Got An Anxious Kid?

The Research is clear: do less, not more.

The Most Common Reason Parents Seek Me Out? Anxiety.

It’s the word that comes up in almost every initial conversation I have with a potential coaching client. Not always in the first five minutes, but always eventually. I dedicate the first 30 minutes of these calls to just listening. No framework yet, just: Tell me what’s going on. And what I hear, over and over, is some version of this:

“My kid is anxious about everything. School, friends, sleep, food, the future. And I’m trying everything I can think of to help, but it’s not working. In fact, I think it’s getting worse.” Then comes the part they say more quietly: “I’m exhausted. I don’t know if I’m helping or making it worse. My partner and I are fighting about what to do. I just need someone to tell me which direction is the right direction.”

If that’s you, I need you to know: you’re not alone. You’re not behind. And you’re not ruining your kid. Anxiety is one of the most common challenges parents bring to me, and it makes sense. Because anxiety doesn’t just live in your kid. It lives in you too. It shows up in the hypervigilance, the mental load of scanning for triggers, the negotiation fatigue, the 2 a.m. spiral wondering if you’re fucking up your kid.

You’re managing two nervous systems at once. And no one taught you how.

Last Week We Talked About Welcoming Change

Last week’s post was about the first direction on the WILD Compass: Welcome Change. The core idea is that turbulence isn’t a sign something’s gone wrong. It’s proof that development is happening. Your kid’s emotional weather, the mood swings, the sudden shifts, the intensity, that’s not a bug in the system. It’s the system working.

But welcoming that reality is one thing. Sitting in it without losing your mind is another. Which brings us to this week’s compass direction: Identify Feelings. In you and in them. Because if you can’t name what’s happening when your kid is spiraling, you’re going to react from the feeling instead of responding to it. And if your kid can’t name what they’re feeling beyond “bad” or “anxious,” they’re stuck in a loop with no exit. Anxiety is the perfect example of why emotional specificity matters.

Here’s What the Research Says About Anxiety

A few weeks ago, a coaching client asked me to read a book with her. Her daughter’s anxiety had been escalating. School avoidance, friendship paralysis, bedtime spirals that stretched past midnight. She was doing everything she could think of to help: accommodating, reassuring, removing triggers, listening to her for hours at a time. And it wasn’t working. In fact, it was getting worse.

The book was Dr. Eli Lebowitz’s research on childhood anxiety. This is one of the leading researchers in this space (like he is the Director of the Program of Anxiety Disorders at Yale) and what his research says is something I now think every parent of an anxious child needs to hear: Some kids are just more anxious and we often do not know why. 5-10% of children currently have anxiety problems, and up to 1 in 3 will experience anxiety before the end of adolescence. Some children are born with a genetic tendency toward higher anxiety. It’s not something they chose. It’s not something you caused. And in many cases, the reason is unknown or unknowable.

What determines whether an anxious child thrives isn’t the anxiety itself. It’s whether their parents can help them walk toward it instead of away from it.

Why Naming Feelings Actually Matters

There’s research that should be plastered on every middle school wall. Adolescents who can clearly identify and label their emotions are better protected against mental health challenges, especially during the rollercoaster years of early adolescence. By age 14, children who had a richer emotional vocabulary were less likely to struggle with anxiety and depression by age 16, even if they started out with similar mental health challenges as their peers. Think about that for a second. The ability to say “I’m overwhelmed” instead of just “I’m mad” or “I’m anxious about disappointing my coach” instead of “I don’t want to go” isn’t just helpful communication. It’s protective. It builds resilience. It gives kids a way to understand what’s happening inside them instead of just reacting to it. It also, eventually, helps them have more agency over their emotional landscape.

And it doesn’t just help them understand themselves. Adolescents who can describe their feelings with more nuance tend to have stronger friendships and feel more understood. Words create connection. Specificity turns isolation into shared experience. This is why Identify Feelings is the second direction on the WILD Compass. Because you can’t navigate what you can’t name.

The Listerine Moment

When I was in elementary school, I faked sick constantly. My signature move? Pouring mint-blue Listerine on the carpet to simulate vomit so I could stay home from school.

Spoiler: it did not work.

What my parents didn’t know yet, what I didn’t know yet, was that there was a reason I felt stupid all the time and was constantly trying to evade school. By 4th grade, I had a diagnosis: visual motor integration and auditory processing challenges. From that point on, I was the kid with extended time, tutors, and the constant awareness that other kids didn’t have to work this hard. School felt like a daily confirmation that I wasn’t good enough. And my brain’s solution? Attempt to avoid it entirely.

My parents could have leaned into that avoidance. They could have let me stay home more, pulled me out of hard situations, advocated for reduced workload. But they didn’t. Instead, they did something harder. They held the line. They got me the support I needed, tutors, IEP accommodations, spaces where I could excel outside of school, but they didn’t let me disappear. They communicated, through their actions more than their words: This is hard. And you can do this.

The Accommodation Trap

Here’s how accommodation works, according to Lebowitz: When your child is anxious, you naturally want to reduce their distress. It is literally what you have been doing since they were a baby, helping them manage their emotions and responses. So you step in. You remove the trigger, rearrange the plan, send the email, let them stay home. It feels like support. It feels like protection.

