And this is actually something that like we're going to see on the internet, right? Like all these people going on these nice beach vacations. And I love that for you if that is what you were doing. Like if you are taking all your kids on that 13 hour flight to Europe, girl, you got this. It's going to be great. You can do it no matter what happens on that plane. You can handle it. If you need to, you will black out and you will be there before you know it. And it's going to be an adventure of a lifetime that you all remember forever, good or bad. You know what I mean? It's going to be amazing.

5:53I just don't have it in me right now. as much as I really want to do that. I just I'm going to choose to stay home and have adventures here in our town, in our backyard and soak it up to the fullest that way. And that's what feels right for me. One day I will get there. I will be ready to do it. It's just not right now. So for now, I'm going to buy a coconut from the store and pretend that I'm at Hawaii in my backyard with my kids. And it's going to be lovely. But yeah, in case you need the reminder to there is no one right way to live your life or do your summer, you can have fun right here at home or you can go for that big vacation.

6:29I love it for all of us. You should do exactly what feels right for you, boo boo. And don't let the internet and all its extreme takes to get views, eat at you or make you feel like you're a bad parent or like you're not doing enough or doing it right. Your kids, they just want to like roll around on the floor with you. That truly is enough for them. And making magical memories can be as big or small as we want it to be. Novelty, by the way, is an amazing thing. You know what they'll remember? Taking popsicles into the bathtub with them or going on a little local hike with you and having a picnic outside.

7:08Lately, I feel like me and my husband have really been leaning into this. Like find exactly what you like, what makes you feel happy, what brings you joy with your kids and do more of that. And last side note, my kids are now five and four and past summers, I was able to keep them going to bed on time. Lately, after the clocks changed and the sun is out later, this is the first year where our bedtimes have gotten pushed so far back. My me time is dwindling, my friends, and we'll see what I'm going to do about it. Either I can, you know, go ahead and muster up all my energy and hold the boundaries and shift everything, or I can just roll with it.

7:48And honestly, I haven't really decided which route I'm going to go yet. Anyways, enough tangents. Let's talk anxiety because I have a lot to say. I'm going to put on my therapist hat and we're going to get right into it. And by the end of this, I promise you, you're going to walk away feeling so empowered, so ready to show up, like excited to show up and help your kid through the anxiety. It's going to be great. Let's do it. You know how it goes. One kid suddenly hates the thing that he loved yesterday. One kid is surviving entirely on beige foods. One kid's eating like he's preparing for hibernation.

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13:06Stop guessing, start testing. Rhythm dot health slash BLF. The word anxiety has been thrown around so much these days that like we don't even understand what it actually means. And by far, the most helpful thing is understanding what is going on in your brain when you're feeling anxious. That will give you a roadmap on exactly how to respond. It's so cool when you go to a brain level and you look at anxiety like I'm stoked. Now, a lot of times lately, anxiety almost gets talked about and treated like it's an emotion, but it's actually a state and it's actually a prediction. Think about it this way.

13:49Anxiety is your brain trying to answer one question. Am I safe? Your brain's number one job is not happiness. It's actually survival, just straight up keeping you alive. That's the number one priority, which makes sense. Like when we boil it all down, you are an animal after all, a very complex, nuanced, emotional animal. Now, thousands of times a day, your brain is scanning for danger. Car swerving into your lane? Danger. House fire? Danger. A bear chasing you through the woods? Yes, danger. And in those moments, your stress response turns on. Your heart rate increases, your breathing changes, your attention narrows, and your body prepares for action.

14:37When you are super duper stressed, your four survival responses automatically turn on. And it's one of these fight, flight, freeze, or faint. Flight, obviously you want to run away from something dangerous and get out of there. Fight, you're going to try to fight for your life. Like you're going to fight that bear with whatever you got, which actually with a bear to get really nerdy is not the best response. You can freeze and hope that they don't see you or fainting, playing dead. Yes, these are all biologically wired into you. When you go beyond the amount of stress that you can handle, those are the four automatic responses.

15:19And my friend, you are not choosing. If you are in real danger, amazing system. Okay. 10 out of 10, no notes. The problem comes when the brain starts identifying things that aren't dangerous as dangerous, like sleeping alone, talking in class, trying a new food, going to a birthday party, making a mistake, or being embarrassed. The anxious brain can confuse uncertainty, discomfort, comfort, big feelings, new situations, social vulnerability with danger. That's the whole game. The alarm system works. It's just become overly sensitive. Your brain is hitting the panic button when there is no danger.

