Parenting Anxiety

A timely, practical, and innovative look at the relationship between parent and child anxiety, with actionable strategies to help parents break the cycle—from a clinical psychologist with expertise in treating anxiety disorders in children, adolescents, and in parents.

How do you raise resilient kids in this age of uncertainty? And how do you parent your kids if you yourself are anxious?

Parenting is hard, even more so if you struggle with anxiety or have children who do. Seeking guidance means confronting an explosion of content shaped by cultural ideals of how “good” parents should manage anxiety. How do you make sense of this avalanche of advice and support your child’s mental health—or, at the very least, not make things worse?

Much of this content, unfortunately, encourages parents to act in ways that actually increase the risk of child anxiety in the long term. In trying to protect kids from anxiety, loving parents may block the very paths kids must take to build courage and confidence.

Dr. Meredith Elkins, a clinical child psychologist and faculty member at Harvard Medical School, demystifies anxiety and empowers parents to rethink “negative” emotions like fear, sadness, and guilt. A parent herself, Dr. Elkins argues that modern parenting pressures are major contributors to the current state of parent and child anxiety. She urges parents to clarify their values and embrace a “love and limits” approach to anxiety—balancing compassionate support with healthy boundaries while resisting the urge to shield children from every discomfort.

With warmth and understanding, Dr. Elkins provides concrete, evidence-based guidance to help families experiencing normal levels of anxiety, as well as those coping with anxiety disorders. This indispensable resource offers readers a road map for addressing anxiety in children and parents, and promotes adaptability and resilience across all stages of development.“Parenting anxious kids is demanding—and especially so when you’re anxious yourself. But as Dr. Meredith Elkins makes clear, trying to give our children a frictionless life can leave them less prepared to face life’s inevitable challenges, fueling their anxiety—and yours. This smart, compassionate, and evidence-based guide offers a way out of that cycle. It’s a must-read and truly a gift for any parent or caregiver raising children in today’s pressure-filled world.”—Jennifer B. Wallace, author of Never Enough

“Chock-full of evidence-backed tips that will reassure even the most anxious parent, Parenting Anxiety is a warm, empathetic, and essential guide for anyone struggling to understand how to support an anxious kid.”—Rebecca Winthrop, coauthor of The Disengaged Teen

“A premier child anxiety expert and a compassionate, relatable parent, Dr. Elkins brings a rare and powerful blend of expertise to Parenting Anxiety. She offers key strategies that can reduce both parent and child anxiety while facilitating calmer, more joyful parent-child connections. It is both validating and empowering.”—Donna B. Pincus, author of Growing Up Brave

“Parenting Anxiety is a deeply insightful and empowering lifeline for any parent riding the emotional rollercoaster of raising an anxious child while also navigating their own self-doubt, guilt, and fear. Dr. Elkins is a leading anxiety expert, but reading this book feels like sitting down with a wise and trusted friend who truly gets it—someone who can laugh with you, cry with you, and gently guide you through the chaos of raising a healthy child in an increasingly complex and stressful world.”—Jonathan Comer, coauthor of Psychopathology: Science and Practice

“[An] insightful debut . . . Elkins provides accessible tools to reduce anxiety in both children and parents and backs up her clinical experience with current research. The result is a comprehensive road map for managing anxiety that will enlighten and empower.”—Publishers Weekly

“Elkins brings vast experience to this empowering guide. . . . By acknowledging parental anxiety as a substantial but surmountable entity, Elkins provides ample compassion with her expert advice.”— BooklistDr. Meredith Elkins is a clinical psychologist specializing in the research and treatment of anxiety and related disorders in children and families. She is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and the co-program director at the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program (MAMP) at McLean Hospital, an intensive outpatient program for youth with anxiety disorders. She has been featured in such media outlets as The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Parents, and Harvard Gazette.Chapter 1

In My Feelings

“I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

“I don’t understand why I can’t just control my irritability around the kids.”

“I have no right to be depressed; on paper my life is great.”

“My anxiety is completely out of control.”

When I ask my adult patients what their goals are for therapy, the majority give me some variation of these answers. In other words, “I want more control over my painful feelings and thoughts.” It’s not far off from what my child patients want, and they lead with something similar, like “I just want my anxiety to go away.”

Totally fair. Emotions can be super painful, and we kick ourselves when we can’t seamlessly “snap out of it.” We think that our inability to instantly pivot to positivity means that we are weak, broken, or deficient. We assume that something is wrong with us if we don’t feel happy—or at least content—most of the time.

We come up with all sorts of strategies to “get better” at negative emotions. Our go-to strategies primarily involve trying to avoid, suppress, or replace painful feelings. We might start a gratitude journal. Or pour a glass of wine to take the edge off. We distract ourselves with social media. We shop online. We recommit to exercise. We focus on self-care. These are all normal and socially acceptable coping strategies, and even if we feel less proud of ourselves for using some than others, they are all recognizable parts of the modern coping toolkit.

The emotional well-being of your kids is arguably even more of a priority for you than your own contentment. It can be gut-wrenching to see your kids struggle with negative emotions like anxiety, sadness, frustration, or shame. And you’d probably attest to the truth of the phrase “A parent is only ever as happy as their unhappiest child.”

But it no longer seems good enough for modern parents to merely empathize with kids who are going through a hard time. In a culture that sees parents as the architects of children’s happiness and success, child distress seems like an indictment of your parenting. If my kid has a public meltdown, I’m less worried about her being judged for being a chaos goblin—she’s just a kid, after all—and way more worried that I am being judged as a bad mom. I am my own worst critic when I fall into the trap of berating myself for my inability to control my kid’s emotional experience. I wonder if you ever feel the same.