But what’s actually happening beneath the surface is this: every time you remove the source of anxiety, you confirm the child’s belief that the anxiety is dangerous and that they cannot cope without you. Lebowitz calls this “avoidance creep,” the way anxious children gradually increase and broaden the circle of things they avoid. What starts as “I can’t go to that party” becomes “I can’t go to any party” becomes “I can’t be in social situations at all.”

And the parent, exhausted and desperate to keep the peace, becomes what Lebowitz calls the “reassurer in chief,” always expected to have the answers, always available to make the child feel better, always one step ahead of the next meltdown.

Lebowitz argues that the child’s problem isn’t how much anxiety they have. It’s how willing they are to be anxious. And when we accommodate, we accidentally teach them that anxiety is something to be avoided at all costs.

What Support Actually Looks Like

This is where Lebowitz’s framework becomes genuinely useful, because he gives parents a formula that works: Support equals acceptance plus confidence.

Acceptance means you fully acknowledge that anxiety is real and genuinely hard for your child. You don’t minimize it, dismiss it, or tell them they “shouldn’t” feel that way. You see them. You get it. Their feelings are valid.

Confidence means you believe they can cope with the anxiety and be okay despite feeling anxious. You’re willing for them to feel anxious sometimes because you know the feeling won’t break them. Here’s what that sounds like in practice:

Not: “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
Instead: “This feels really big right now, and I know you can handle it.”

Not: “You’re fine, stop worrying.”
Instead: “I know this is hard. And I believe in you.”

Not: “Just don’t think about it.”
Instead: “Anxiety is uncomfortable, and you’re strong enough to sit with it.”

The shift is subtle but profound. You’re not demanding they stop being anxious. And you’re not protecting them from every hard thing. You’re holding steady while they practice being anxious and surviving it.

But here’s the part that makes this so hard: you can’t help your child identify and tolerate their feelings if you haven’t learned to identify and tolerate yours first.

Identifying Feelings in You

When your child is spiraling, what’s happening in your body? Are you noticing the tightness in your chest? The mental scramble to fix it, solve it, make it stop? If you’re in public, are you responding out of embarrassment?

That’s your anxiety responding to their anxiety. And if you can’t name what’s happening in you, you’re going to react instead of respond. You’re going to accommodate because it lowers your distress in the moment, even if it reinforces their belief that they can’t cope.

This is why parental distress tolerance is the most important variable in helping an anxious child. Not your child’s willingness to change. Not their baseline anxiety level. Your ability to stay regulated while they’re dysregulated. So before you can help your child get more specific about their feelings, you need to get more specific about yours.

Not just “I’m stressed.” But: “I’m overwhelmed by the mental load of managing their anxiety. I’m scared I’m making it worse. I’m exhausted from the constant negotiation. I’m angry that this is so hard. I’m grieving the easy relationship I thought we’d have.” That specificity isn’t indulgent. It’s essential. Because when you can name what you’re feeling, you can make a choice about how to respond instead of just reacting from the feeling.

Identifying Feelings in Them

Once you’ve practiced naming your own feelings, you can start helping your child do the same. And this is where the research on emotional granularity becomes a superpower. Because when your child says “I’m anxious,” that’s a start. But it’s not specific enough to actually work with.

Anxious about what? What does the anxiety feel like in your body? What are you imagining will happen? What’s the worst part?

Those questions aren’t interrogation. They’re scaffolding. You’re helping them build the vocabulary to understand what’s actually happening inside them. And when they can say, “I’m anxious that I’ll embarrass myself in front of my friends and they’ll think I’m weird,” you have something to work with. You can ask: “How likely is that to actually happen? And if it did happen, how bad would it really be?”

You’re not dismissing the feeling. You’re helping them separate the feeling from the story they’re telling themselves about the feeling.

This is what my parents did without even realizing it. They didn’t tell me I shouldn’t feel stupid. They acknowledged that school was genuinely hard for me. But they also held the belief that I could handle it. They gave me language for what was happening, “Your brain works differently, and that makes some things harder and some things easier,” and they helped me see that hard didn’t mean impossible.

The Armor and the Soft Belly

When I was a kid, the armor I built was sarcasm and distance. I became the quick-witted, caustic smart-ass who was never wrong, because if I couldn’t be the kid who breezed through school, I’d be the kid who had the upper hand. Anxious kids build armor too. Sometimes it looks like avoidance. Sometimes it looks like anger or rage, fight responses are anxiety responses, not just cowering fear. Sometimes it looks like perfectionism or control. But underneath? The belly is soft. The need to matter, to feel safe, to know they’re okay, that’s what’s being protected.

Your job isn’t to dismantle the armor by force. It’s to build a relationship steady enough that they don’t need it as much. My parents did that. They held boundaries, I couldn’t skip school just because I wanted to, but they also held empathy. They got me the accommodations I needed and found spaces where I could thrive. They showed me I mattered, not because I performed well, but because I was theirs.

