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Anxiety And The Caring Parent · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee of the Children's Consultancy.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is episode one of a three-part series, which has to do with the mental health of parents.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to be focusing on anxiety.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you may have heard the introductory series that I put the introductory podcast that I posted yesterday.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this first episode has to do with the way in which parents are affected by and how children are affected when they are experiencing anxiety.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not necessarily describing those moments of fleeting anxiety, but those which have a more persistent quality.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we have to first of all understand the nervous system and what's happening.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that then provides a sort of foundation for the things that we'll talk about subsequently.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're not talking about the ordinary worries of parenting, and there are plenty of those.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the kind of anxiety that lives in the body, and the kind that sort of hums beneath the surface and doesn't switch off when the day ends.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk not only about what it feels like, but what's happening in the brain, the body, and the nervous system, and most importantly, how calm can be restored.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The inner experience of the anxious parent doesn't necessarily look anxious from the outside because the parent continues to function, they care, they show up, but internally there may be constant anticipation, the idea and fear that something will go wrong, difficulty in switching off, and then of course physical tension, mental overactivity, and the emotional exhaustion.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety in parents is often responsibility amplified by fear.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's the nervous system trying unsuccessfully to guarantee safety in a world where certainty just doesn't exist.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what's happening in the brain and the nervous system?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety isn't weakness, it's the biology of a stage of protection.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there are three systems that are especially involved.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: A part of the brain called the amygdala, which is also known as the alarm center, and what it does is to detect threat.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in anxious parents, it becomes oversensitive and it starts firing even when danger isn't present.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this produces hypervigilance, anticipatory fear, and emotional reactivity.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now the second part is called the prefrontal cortex or the thinking brain.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this part regulates emotion and brings perspective.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But under anxiety, the thinking narrows, catastrophic predicting increases, and calm reasoning just weakens.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the parent feels less in control, even though actually they're not.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now the autonomic nervous system is the part which is responsible for fight, flight, and regulation.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: In anxiety, the system becomes stuck in sympathetic activation, which means that the system is responding as if there is real danger.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the body becomes tense, the heart becomes faster, the mind starts scanning, and the rest is just very difficult.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, this produces exhaustion, not weakness, but a nervous system fatigue.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for parents, they can find themselves in an emotional loop with the child because children do not respond only to words, they respond to nervous systems, their own and others.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So an anxious parent may unintentionally transmit urgency, overprotection, emotional tension.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: A child may become more dependent, more vigilant, more dysregulated, and this reinforces the parent's anxiety.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So thereby creating a loop.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't failure, it is co-regulation gone into stress.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news is the same pathway can restore calm.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, restoring calm has to do with regulating the nervous system.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Calm isn't created by force of thought, it is created through the body first, then the mind.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So here are some clinically effective regulation pathways.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Breathing.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, everybody has probably heard that breathing is a method, or particular types of breathing are methods of soothing the autonomic system.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true, one of the reasons why is because when we are in an anxious stage, very often what will happen is that we will breathe very high in the chest, and that's a bit like imperceptible panting.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what this does is keeps the nervous system switched on and keeps it in a state of fight or flight or tension.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: When we breathe deeper into the diaphragm or through the diaphragm, what we do is switch on the parasympathetic central nervous system.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if we think breathe at the top, that's the sympathetic nervous system reacting to perceived threat, breathing into the diaphragm or through the diaphragm switches on the parasympathetic central nervous system.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does is to rest and digest.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if we slowly breathe in through the nose, and then we breathe out through the mouth, and we create a breathing loop, what we're doing is settling the internal experience.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're also doing is focusing on the experience of the breathing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if we inhale to the count of four through the nose, and we breathe out through pursed lips for the count of six and continue for two or three minutes, the longer exhale calms what's called the vagus nerve and reduces sympathetic activation.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, also grounding the body, anxiety lives in the future.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Grounding returns the brain to the present.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So feel your feet on the floor.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Notice physical contact with chair.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Name five things you can see.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: This shifts activity from fear circuits to the present moment.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is what if.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: What we're trying to accomplish is what is.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is you're sitting, your feet are on the floor, you can feel, you notice the sensation of contact with the chair.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Name five things you see and breathe.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're bringing yourself back to now.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now there are lots of ways that other techniques work as well.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to uh be pointed in a direction that changes your awareness.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain constantly asks, Am I safe?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can answer biologically, have a warm drink, move slowly.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gentle tone of voice, predictable rhythm, safe connection with another person.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because safety is felt, not reasoned.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can think about, are we safe?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: But that isn't the part of the brain that we need to soothe.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: That can come later.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Trying not to feel anxiety increases anxiety.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, notice it, allow it, name it, and breathe.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is all about redirecting awareness.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like standing back from what you're experiencing.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because when the brain isn't feeling like it's got to fight the feeling, then the nervous system begins to settle.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you are an anxious parent, hear this clearly.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're not failing, you are not weak, you're not damaging your child by feeling.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what matters isn't whether anxiety appears, but whether calm can be restored.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Children don't need perfect parents, they need recovering, regulating, returning parents.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you return to calm, you teach your child how calm is found.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is the nervous system trying to protect you, and it's trying to protect the love that you feel for your child.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is actually nothing really to protect.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And love when supported by awareness can teach the body safety again.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you are somebody who suffers with generalized anxiety disorder, you may need some additional help.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Help to learn how to manage those experiences, help to reorganize your internal patterns.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And all of this is highly achievable.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: The benefit for you is that you can exist in the present without catastrophizing and without behaving in a way which children will experience.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I come back to this children internalize the emotional worlds of others.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I will be back with episode two shortly.