How not to pass anxiety on to our children. Have you ever been frustrated that your child yelled at him or her because they're making you late for work or upset that they can't find their shoes or they're worried about their hair, or maybe even angry at you because you're not like other moms and dads. These are moments when you realize that your anxiety is preventing you from being the kind of parent that you want to be. Have you ever witnessed your child freaking out about their homework obsessing about getting dirty, refusing to go to school for fear of being humiliated, or being able to sleep at night fearing someone will rob them at night? Those are the moments that you realize that your children have similar fears and worries to yours. You know, kids look to their parents for information about how they should interpret situations.

If a parent seems fearful and anxious, then the child will become fearful and anxious and determined. The situation they're in is not safe. If the parents can remain calm and peaceful, then the children begin to feel like it's okay to feel safe and be peaceful and confident in that situation as well. There is research that says that children of anxious parents are more likely to exhibit anxiety themselves. This is probably a combination of various genetic risk factors and learn behaviors, a combination of both nature and nurture. It's painful when we think that despite our best intentions, our hopes that we find out the family anxiety has been passed on to your child.

You know, if you're dealing with anxiety and you start to notice that your child is exhibiting anxious behaviors as well, the very first important thing that you need to do is not let guilt bog you down in the transmission of anxiety from parent to child is not inevitable. The second important thing you have to do is to implement some strategies that will help you ensure That they do not pass on anxiety to your children. This means that you have to learn your own stress management techniques and deal with anxiety as effectively as possible as you can before you can help children manage theirs. Therefore, the first thing that you want to do is be able to learn stress management techniques. mean very difficult to communicate a sense of calm to your child when you're struggling to cope with your own anxiety, and mental health professional can help you work through some methods for dealing with your anxiety.

They'll help you specifically meet your needs. And as you learn to tolerate your stress, you can then come home and teach your child who takes cues from your behavior, how to cope with anxious situations, uncertainty or doubt. It's also important that we learn to model our stress tolerance. You don't have to be perfect in every situation. There's really no such thing as a perfect parent or a perfect child for that matter. You may think They're learning some strategies and therapy will help you then impart them verbally to your children, but you can also model those for your children as well.

For example, if you're working on thinking rationally during times of stress, you can practice those same skills with your child, you can do it together, say to him or her, I understand you're scared. But what are the chances that something scary is actually going to happen? They'll take comfort in knowing that you who experience anxiety can master the situation and comfort them as they learn to master theirs. Try to remain tane a very calm neutral demeanor and in your eyes and in your voice when you're working with children. One researcher commented that the best way to do this is to monitor a non verbal expressions, such as facial expressions, the word you choose the intensity of the emotion you express because the kids are always reading your face and your body. It's not just what we say.

It's what we do. that really matters. You're like little sponges and they pick up everything. And lastly, you want to be able to share, share your struggles as you've gone through, dealing with fears, panic attacks, worries, anxiety. You don't want your children to witness every anxious moment you have or to know every little detail of how you felt or how you felt like you're going to die when you had a panic attack. These are things that will scare them without being necessary.

You don't have to always compress constantly suppress your emotions either is okay and even healthy for children see their parents struggle with some things now and then it makes them feel like it's okay if they struggle to one of the hallmarks of anxious behavior is that we can't make any mistakes. Or if we do, it's going to be catastrophic. These are very cognitive, cognitive distortions that we want to be able to help our children overcome when you have these ones, Just simply explain why you reacted the way you did and then demonstrate how you're going to go back and redo a situation or do something differently next time, or talk out loud with your child about the plan that you have, so that you can manage your anxiety and your stress better each and every day until you and your child are completely free from anxiety.