- Helping children manage anxiety involves teaching them that facing their fears rather than avoiding them allows their body’s natural calming mechanisms to reduce anxiety, supported by strategies learned in therapy.
- The key principle: “When you face what you fear, it shrinks. When you avoid it, it grows.”
- Human bodies naturally strive for homeostasis (calm heart rate, steady breathing) and have built-in mechanisms to regulate anxiety.
- Avoidance disrupts this process: fleeing during anxious moments prevents the body from calming itself and instead reinforces fear.
- The best approach is exposure and response prevention (ERP)—facing the anxiety-triggering situation while deliberately avoiding escape.
- Over time, repeated exposure teaches the body to calm itself, reducing fear responses.
- Therapy helps kids learn coping strategies and resilience, ensuring they stay in the moment long enough to let anxiety subside instead of avoiding it.
The Secret to Overcoming Anxiety
Helping kids understand how anxiety works empowers them to manage it better.
Craig Donnelly, MD, Pediatric Psychiatry