16:08So now that you understand it this way, you're starting to see that anxiety is really about safety. And there are ways that we can communicate and signal to our brain, our body, our mind that we are safe. And that will shift how your entire nervous system is firing at that moment to help you feel better, feel more calm, feel more secure, and ultimately find your brave. Now, quick side note, what does anxiety actually look like in kids. Parents often think that anxiety looks like fear. And yeah, sometimes it does. But honestly, a lot of anxious kids don't look anxious. They look difficult. Let's revisit those four survival responses we talked about.

16:54This part can actually be mind-blowing. Let's start with fight. That might look like your kid yelling, kicking, screaming, bossiness, aggression. Now, what about flight. That might look like avoidance or refusal, running away, clinginess, never wanting to go. Now let's go over freeze. It might look like shutting down or a blank stare or not answering you, hiding. And then our last one, the faint or collapse, which if you are someone who experiences stresses getting dizzy, feeling like you're going to pass out, this is why. It's a very physiological response that happens when you can't escape a danger.

17:38It's almost like your body shuts down so that you don't have to experience it. I actually went to a lot of doctors when I was younger because I was dizzy and felt like I was going to pass out a lot and they really couldn't figure out what was going on, but high likelihood that it was anxiety and stress. Now, here's the important reframe. If you just notice like, yes, this is probably happening with my kid's brain. a lot of behavior problems are actually protection strategies. They're not bad kids or manipulative. This is their brain trying to protect them. And the cool thing is we can actually build self-awareness and coping skills to help us stretch our bandwidth of how much distress and discomfort we can handle before our brain kicks into that survival mode.

18:24Okay, my friends, here is the anxiety playbook. We're going to go through some things that a lot of us have programmed into us because it's exactly what happened to us, or it just feels very logical and intuitive to do these things, but they can accidentally spike anxiety and keep the anxiety going. So we're going to notice a few of those things and swap them out for some new plays, which by the way, are just research-based tools. The first thing we're going to do is teach our kids how their brain works. Just like you learned about what anxiety is and what happens to our brain when we don't feel safe, when we're actually safe, fight, flight, freeze, or faint, we are going to teach that to our kids.

19:08I've done it with my kids and here's exactly how I explained it. Honey, for all of us and our brains, when we feel too much discomfort, when we feel really uncomfortable or something is new or feels scary to us or feels yucky in our body, it can signal to our brain that we're not safe. And we can notice that and say, hold on brain, I'm uncomfortable, but I'm actually safe. You're allowed to calm down. I'm going to be okay. It doesn't feel great, but I can handle this. Teaching your kids how to monitor and manage what they're feeling is literally the best gift that we could possibly give our kids in life, hands down.

19:56And from doing this from an early age, my kids can now notice after they've had a hard time, like, whoa, that was too much for me. And my brain went into fight or flight mode. And I'll be like, yeah, you know what? You are yelling and kicking and screaming. Yeah, your brain really went into fight mode, didn't it? Let's unpack that together. Let's talk about it. What do you think happened? I swear, teach your kid how their brain works. It will help you in so many different situations. But that's what we're going to remember here as we go through this. This is about a brain scanning for threatened danger, even when there is no true danger.

20:32And we want to help that brain remember that they're safe. So here are some things that we're going to avoid doing and what we're going to swap in instead. And as we do this, you and I are making a promise, okay? We're not going to get all shaming. We're not going to judge yourself or kick yourself if you notice you've been doing some of these things. That's what we're here to do. Get new information and grow. So no shame. We have a promise. Thing number one, we're going to avoid endless reassurance. It feels like a productive thing. We want to reassure them like, no, you're fine. Nothing bad will happen.

21:06I promise you'll be okay. But there's a ton of research from CBT and anxiety treatment that consistently shows that reassurance seeking can become a maintenance cycle. It works for a second and then the anxiety comes back and asks for another hit. So the reassurance doesn't quite reduce anxiety. Also, your kid is feeling nervous. They are feeling anxious. And when we try to just deny it or make them ignore it, that can make things harder for them. So tool number one in our playbook, we're going to give them confidence, not certainty. And it can sound something like, listen, I know you're worried.

