Help your child conquer anxiety.

“The are no problems in all of mental health that have better response rates than childhood anxiety. There is nothing more treatable.” Dr. Eli Lebowitz

Parents can be a major player in the treatment of childhood anxiety. Parents are often seen as pivotal in their child's emotional development, but they do not cause childhood anxiety. Let me reiterate: parents are not the source of childhood anxiety. Despite societal narratives suggesting that parental influence is to blame for mental health disorders, research indicates that parents typically have minimal impact on the onset of these conditions.

When dealing with an anxious child, parents naturally strive to shield their children from distress. When you have a child that leans anxious or even has an anxiety problem, parent instinct is to try to calm them and tell them that it is going to be ok.  As an anxiety problem becomes more pervasive, that natural instinct can reinforce the child’s faulty thinking about what is safe and what is not.  For example:

Anxious Thought: "I’m scared of my room at night." Parent’s Response: "Why? Your room is perfectly safe." Anxious Behavior: Avoidance of the room. Parent’s Action: "I’ll go into the room with you to show you it’s safe."

Such interactions are common and, on their own, are unlikely to be the cause of an anxiety disorder. However, the issue arises when these protective measures become habitual. The parent’s actions, aimed at alleviating fear, may inadvertently reinforce the child’s irrational beliefs about their environment and their ability to manage fear.

This pattern of reinforcement can be illustrated as follows:

Pattern: I don’t like feeling scared, my mom going to my room with me prevents me from feeling scared, I do not get to have the scared feeling without parent intervention and therefore do not have the experience of proving that I can do it even if it is scary.

Children can become dependent on parental interventions for anxiety relief, hindering their development of self-regulation skills. This dependency prevents them from gaining crucial experiences that help them build resilience and confront fears independently. They never challenge the belief of not being able to handle the fear. 

Eli Lebowitz, author of Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD and creator of the SPACE (Supporting Parenting of Anxious Childhood Emotions) program, identifies this dynamic as "Accommodation." Accommodation occurs when parental efforts to alleviate anxiety unintentionally reinforce the child’s anxious beliefs. By accommodating a child’s fears (e.g., by going into the room with them), parents deny the child the opportunity to confront and overcome their anxiety, which is essential for challenging the belief about anxiety. The SPACE protocol allows parents to be supportive to their children without reinforcing the anxiety loop. The goal is to allow kids to feel their anxious feelings and feel confidence in their ability to handle it. 

One of the significant advantages of the SPACE protocol is its empowerment of parents. It offers strategies that do not necessitate the child’s immediate acceptance of the technique to be effective. I have attached a link to an information video about SPACE.  If you are interested in learning more or wonder if it might be helpful for your family, please reach out to me. 

Rethinking Treatment for Childhood Anxiety and OCD

Breaking Free of Childhood Anxiety