My Kid's Anxiety Is Giving ME Anxiety! How Do I Fix This?
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michaela is worried that her son, Asher, is constantly worried. At 8 years old, Asher is already dealing with some pretty intense anxiety. For example, he cried every day at school last year. Now that he's being home schooled during the pandemic, Michaela has seen how much pressure Asher puts on himself to do well. On this episode of How To!, we bring on Dr. Krystal Lewis, a clinical psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health who works with kids with anxiety disorders. Krystal knows how hard—and how common—it is when kids struggle with anxiety early on, and she suggests some helpful coping mechanisms. But even more than these techniques, Krystal urges parents to learn how to manage their own anxiety. Instead of trying to hide your struggles, be a model for your kids as you work through difficult emotions.
If you liked this episode, check out "How To Stop Being Anxious."
Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at howto@slate.com or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, I'm Susie Weiss, and I've noticed there's just simply not enough podcasts in the world. So I'm launching my own. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Second Thought is a weekly show about pop culture. The stuff everyone's been binging, arguing about, obsessing over. Here's the thing about heated rivalry. I mean, even the most devoted swifties, I think we can agree, not our best work. We'll be hosting thoughtful conversations with culture's most important figures. Talk about genius. |
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| 0:25.0 | April 17th with a first guest you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:30.1 | This is not just him being upset that he has to do something. This is him being actually |
| 0:34.8 | anxious because he's a first kid and he's kind of a people |
| 0:38.3 | pleaser. But I've also had to be careful that since he's a people pleaser and anxious about things |
| 0:44.3 | to not tie my emotions into it and tell him all the time, you don't have to make mommy happy. This is |
| 0:50.0 | not something you have to do to make me happy. Welcome to how to. |
| 0:54.7 | I'm science writer David Epstein. |
| 0:56.9 | The last year's been tough on all of us, but for young kids, they've been facing isolation |
| 1:02.2 | that they've never known before. |
| 1:04.1 | According to the CDC, the proportion of mental health-related ER visits last year |
| 1:08.6 | from children just five to 11 years old, it was up about |
| 1:12.4 | 24% compared to the previous year. It's hard to be an anxious kid in an anxious time. But rates |
| 1:18.4 | of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents, they were already alarming before the |
| 1:22.0 | pandemic. As our listener this week knows all too well. My name is Michaela. I'm a homeschooling mom of three kids. |
| 1:30.3 | Asher is my eight-year-old, and William is my six-year-old, who both have different anxieties. |
| 1:36.3 | Michaela's particularly worried about Asher. |
| 1:39.3 | She knew he wasn't exactly a laid-back little guy, but she was taken by surprise by what she |
| 1:44.8 | heard at a parent-teacher conference before the pandemic. |
| 1:47.6 | He was a happy kid, and his teacher was, I really liked her last year, but she said to me at |
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