How to Support Your Anxious Child and What Really Helps
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Written by Katrina Batey, Anxious Children Parent Coach
Katrina Batey specialises in how parents can support their children with anxiety. She is a trained S.P.A.C.E. anxiety treatment provider and mental health coach, working with parents across the UK and internationally to help their anxious children overcome anxiety and build confidence.
When your child is anxious, every instinct tells you to fix it, soothe it, or make it disappear. But what if real, lasting change doesn’t come from eliminating anxiety, but from helping your child learn they can handle it? This article explores what truly helps anxious children build confidence, resilience, and a sense of safety, starting with how we, as parents, show up for them.
Struggling to help your anxious child? Learn how to support anxious children in ways that create real, lasting change.
Parenting an anxious child is hard
When your child is struggling with anxiety, it is natural to want to make it stop. As parents, we often focus on reducing, eliminating, or “fixing” anxiety as quickly as possible. We reassure them. We avoid triggers. We step in. We try to protect our child from discomfort, because watching them struggle feels unbearable.
But here is the paradox that most parents of anxious children are not told. The more we try to shut anxiety down, the more power it gains.
Helping a child with anxiety does not mean eliminating anxious feelings. It means helping them learn that they can handle those feelings, and that they are safe even when anxiety shows up.
Below are five core principles I teach parents who want to support their anxious child in a way that actually leads to long term change.
You are the number one priority
Parenting an anxious child is emotionally exhausting. What others do not see is:
The constant mental load.
The rehearsing of conversations.
The planning ahead for every scenario.
The worrying about what to say, what not to say, and whether you are making things better or worse.
Caring for your own wellbeing is not indulgent, it is essential. Anxious children are highly sensitive to their primary caregiver’s nervous system. When we are tense, overwhelmed, or walking on eggshells, our child’s brain reads that as a sign that the world is not safe.
This is not about blame. Your child’s anxiety is not your fault. Feeling worried about your child is your nervous system doing exactly what it evolved to do. But when you prioritise your own calm, regulation, and support, you send a powerful message of safety, often without saying a word. Your calm presence is one of the most effective tools you have.
The anxiety is not the problem
This can feel counterintuitive, but the real issue in childhood anxiety is not how much anxiety a child feels, it is how well they can tolerate it.
Anxiety is uncomfortable. But when a child believes, “I can’t handle this feeling,” they will avoid anything that might trigger it. Over time, this leads to:
Avoidance.
Reduced confidence.
A narrowing of their world.
This might look like refusing clubs, struggling with separation, or needing constant reassurance, particularly at developmental stages where independence would usually be expected.
Instead of seeing anxiety itself as the enemy, shift your focus to the impact of anxiety. The goal is not to remove anxious feelings, but to help your child learn, “I can feel anxious and still cope.” In each anxious moment, quietly hold the belief that your child will be okay, because they will.
Dr. Eli Lebowitz, creator of the Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions program, summarises it like this, “Think of tolerating your child’s distress as a lesson you are teaching your child. It is as though you are saying, ‘This makes me very uncomfortable, but I am able to cope with it because I know I have to,’ which is precisely what you want your child to be able to say about her own anxiety. It makes me uncomfortable, but I can tolerate it because I know I have to.” – Eli R. Lebowitz, Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents
Stop trying to control your child’s anxiety
When anxiety feels dangerous, our instinct is to rescue. We distract. We reassure. We problem-solve. We rush in to make the feeling go away. Although this comes from love, it unintentionally teaches children that anxiety is something they cannot tolerate.
Instead of trying to stop the anxiety, your role becomes this. To stay calm and present while your child feels it. Anxiety works like a wave. It rises, peaks, and falls. When we try to control it, to grab hold and steer it, we only increase our own stress and reinforce our child’s fear of the feeling.
Let go of the imaginary reins. Ride the wave with them. Your steady presence shows them that anxiety can be experienced without danger. Stop telling your child there is “no need to be scared.” Logically, we know our child is not facing real danger. But anxiety does not operate on logic. To your child’s brain, the threat feels as real as a sabre-toothed tiger.
Telling a child that something “isn’t scary,” comparing them to other children, or pushing them to just do the thing they are nervous about often backfires. Instead of building confidence, it can create shame, pressure, and a sense of not being understood or accepted.
Validation is far more effective. Validating does not mean agreeing that something is dangerous. It means acknowledging your child’s emotional experience without judgement.
For example, “I get that this feels hard. New situations can feel really uncomfortable.” Feeling seen and understood helps anxious children regulate their emotions and builds the internal safety they need to face challenges over time.
Protect them less (even though it’s hard)
Validation is crucial, but so is allowing children to feel discomfort. When we remove every obstacle or “snowplough” the path ahead, we unintentionally send the message that our child is not capable of coping.
Instead:
Step back from fixing everything.
Allow uncertainty.
Stay present while they experience big feelings.
Express your confidence that they can find a solution.
This is how anxious children build resilience. Not by avoiding discomfort, but by learning they can survive it.
What overcoming childhood anxiety actually looks like
The goal is not to raise a child who never feels anxious. That is neither realistic nor helpful. Children who learn to tolerate anxiety grow into adults who can navigate uncertainty, change, and challenge without being controlled by fear.
As one parent of a ten-year-old shared with me, “She started going for runs around the park with a neighbour. The strange physical sensations made her anxious, but she went again the next day.” That is real progress.
Overcoming childhood anxiety does not happen overnight. It is a gradual process that requires consistency, compassion, and the right support. But the results are life-changing.
Start your journey today
If your child’s anxiety is limiting their life, and you feel like you are constantly second-guessing yourself, walking on eggshells, and wondering if you are helping or making things worse, you do not have to do this alone.
I help parents understand childhood anxiety at its roots and use practical, evidence-based strategies that bring calm back into the home, without fighting or fearing anxiety. Because your child does not need anxiety to disappear. They need the confidence to handle it.
Find out more at Parenting Anxious Children.
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Read more from Katrina Batey
Katrina Batey, Anxious Children Parent Coach
Katrina Batey understands childhood anxiety not just professionally, but personally, as she has been on this journey herself. It can feel bewildering, isolating, and overwhelming. This led her to train in effective and evidence-based techniques that parents can use to support their child to overcome childhood anxiety. She has seen firsthand the transformative role parents can play in easing anxiety and building resilience. Katrina is passionate about reframing the narrative around parenting and anxiety because parents are not the problem, but they can be the solution.
