Here’s the question from Michelle:
“How do I prevent my child from picking up on my anxiety?”
That’s a beautiful question. My first thought is that if you develop the right skills, you can model for your child what you’re experiencing and how to navigate it effectively. Make it a personal goal to relax yourself.
Anxiety is best understood as a body experience—it’s physically felt. While some people think it’s “all in the mind,” it’s really that your body is feeling threatened. That shift in perspective matters. Anxiety isn’t just a mental health issue; it’s your body not feeling safe.
One key is learning to access the vagus nerve—essentially, pressing your body’s brakes. Start with simple exercises and develop strategies for when you feel anxious. Examples include calming music, imagining yourself in a safe place (like the beach, mountains, or your bedroom), or using scents like peppermint to signal your nervous system to calm down.
The mind responds to mental rehearsal. Just like piano students who improved by visualizing practice, we can mentally rehearse both anxiety (which makes it grow) and calming strategies (which help us regulate). Recognizing anxiety and pairing it with deep breathing, music, or pleasant scents can shift your body into a calmer state.
By practicing and modeling these techniques, you can show your children how to manage anxiety. This is especially important since anxiety can be inherited both genetically and through learned behavior from parents and grandparents. There’s no shame—just an opportunity for generational change.
If you model navigating anxiety well, you not only help yourself but also equip your children with lifelong skills to handle one of today’s biggest challenges for both kids and adults.