21:41Or it can sound like, what do you think you'll do if that happens? Or even I believe you can handle hard things. Because the truth is in life, we can't actually control everything for our kids. Part of anxiety and not feeling safe is the uncertainty, is not being able to control everything. So our reassurance is kind of fake. and we're just going to do away with it. And we're just going to replace us trying to make things feel certain with helping them feel confident that they can get through hard moments. All right. Next thing that we are going to avoid is helping them avoid. Now, this is a big one.

22:20Avoidance is anxiety's favorite food. The child avoids something. Maybe it's like, you know, The new soccer practice, anxiety drops, and the brain learns, good thing we escaped that. And now the fear gets bigger. Here are a few examples, like skipping the birthday party, right? Or leaving soccer, or not sleeping in their room, or speaking for them, or ordering for them. And by the way, side note, I'm not talking about accommodations like with neurodivergent kids, right? They do need accommodations. In fact, they thrive with accommodations. I'm talking about avoiding situations that you know your kid can handle but are uncomfortable for them.

22:59The research on family accommodation is very clear that more accommodation equals more anxiety over time. When we put our kids in situations that we know they can handle that are uncomfortable and we support them through the struggle, they actually have the experience that they need to become more confident. I'm not saying to throw your kid into soccer practice and say, too bad. You have to do it. I don't care how you feel. I'm saying show up, let them sit on your lap, be their safe place. Let them watch, study, observe, get comfortable. And when they're ready, they can inch their way out there, but you're not completely avoiding it because it's uncomfortable supported struggle so that they can get the data they need to get comfortable, to feel safe and eventually to get out there.

23:46So we're adding that to the playbook. Supported struggle. Okay, moving on to number three. We as the parents, as the caregivers are going to avoid treating anxiety like evidence. So many of us accidentally act as though anxiety proves danger exists. Let me give you an example. Your kid is like, but what if everyone laughs at me? And if you respond with, oh, honey, nobody will ever laugh at you. This accidentally communicates whether people laugh determines whether you're OK. And instead, in our playbook, we're going to be more like, even if something uncomfortable happens, you can handle it. Like, even as I said that, didn't that feel nice?

24:32Don't you feel the confidence in that? Even if something uncomfortable happened, you can handle it. And that brings us to our fourth thing. We're going to avoid making comfort a goal. This is really subtle in a lot of ways. Like lots of us as parents, we become so focused on how do I get my kids to stop feeling anxious when that's kind of the wrong goal. The path we're going to go is how do I help my kid function while they're feeling anxious? How do I help them get through the discomfort, the distress and find their way to feeling safe? And actually, by the way, this is what exposure therapy is all built on.

25:09Brave kids aren't fearless. Everyone's going to feel nervous and scared. Being brave means showing up or trying something, even when you feel scared. In fact, that's the bravest thing you could possibly do. And again, it doesn't mean we're just throwing our kids in the deep end and being like, swim. We can still be there with them. And we'll scaffold our way there. Think in this world of 2026 parenting we're in, where everything online can feel so extreme. It's important to remember that it's okay for your kid to feel uncomfortable. In fact, it's really important. The more we help them through the discomfort, the more they get that data that they can be okay, that they are safe in uncomfortable situations, and that's how they build confidence.

25:58All right, next thing in our playbook, we're going to avoid turning worry into a family project. Anxiety loves attention. And some families accidentally spend hours discussing fears. We're analyzing fears. We're researching fears. We're debating the fears. We're reassuring the fears. And the anxious brain interprets all of that as, okay, yes, this must be really important. This is pretty serious fear. Sometimes less discussion is actually more helpful. We can acknowledge how they feel. We can validate it. And then we're going to move toward action. All right. Next thing in our playbook, we're going to avoid speaking for our kids.

26:35And in fact, we're going to do a little exposure therapy. That's the tool in the playbook here. Speaking for our kids can feel really, really loving. It's tricky. Here's some examples that come to mind, right? We're ordering food for them or answering questions for them when someone asks them how school has been or how their sport is or ask a question about friends or talking to coaches for them or asking teachers things for them. Every time that we step in, our kid loses an opportunity to prove I can do this, especially in these types of situations, which are actually like really safe. What a great low risk environment to practice this stuff in.