Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Episode 2. The Parent in The Consulting Room, The Anxious Parent

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Episode 2. The Parent in The Consulting Room, The Anxious Parent · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to episode two.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee Child, an adolescent psychotherapist.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the second of ten episodes that are concerned with what parents carry, the task of parenting that's hidden, those things that affect these things.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the parent who is anxious.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are parents who watch their children, and then there are parents who scan them.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Watching is gentle.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The scanning is quite different because it's alert, it's searching, and it's asking, is something wrong?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Could be a change in tone or a shift in mood, and maybe a silence that feels too quiet.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And before anything has happened, something inside the parent has already begun.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: A tightening, a rising of something, a sense of needing to act or be ready to.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they're overreacting, but because something in them has learned that safety cannot be assumed.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the anxious parent.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety in parenting is often misunderstood.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's mistaken for over-protectiveness, over-involvement, or being too much, too invasive, too controlling.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: But at the core of those things is anxiety.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's not excess, it's anticipation.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's the mind and body preparing for something that might go wrong.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in the context of parenting, this anticipation becomes focused on the child.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I will hear parents say, what if?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: As if they're primed, ready for an outcome that sometimes is completely illogical.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Will they be okay?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are they safe?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have I missed something?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: What if I get this wrong?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are human questions.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: In and of themselves, they may not be rational, but sometimes they are rational questions.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: In any event, the focus here is how the parent is primed, what has been aroused in them.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: These things don't just come and go, they tend to remain and they gather intensity in every developmental stage.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because with each one, there is something.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The child is going to be exposed to something new.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The child is describing something that's happened or something they're feeling which might just press the internal anxiety button.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something which rarely begins with the child.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: It begins much earlier.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And often in environments where safety was uncertain for the parent, where care was inconsistent, where emotional responses were unpredictable, when something important was missing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, where something overwhelming happened, not just once, but frequently, anxiety develops as a form of psychological vigilance.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in some ways for children, it's a survival mechanism.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you stay alert, you can be ready to react.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't necessarily a conscious decision.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's more like a state that develops as a consequence of uncertainty and very often risk.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, in a way it makes sense because it's a way of staying ahead of danger and a way of preventing harm before it it arrives.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, this system, internal system, once it's developed, doesn't just switch off, it carries forward.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I hear people say, but that happened years ago, or but you were a child then, or and now you're an adult.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it were it so simple, it clearly isn't, because neurologically the brain becomes configured in such a way that these reactions and these emotional states become automatically triggered.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they carry forward into adulthood and into relationships, and perhaps most powerfully into parenting, because parenting raises the stakes.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The anxious parent is often deeply devoted.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: They think about their child constantly, they anticipate needs, they try to prevent distress.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But this can begin to take certain forms.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Difficulty, for example, allowing independence, reassuring seeking, saying, Are you okay?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure you're okay?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Overinterpreting small changes and struggling to tolerate uncertainty, and crucially, a sense that something could go wrong at any moment, and even when things are objectively fine.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so this isn't about logic, it's about felt experience.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because the anxious system does not respond to what is, it responds to what if.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Children are exquisitely sensitive to the emotional states of their parents.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: They may not understand them cognitively, but they feel and experience them.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when a parent is anxious, the child begins to organize around that anxiety.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this can look like becoming overly cautious, avoiding risks or challenge, seeking constant reassurance, or in some cases becoming the emotional regulator of the parent.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: They may try to be easy, try not to worry the parent, trying not to hold what already feels fragile.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in this way, the child adapts, but at a cost.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because instead of moving freely into the world, they begin to carry something that was never theirs in the first place.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: What is often missed is how difficult this is for the parent themselves, because anxious parents are not comfortable, they're not in control of their anxiety, they're living with a system that feels constantly activated.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And alongside this might come guilt.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm worrying too much.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pass this on.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could just relax.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: But telling an anxious parent to relax is like asking a nervous system to ignore what it's learned to survive.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because anxiety isn't a choice, it's a history.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now the beginning of change starts to occur when it's understood.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So change doesn't begin with eliminating anxiety, it becomes with understanding it and forming a different relationship with it.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of saying, why can't I stop this?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: asking the question, what is this protecting you from?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if you don't have an answer because you've already started the process of recognizing the difference between what was that was then and what is this is now.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety can be overwhelming, but it's meaningful.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's an attempt, often an old one, to keep something safe and it worked, but now it doesn't.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when a parent begins to recognize that, they can start to separate what belongs where, you know, the past and the present.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then something becomes possible.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not the absence of anxiety, but the ability to hold it without letting it shape everything.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This requires practice, it requires recognizing I'm feeling that thing.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I want to, the impulse to take control, the impulse to protect, the and just saying, I stop, that was then, this is now.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it does take practice, but believe me, it works.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it works because we are moving out of the experienced state, the experiential part of the brain that we call the limbic system, into the thinking part of the brain.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what the thinking part does is to say to the emotional part, it's okay.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're just having a reaction, just hold it, it's okay.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we are where we are now.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're not in the what if, which is somewhere in the future, even if that future is minutes away.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean not paying attention and watching, it means holding the disproportionate desire and need that is driven by anxiety.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Parents don't worry because they lack perspective, they they worry because they've learned that things can go wrong, and that learning stays, and of course things can go wrong, but I think there is a there is a reality here that being alert to it and responding to, and notice I said the word respond, there's a difference between that and having the sensations which then trigger a reaction to something that might happen.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Parenting doesn't ask us to erase what we've learned, it asks us to gently gradually become aware of it so that what we carry doesn't become something that our children must carry too.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that awareness is where change starts to begin.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is a big topic because it sits within the range of emotional experience and emotional states, and it's not wrong.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's no such thing as a wrong emotional state.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes people will say of anger, for example, that's a negative emotion, there's no point fitting that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I strongly disagree.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is there it is perfectly reasonable to feel anger.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: How that anger is managed is something else, and that's a really good example of you know when feelings become states that then become behaviors.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: If we think, well, no, this is a this is a a feeling, and I can see how that's happened, okay.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Noting it, not pursuing it and not becoming it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is just the same.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It does have different dimensions in as much as states of anxiety can become, from a clinical point of view, more difficult to manage.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in those states, we're looking at probably some additional help, because most likely the anxiety isn't just finding expression where parenting is concerned, it's probably finding expression in other ways as well.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the purpose of this podcast is really to say, look, the the anxiety that you experience is born of a need to be alert.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was fine when you were a small person, but you don't need that now, and you can change your position with the anxiety, and there are lots of other things you can do as well.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what's important here is to make the link, the link between how this started and where it is now, because where it is now could very well be invasive.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, children internalize that, and it's it it's incredible to see how that is possible, but possible it is.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I'll be back with episode three.