The Anxiety Playbook Every Parent Needs: What Anxiety Really Is, Why Reassurance Backfires, and How Brave Kids Are Built.
After Bedtime with Big Little Feelings
Dear Media and Big Little Feelings
4.5 • 5.8K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Your kid won't sleep alone, melts down before soccer, refuses to order their own food, panics over mistakes, clings to you at drop-off and explodes when things feel uncertain. And every instinct in your body says, "Make it better." "Fix it." "Protect them." "Help them feel safe." But what if that's exactly where anxiety wins??
In this episode, Deena unpacks one of the biggest parenting mindset shifts you'll ever make: The goal isn't to raise a kid who never feels anxious... It's to raise a kid who knows they can handle anxiety when it shows up.
You'll learn why anxiety isn't actually an emotion - it's your brain's safety alarm, why anxious kids often look "difficult" instead of scared, why reassurance can accidentally make anxiety stronger, and why avoidance is anxiety's favorite fuel. This episode is your anxiety playbook. Confidence isn't something kids build before they do hard things; it's what they build because they did them.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why anxiety often shows up as perfectionism, aggression, clinginess, shutdowns, refusal or "bad behavior"
- The surprising parenting habit that keeps anxiety growing
- What to say instead of "you'll be fine."
- How to support your kid without rescuing them
- Why "supported struggle" changes the whole system
- The exact mindset that builds resilience, courage, and emotional flexibility for life
- How to stop anxiety from becoming your kid's identity
Most importantly, you'll walk away with a completely different understanding of what anxiety is, what's happening inside your kid's brain, and how to help them build the beliefs that re-wires it all: I can handle hard things, I can feel uncomfortable and still be ok, and I can trust myself.
Anxiety isn't a character flaw or personality trait; it's the brain going on high alert when it's actually safe. And once you learn how that alarm system works, you'll never see your child's behavior the same way again.
This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.
Hiya Health - Receive 50% off your first order of Hiya’s best selling children’s vitamin. Head to hiyahealth.com/BLF.
Momentous - Head to livemomentous.com and use promo code BIGLITTLEFEELINGS for up to 35% off your first order.
Osea - Get 10% off your order sitewide with code BLF at oseamalibu.com.
Our Place - Stop cooking with toxic cookware and upgrade to Our Place today! Visit fromourplace.com/BLF and use code BLF for 10% off sitewide.
Peloton - Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ at onepeloton.com
Rythm Health - Rythm is offering our listeners 15% off your first month and free shipping at rythm.health/blf.
Produced by Dear Media
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast is a dear media production. |
| 0:05.3 | Welcome back to After Bedtime. I'm so excited for today's episode. It's about anxiety. I love anxiety. |
| 0:13.3 | Well, not for you. Not for your kid. But as a therapist, I love talking about it because there's so much that we can start doing today to |
| 0:22.9 | help ourselves, to help our kids through it. So today's episode is basically your anxiety playbook. |
| 0:28.2 | We are going to go deep on exactly what it is, what is happening at a brain level, which then |
| 0:34.5 | becomes the roadmap for how you're going to show up and support your kids through |
| 0:39.0 | their anxiety. Now, anxiety with kids is one of the most misunderstood things in parenting today. |
| 0:45.2 | Yes, it can look like what we probably all think of. Anxious kids who are clinging, who are |
| 0:50.2 | melting, afraid to try new things, scared to take risks, holding onto your leg, but it can also |
| 0:56.6 | be at the root of a lot of tough behavior that we're seeing, like explosiveness, aggression, perfectionism. |
| 1:03.3 | Anxiety is sneaky like that, and we're going to unpack it. And maybe most importantly, |
| 1:07.4 | you are going to walk away from this episode with explicit tools, concrete |
| 1:13.1 | strategies that you can start using today to help your kid work through their anxiety |
| 1:18.3 | and ultimately become their most brave, confident, secure self, ready to take on new things |
| 1:24.0 | and explore life and ultimately thrive. This episode is for you. It is for your kid. |
| 1:29.0 | It is going to help every relationship that you have in life. Whether you have a kid who is |
| 1:33.2 | battling anxiety right now, you're trying to prevent it in your kids, you struggle with it yourself. |
| 1:38.6 | This episode is going to be life-changing for everyone. I am so excited, so let's dive in. |
| 1:46.3 | Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins. |
| 1:52.6 | The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right. We're Kristen and |
| 1:57.7 | Dina, child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of big little feelings. |
| 2:02.6 | And we're not here to give you more pressure or perfect parenting energy. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 23 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dear Media and Big Little Feelings, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Dear Media and Big Little Feelings and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.