When Kids Won’t Participate: Parental Steps to Reduce Child Anxiety

by A | Jan 16, 2024 | Article 4

Despite your best efforts, your child or teen might not be on board with the plan to ease their anxiety. It’s a common challenge. While it would be convenient to dictate our children’s actions, the decision ultimately lies with them. Tackling anxiety is tough, and it’s completely understandable if they’re not ready to address it head-on at the moment.

The encouraging news is that research from the Yale Child Study Center reveals that parents can make changes without requiring their kids to actively participate, leading to a reduction in anxiety symptoms. This is valuable information to have: your child doesn’t necessarily have to be a willing participant in treatment; it’s up to you.

Certainly, if your child or teen is willing to contribute to the process, it’s beneficial to involve them in the plan. Sometimes, parents may need to initiate the first steps, and with time, the child may decide to take charge of the plan.

The evidence-based treatment guiding parents through steps to reduce their child’s anxiety symptoms is called Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions, or SPACE for short. This treatment emphasizes increasing parental support while simultaneously reducing accommodation of anxiety. Accommodation involves anything done or not done to alleviate someone else’s anxiety. When accommodation becomes routine in response to anxious emotions, it’s linked to higher levels of anxiety in kids and teens.

Examples of accommodation include allowing a child to sleep in the parent’s bed to ease nighttime worries, walking a child into school to alleviate separation fears, responding immediately to texts to avoid triggering fears, or repeatedly reassuring a child about the same concerns. While accommodation is a natural expression of love, it becomes problematic when it reinforces anxiety and hinders the child or teen from facing their anxious emotions.

If you’re unsure about how this works, you can read the first article in our 5-article series: www.calmmindcbt.com/mustread

Fortunately, Calm Mind CBT offers an on-demand course that guides parents through the step-by-step process of implementing the SPACE protocol. If your attempts to involve your child in treatment have hit a roadblock, exploring this option might be a worthwhile step. Learn more about it here: SPACE Course