This burden of being your kid’s emotional security guard creates tremendous pressure, breeding loneliness, anxiety, and self-doubt. So you may find yourself working equally hard—if not harder—to avoid, control, or “fix” your kids’ negative emotions. Isn’t that what good parents are supposed to do?

Wanting control over your emotions, and wanting to teach your children to control their own, makes so much sense; who wouldn’t want to feel good all the time, or at the very least never feel bad? Human beings are innately motivated by the deceptively simple drive to avoid the bad, maximize the good. This impulse not only drives your emotional experiences but ensured the very survival of the human species.

And yet deep misunderstandings about emotions—and your ability to control them—can amplify your suffering. The beliefs that you have about which emotional experiences are okay and which are not are translated to your children. They deserve a true story.

You can start to change your relationship to your emotions when you understand where they come from, what they are trying to tell you, and the ways in which you actually have tremendous agency. Understanding the human emotional experience and what drives it is so empowering. It demystifies what we all, by design, experience, and provides a foundation for better, more resilient coping with anxiety.

Get the Good, Avoid the Bad

Modern humans are the product of millions of years of evolution. In a nutshell, any biologically based feature that helped our early ancestors survive long enough to make babies was selected for in the next generation—meaning that the qualities that allowed parents to survive would likely be passed along to their children, who in turn would be more likely to survive until childbearing age and pass along their genes.

Our early ancestors who had particularly nimble hands and fingers would have been better able to feed, shelter, defend, and clothe themselves because they were better at making and using tools. Modern humans now have the dexterity to write novels, build intricate watches, play the piano, and embroider tapestries. Emotions evolved in the same way: any trait that helped our ancestors avoid threats or accumulate benefits was more likely to be passed along to the next generation.

Most scientists agree that there is a set of universal human emotions, experienced and recognized by all humans, regardless of culture, language, and ecology. These “basic” human emotions are communicated through universally recognizable facial cues, vocalizations, posture, and gestures. They remain with us because they helped us survive, or because they enabled social connections that were key to survival. Which indicates that being in psychological distress does not necessarily mean that you have a mental health disorder . . . it means you are human.

At their core, emotions are signals: they tell us something about our experience and about the world around us. Perceiving these signals sets off complex changes in our body that affect how we feel, think, and act.

Ultimately, the signal of any emotion triggers an urge—we feel strongly driven to do something in response to the emotion. Positive emotions like joy, love, or excitement signal to us that there is an opportunity to get something that we want, like, or need. We then have the urge to hold on to, or get more of, that thing.

In contrast, negative emotions like fear, anger, or sadness signal that there is a threat that will bring us something that we don’t want, we don’t like, or could hurt us—like fear, pain, or loss. We then have the urge to avoid or oppose that threat. In simplest terms, humans are governed by the basic urges to accumulate the good and avoid the bad.

This signal → urge pattern is so deeply ingrained that it can happen without your awareness. If you start to cross a street and a car comes barreling around the corner, you don’t stop and think “This seems dangerous, how can I avoid becoming a road pancake?” Your brain perceives a threat and signals the emotion of fear, which automatically kicks your body into high gear—immediately sending blood to the parts of your body that need the energy to respond, dilating your pupils to help you see better, and tensing your muscles so you can flee. You leap back onto the curb without even thinking about it. This is a profoundly beneficial system.

All of our emotions—even the ones that we think of as the negative or “bad” ones—have a purpose. When you consider three of your basic human emotions—sadness, anger, and fear—you can see why these unpleasant emotions were so crucial for our ancestors’ survival. And you can better understand how they continue to impact you today.

Sadness

Normal sadness is not a crisis—it does not mean that you are weak or broken. Sadness signals that you have lost something that was good for your well-being. When you feel sad, you have the urge to isolate, to withdraw from family or friends. Alternatively, you may feel the urge to seek comfort from others. Sometimes it’s a bit of both.

The urge to withdraw allows time and space for reflection and problem solving, both of which are often enhanced by being in a sad mood. Humans are not great at interpreting our environment. We are much more likely to take in information that confirms our opinions, versus information that challenges our beliefs, and we are susceptible to a range of biases, stereotypes, and other cognitive shortcuts. These errors are more common when we are in a good mood. But when we are in a mild negative mood, our memory is improved, our judgment is better, and we are less susceptible to biases. Sadness also helps shift our attention, leading to a more faithful interpretation of the world around us.

Another urge triggered by sadness is to seek comfort from others. Feelings that led humans to connect with each other helped foster the relationships and build the societies so necessary for survival. Sadness motivates the connections that humans need to thrive and helps information processing and problem solving so you are less likely to experience loss in the future. Sadness isn’t a flaw or a failure—it’s just a feeling that has really bad PR.

Anger

Anger signals a threat, urging you to get aggressive and defend yourself. In response to a threat, neurotransmitters called catecholamines prepare your body for a fight by increasing blood flow, heart rate, and muscle tension. Attention, alertness, and focus become sharpened. In times of danger, scarcity, and competition for scant resources, the highly reactive, quick-to-anger early humans were more likely to survive and reproduce. In contrast, early humans who didn’t pick up on threats and who didn’t have a strong urge to defend what was theirs were less likely to fight and win their resources back, meaning they had fewer resources to ensure survival and reproduction. Chill vibes died out a long time ago.