And that steadiness is what made it possible for me to take the armor off later. When I got divorced at 25, eight months into a marriage I knew was wrong, I had to say out loud for the first time in my life: I really messed up. Not quietly, not just to myself, but publicly. It was terrifying. But I could do it because my parents had built a foundation where I knew that even if I really messed up, I was always welcome.

That’s what you’re building for your anxious child. Not a life without anxiety. Lebowitz is clear that some kids will experience higher-than-average anxiety throughout their lives. But a life where anxiety doesn’t run the show. Where they know they can handle hard things.

Teaching Your Child Not to Fear Anxiety

Lebowitz says this directly: teaching your child not to fear anxiety and to take it in stride is one of the biggest gifts you can give your anxious child. Not managing it forever. Not building their entire life around avoiding it. Teaching them that anxiety is something they can move through. Which means the work starts with you.

You have to become the parent who can tolerate their child’s distress without fixing it. Who can resist the urge to accommodate even when it would make everything easier in the moment. Who can communicate confidence even when you’re scared too.

This is coachable. This is learnable.

And it starts with recognizing your own patterns. Where are you accommodating? Where are you protecting when you could be supporting? Where are you demanding they not feel anxious because you can’t handle their anxiety?

You’re Not Doing It Wrong. You’re In the Work.

If you’re in the thick of it right now, navigating avoidance creep, bedtime spirals, or the kind of anxiety that’s expanding faster than you can keep up with, I need you to hear this: You’re not doing it wrong. You’re in the work.

You’re building the kind of steady, unshakable relationship your child will lean on when they’re ready to stop running from hard feelings. You are their safe place, their compass, and their most persistent proof that they matter and are capable. And even if it doesn’t feel like it now, that’s world-changing work. So for now, when things feel impossible, picture a porcupine. An animal full of quills because their belly is so very soft.

How to Practice This Tonight 🩷 💫

Here are 5 ways to use Lebowitz’s research starting right now. Pick one. Try it. See what happens.

1. Name Your Own Feeling First
Before you respond to your kid’s anxiety spiral, pause and name what’s happening in you. Out loud if you need to. “I’m feeling overwhelmed and I need a second to think.” This models emotional honesty and buys your nervous system time to regulate before you react.

2. Practice the Acceptance + Confidence Script
Next time your kid says they can’t do something because they’re too anxious, try this: “I know this feels really hard right now. And I believe you can handle it.” Then stop talking. Do not fix, do not problem-solve, do not rescue. Just hold the line and let them sit with it.

3. Spot One Accommodation You’re Making
Pick just one. Not all of them, just one. Maybe it’s the email you send to the teacher. Maybe it’s the plan you cancel. Maybe it’s the reassurance loop at bedtime. Name it. Write it down. You don’t even have to stop doing it yet. Just notice it’s happening.

4. Build an “Emergency Funny” Collection
Here’s something Lebowitz talks about that sounds ridiculous but actually works: if your child can feel a powerful emotion that isn’t fear, they’ll feel less scared. So help them create a saved folder of funny videos, memes, or Reels they can pull up when anxiety hits. The goal isn’t to dismiss the anxiety. It’s to invite other feelings into the landscape. Laughter is a surprisingly effective anxiety interrupter.

5. Teach Them to Get Mad at Their Anxiety
This one feels counterintuitive, but stick with me. Teach your kid to yell at their anxiety for “tormenting them with annoying thoughts and lying about bad things that aren’t going to happen.” Bonus points if they name their anxiety something silly like Glen or Kevin. Why does this work? Because you’re teaching them to separate the feeling they’re having from their personality. They’re not “an anxious person.” They’re a person who sometimes has to deal with Glen showing up uninvited. That’s linguistic separation, and it’s actually you being a super genius.

Pro Tip From Your Sidekick:
If your kid thinks naming their anxiety is weird, lean into it. Say, “I know, it’s bizarre. But humor me. What would you name the annoying voice in your head that tells you everything is going to go wrong?” My money’s on them picking something like “Todd” or “Barbara” and then roasting it mercilessly. That’s the whole point.

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The WILD Compass Workshop!

I spent this past weekend at a conference in my role as US Country Chair for Global Dignity, and I’ve been thinking a lot about access. The dignity work is central to everything I do, and I keep coming back to this: early adolescence is where belonging wounds can harden into armor, where kids learn whether they matter, whether they belong, whether it’s safe to be themselves.

The WILD Compass is my attempt to translate that into something parents can actually use. It’s not just about reducing conflict or making life easier (though it does that). It’s about building the foundational skills for creating a culture of dignity at home. And I realized: if that’s what this is really about, I need to get it in front of as many people as possible, in the easiest way possible.

So I’m making the workshop free.

Feb 24, 12-1:30pm ET. Live on Zoom. Limited to 75 spots.

If you already registered and paid, I’m refunding you and I hope you’ll still come!

Register here!

This isn’t me being precious about dignity or making it heavy-handed. It’s just: these ideas matter, and I want them to reach the parents who need them, without price being the thing that gets in the way.

See you on the 24th! You don’t have to do this alone.

Meg