Despite parent stress now designated a public health crisis by the U.S. Surgeon General, we still aren’t making the connection that if we care better for parents, children will also be better off. Overwhelming stress often leads to anxiety. When we combine high stress with the pervasive fear in our parenting worlds, it’s a sure-fire formula for our own mental health struggles. And if parents are struggling, guess who else is more likely to be struggling? (Hint: the little people who live with them.)
When we collectively talk about the youth mental health crisis, parental mental health is largely ignored. We culturally insist on looking in other directions—like blanket-blaming smartphones and social media in the discussion about youth mental health. This generates more anxiety in parents, not solutions that will effectively reduce youth mental health risk. It’s a real lose-lose outcome.
So when we talk about “parent stress,” we need to realize that anxiety is a close cousin and that stress and anxiety inevitably affect not just us as parents, but the way we approach parenting.
The Role of Fear
Worry and fear saturate our parenting experience in this modern world, from the mythical razor blades in Halloween candy of the ’80s to the fabricated link between vaccines and autism in the ’90s, to a constant drumbeat of ways our children are under threat in the age of internet and 24-hour media alerts today.
Fear-based messaging preys on the most primal impulses of parents to protect their children. The problem is when these threats are not actually threats yet our personal fear systems go into overdrive.
Just consider this short list of how we all swim in a sea of fear and worry everyday:
1. Fear-based media. It’s no secret that fear sells. The social media and website algorithms flourish from how we are more likely to click on a terrifying headline than a hopeful one. Our brains are wired to focus on negative input as a survival strategy, but the way modern media has manipulated this evolutionary bias is harmful on all levels: from the individual to our local communities (hello, angry Facebook group threads), and upward to the tenor of terror nationally and globally.
2. The youth mental health crisis. Simply put, we are anxious about our children’s anxiety. According to the surgeon general’s advisory, almost 75% of parents are extremely or somewhat worried that their child will struggle with anxiety or depression. We are on high alert that stress or emotional discomfort could signal the start of a major mental health problem, and we don’t want to miss the signs. Ironically, this type of vigilance and aversion to our children struggling in very normal ways increases the risk that they will actually develop a problem. For example, mental health means experiencing a range of emotions, and when that emotional range becomes repressed due to messaging we should feel good all the time, anxiety and depression are more likely to emerge.
3. The flood of “parenting experts.” I know I’m shooting myself in the foot here, but the pervasiveness of so-called experts and parenting coaches contributes to anxious parenting in two ways. First, it reinforces that we should look outside our own judgment and instincts because an “expert” probably knows better (far from true). Second, seeking support from parenting experts gives an illusion of control. The more we seek expertise, the more we think we have more control than we do, and the more anxious we get when nothing seems to really change.
We undoubtedly face legitimate threats to our children’s lives such as school shootings (no matter how statistically low the chances are, there’s no way to not be fearful unless it’s a zero chance). Ironically, though, if we over-interpret threat, we become less capable of responding to real threat because our fear antennas aren’t working efficiently. In the meantime, this state of high alert converts into anxiety and our children absorb our fear, which can then become their anxiety.
If we see the world as a place full of risk and scary things to prevent and avoid, our children will too.
Anxiety Antidotes
On a cultural level, we need to make two critical changes:
- Stop unnecessarily scaring parents.
- Acknowledge and act on the indisputable, science-based, common-sense connection between parent well-being and child well-being.
I exist in the parenting space as a voice to get amplified with others to accomplish the first change. There are plenty of us using good science and common sense instead of hyperbole and fear to support rather than scare parents, but the spotlight too often favors the fear.
I’m also hoping the surgeon general is serious about his call for action, and we can be working at all levels (local, state, and federal) to make meaningful systemic change for further supporting parents—to improve the lives of parents and to improve the lives of children.
What you can do for yourself
I understand that the above may feel overwhelming and well out of your individual control, but you are not powerless. Here are some starting points for your own anxiety antidotes:
1. Focus on changing yourself, not your child. Better yet, focus on changing how you relate to being a parent (e.g., question the concept of a “good parent”). This shift of focus includes tuning into your needs that are not being met. Do you have any alone time? Do you have any down time? Overwhelming stress primes the brain to flip on the fear and worry switches faster. If your nervous system is calmer, you have more wherewithal to resist the pull of fear messaging and more clearly see reality as less scary than advertised.
2. Curate your media. Do you follow parenting expert accounts because you liked something they said once, but now when their posts roll across your feed, it feels bad? Like somehow you’re failing or getting parenting wrong? Delete, delete, delete. And give more action (likes, comments, clicks, shares) to the ones that make you feel good. This puts you (more) in control of your algorithm and what vibes you’re absorbing that influence your state of mind and anxiety baseline.
3. Keep perspective. Children are pretty sturdy and I can tell you as a child psychologist who has studied and worked with children and child development in many contexts for decades now that you cannot underestimate the basic truth that a child feeling safe and loved goes a long way. No parenting hacks are needed. And your parenting actually only matters up to a point: a million other factors shape your child (genetics, friends, neighborhood community, school, media). This can be liberating if you let it.
These small steps targeting your behavior and mindset can dial down your personal anxiety even a little bit on a daily basis.
This is by no means saying we should bear the burden as individuals to “be less anxious.” We are constantly swimming in the waters of fear and overblown threats to our children’s safety and well-being so we can’t do this alone. We need to give less airtime to fear-mongering and we need more collective and structural care for parents to more meaningfully improve our well-being, and by proxy, that of our children.
Some Good News
In an example of expanding focus from the negative to the positive, let’s end with good news: This same generation of parents susceptible to “anxious parenting” is also deeply committed to their children, to the parent-child relationship, and to doing the best for their children that they possibly can. This should be lauded and celebrated, while also channeled away from fear toward joy. If we let joy take the lead, we truly could transform an anxious generation.
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