If you've already started to suspect your child or teen is struggling with anxiety, you've done the hard part most parents get stuck on: you noticed. (If you're still in the "is this even a problem?" stage, my guides on the signs your child or teen may benefit from therapy and how teenagers ask for help even when they won't say it are a better place to start.)
But noticing is where a lot of parents land next on a much harder question: okay, so what do I actually do?
This is the post I wish more parents had before they came to my office, because some of the most loving, instinctive things we do for an anxious kid are the very things that keep the anxiety going. Not because parents are doing anything wrong, but because anxiety is sneaky, and it recruits the people who love your child most into its plan.
Let's walk through it.
Anxiety isn't a malfunction. It's a normal, built-in alarm system that's doing its job a little too loudly. Every kid feels it: before a test, a first day, a tryout, a hard conversation. So the goal isn't a child who never feels anxious. That child doesn't exist, and chasing it sets everyone up to fail.
The real goal is a child who can feel anxious and keep going anyway. Confidence isn't the absence of fear. It's the experience, over and over, of doing the scary thing and surviving it.
Hold onto that, because it changes what "helping" actually means.
Here's the pattern I see most often. Your child is anxious about something: sleeping in their own room, going to a birthday party, raising their hand, ordering their own food, going to school. It's painful to watch. So you step in and smooth it out. You let them sleep in your bed. You RSVP no. You order for them. You email the teacher. You drive them so they don't have to take the bus.
Each of these is a kind, reasonable thing to do in the moment. Therapists call the overall pattern accommodation, and it's worth understanding because it's the single biggest thing parents can adjust at home.
Here's the problem. Every time we remove the scary thing, we send your child's nervous system two quiet messages: this really was as dangerous as it felt, and you couldn't have handled it on your own. The relief is real, but it's short. The anxiety comes back a little bigger next time, because it just learned that anxiety works. It gets the world rearranged.
Accommodation is a debt. It feels like a gift today and charges interest tomorrow.
The most common form of this is reassurance. "Am I going to be okay?" "Are you sure?" "Is the door locked?" "What if I throw up?" "Promise me nothing bad will happen."
You answer, because of course you do. And for about ninety seconds, it works. Then the question comes back. And back. And you find yourself giving the same answer for the fifth time that evening, a little more tightly each time.
That loop is anxiety running the show. The reassurance becomes a compulsion, a thing your child needs from you to feel okay, instead of a skill they build inside themselves. The fix isn't to be cold or withhold comfort. It's to answer the real question once, warmly, and then stop feeding the loop:
"I hear that your brain is really stuck on this tonight. I already gave you my honest answer, and I trust you to handle the not-knowing. I'm right here."
The first time you do this, it will feel awful. Do it anyway. You're not abandoning your child. You're handing the skill back to them.
The most useful sentence I teach parents has two halves, and most of us only say one.
Half one is validation. Name the feeling without arguing with it. Not "there's nothing to be scared of" (which tells your child their own body is lying to them), and not a panicked "oh no, are you okay??" (which tells them the situation is genuinely alarming). Just: "This feels really scary to you right now. That makes sense."
Half two is confidence. Then, in the same breath, communicate that you believe they can handle it: "...and I know you can do hard things. I've seen you do them before."
Validation without confidence leaves a kid feeling understood but helpless. Confidence without validation leaves them feeling pushed and unseen. Together, the message that this is hard and you can do it, they're the two halves that actually build resilience. Say them like you mean them, because your kid can tell.
Anxiety shrinks through approach and grows through avoidance. But "approach" doesn't mean throwing your terrified eight-year-old into the deep end. It means a ladder, not a cliff.
If sleepovers are the fear, the steps might be: a daytime hangout, then dinner at the friend's house, then staying until 9, then the full night. If raising a hand in class is the fear: answering a question one-on-one with the teacher after class, then in a group of two friends, then in a small class discussion. Each rung is chosen with your child, each one is a little uncomfortable but doable, and each success becomes evidence their brain can't argue with.
The magic isn't in any single step. It's in the repetition, the brain slowly updating its files from "this is dangerous" to "I've done this and I'm fine."
Coping skills get oversold as magic buttons, and then kids feel like failures when a deep breath doesn't make a panic attack vanish. So frame these honestly: they're tools that make the wave smaller and shorter, not switches that turn it off.
Kids co-regulate. Long before they understand your words, they read your face, your shoulders, the speed of your voice. If your child's anxiety reliably spins you up, and whose doesn't, that's worth tending to. Not because you're doing it wrong, but because your calm is one of the most powerful tools in the house. You can't pour steadiness from an empty cup.
One more thing parents miss: in kids and teens, anxiety often doesn't say "I'm anxious." It says stomachache. Headache. I can't go to school today. It shows up as irritability, anger, or shutting down, not the trembling worry we picture. Recurring physical complaints with a clean bill of health from the pediatrician, or a sudden dread of school, are very often anxiety wearing a costume. (School avoidance in particular tends to snowball fast, so it's worth taking seriously early.)
You don't need to do this alone, and you don't need things to reach a crisis before reaching out. If the anxiety is shrinking your child's world (fewer activities, more avoidance, sleep or school slipping, more conflict at home), or if the strategies above feel like more than a parent should have to manage solo, that's a good moment to bring in a therapist. Often the most effective work happens with the parent and the child together, precisely because so much of the change happens at home.
I'm Max Cadena, an LA-born therapist and LCSW. I work with kids, teens, and families across Echo Park, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Atwater Village, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Pasadena, and over secure telehealth anywhere in California. If you're not sure whether your child needs therapy or just needs a steadier few months at home, that's exactly the kind of thing a free consultation is for. Reach out here and we'll figure out the next right step together.
This post is for general education and isn't a substitute for individual care. If your child is in immediate danger or talking about hurting themselves, this practice can't provide emergency support. Please call or text 988, call 1-800-854-7771 (LA County's 24/7 line), or go to your nearest emergency room.
