My Top Parenting Tip to Help Your Child Cope with Anxiety

It’s no secret that I’m kind of a BIG FAN of validating emotions. Hands down, I believe it’s one of the most important things you can do to help your child cope with anxiety.

I talk about validating emotions all the time on Instagram, in my email newsletter, and in this blog. If you’re one of those amazing parents who is always on the hunt for parent coaching tips to help your child cope with anxiety – my guess is you’ve heard a thing or two about validating emotions, and you are probably even sick of hearing about it! 😂

But here’s the thing… I’ve noticed that some parents want to kind of gloss over this part because…
➡️ I already do that. It doesn’t work.
➡️ Some flavor of, Is it really that important?
➡️ This hasn’t made my child less anxious, so can you teach me things that are actually going to help?

What Parents Usually Miss about Validating their Anxious Child’s Emotions

After over a decade of working with parents of children and teens who struggle with anxiety, here are a few blind spots that I’ve noticed some parents have about validating emotions:

✅ There's usually room for improvement.

Yes, most parents usually are already doing a bit of validation, but check in with yourself about a few things…

• Can you fine tune it a bit to help your child feel more seen and understood?

• Are you great at validating in certain situations, but then find yourself getting frustrated with your child in other situations?

• Maybe you can provide better support to your parenting partner who struggles with validation.

  When we take a close look, there are usually a couple of ways in which parents can sharpen their validation skills - and it goes a long way in helping your child cope with anxiety.

✅ It's a critical foundation for the parent-child relationship

You may have the BEST tools up your sleeve to help your child cope with anxiety. Maybe you’ve read all the books, and listened to amazing podcasts filled with evidence-based tips - but if your relationship with your child is on the fritz, it’s unlikely that your child will be open to listening to your advice or suggestions. Being a pro at validating your child’s emotions is going to help you build a solid foundation for the relationship with your child.

✅ There are many strategies that can help your child feel less anxious, but if your child doesn't feel validated, it's unlikely to work.

⬆️ Read it one more time. This is a common pitfall that I see parents fall into. They start learning the amazing CBT tools, like helping their child cognitive reframe a situation, or identifying a small step toward facing their fear and reducing accommodations - Amazing! 🎉 Great skills but…

If we skip over validation, then they probably won’t be effective.

Why? Well, when kids and teens don’t feel validated when they’re coping with anxiety, then they often feel that they have to really show their parents just how bad their anxiety is. Make sure to get on the same team with your child or teen - its you + your child VS anxiety 🙌

What Not to say to your Anxious Child

So let's be real with ourselves. The last time your child felt nervous about... a birthday party, an upcoming exam, not sure how to handle a situation with peers, etc. - what was your initial response?

We know the "right" answer is to validate their emotions, but we're all human. So it's totally understandable that sometimes you might get caught up in one of these two things:

1.    Trying to convince your child that they actually don’t need to feel that way! “Don't worry, you're going to ace that test!”

“You always end up having fun at your friend’s birthday parties – I’m sure you’ll have a blast this time too!

Sound familiar? (I fall into this trap too sometimes!). But if we’re trying to convince our kids with 2417324 reasons for why they shouldn’t feel nervous, then unfortunately the likely response (from a child who tends to struggle with anxiety) is they are going to go to TOWN to make sure you know just how anxious they are. Not exactly how we wanted that to go 🥴

Another pattern I see parents fall into is:

2.    Getting annoyed or frustrated: How can you feel nervous about this?! It's supposed to be fun!

We've all been there and seen that this kind of response didn’t actually help our child with their anxiety (Sigh, if only). Sadly, this response can make things worse because your child can start feeling isolated, and their inner dialogue could sound something like: Why do I get nervous in these situations? What’s wrong with me?

So, the next time you notice your child is feeling nervous, take a beat for yourself. 

😌 Take a few deep breaths.
💗 Give yourself grace (I come back to this phrase a lot: "This feels hard because it is hard.")
🏠 Remember that validating emotions is the foundation. Things will fall apart if we don't put a stable foundation.
🗣 Then, find the right validation words for you.

3 Steps for Parents: How to Validate Emotions with an Anxious Child

1.    Label the emotion and the situation.

This could sound something like It seems like you’re feeling really nervous about [insert specific situation: getting into the pool, going to your friend’s birthday party]

And if you don’t know what your child is feeling, you can take a gentle guess that shows empathy and curiosity: I’m not sure how you’re feeling about [specific situation], but I’m wondering if feeling sad is part of what’s going on for you right now.

2. Show genuine understanding that this is hard.

You could use words like… I totally get that this feels pretty tough right now.

I like to thrown in “right now” because it helps kids understand that emotions come in waves. The intensity we feel “right now” will come down a bit with time.

3.   Hold space for big feelings

This last step can be hard. Mama bears (most of us!) want to jump in and help to fix the discomfort – but I encourage you to tap into your inner wise mama bear, and first take a beat to just be there with your child, holding space for the big feelings.

Maybe you communicate this with words: “I’m here with you and you’re safe,” or a comforting physical touch.

There are no magic words to express these three steps, it’s just important that you feel comfortable with the language you’re using. Here are another concrete ideas to get you started:

✅ "I can see that taking this test tomorrow is making you feel pretty nervous." (step 1)

✅ “I totally get it. I used to get nervous all the time for big tests. It’s hard to feel that way” (step 2)

✅ "I'm here with you." (step 3)

The goal with these steps is not to help your child feel less nervous in that moment (those are another set of tools, which I talk about a TON in my newsletter, check it out here!), and we’ll also dig into these tools in future blogposts.

Instead, these words of validation help to build a solid foundation of communication between you and your child.

And this isn’t a set it and forget it kind of foundation…

It’s something that is a constant work in progress as our kiddos experience big feelings.

If you’re like most parents I work with, you’ve got some pretty good ideas about things that could help your child feel a little better – maybe by helping them think about the situation differently, or helping them take a brave step toward facing their fears. BUT, without this foundation of validating emotions – we’ve lost before even getting started.

Spend the time on this crucial foundation, and I promise that your child is much more likely to buy in because now they know: My mom (or dad) totally gets how I’m feeling.

And that ⬆️ will make your child more open to trying out the advice, strategies, etc. that you have to offer.

Drop me a line on IG, and let me know how it goes 😊

Ready to learn more about how to totally rock these 3 steps to help your child with anxiety feel validated? And want more of the actionable tools that comes after this step?

In my online, live 8-week course for parents of children with anxiety, we dive into exactly that.

Over the years, I've learned that talking about a future conversation is a totally different ballgame than actually saying the words you'll use in in the conversation. I want parents to feel calm and confident about how they'll talk to their children about coping with anxiety, and that can only come with practice and feedback. Ready to do this with my expert support? I’d love for you to join me in my next course – check it out here!