How To Help Parents Navigate Their Child’s Anxiety

Available with English captions and subtitles in Spanish.

A conversation with Lisa W. Coyne, PhD, and Eli Lebowitz, PhD, on the specific ways that the home setting can affect children and teens who struggle with anxiety and OCD.

Supporting Anxious Kids at Home

Coyne and Lebowitz are experts who are experienced in working with families of young people with anxiety and OCD. In this talk, they outline how OCD and anxiety manifest in young people, the impact the conditions can have on the entire family system, and how caregivers can ensure kids and teens get the help and support they need.

Watch now to learn more about:

  • How to recognize anxiety and OCD in kids and teens
  • Where to seek treatment
  • Ways to support a child with anxiety and/or OCD at home

Anxiety and OCD can begin at any time in childhood, but the disorders are more likely to appear in the teen years. Coyne and Lebowitz point out that feelings of anxiety are actually not problematic—it’s when people start avoiding experiences that cause anxiety that can lead to difficulty learning, difficulty going to school, and difficulty performing activities required at home and other areas of life.

The experts point out that there is no limit to the ways OCD and anxiety present in kids and teens.

“That is why the conditions can be so bewildering,” Lebowitz says. “If most of us were to close our eyes and picture what an anxious child looks like, we might have some picture in our mind, and that picture is probably going to be right for some children, and it’s also probably going to be really wrong for a lot of other children.”

The experts explain that when it comes to identifying distressing behavior, it’s important to consider:

  • The intensity and severity of the problem
  • The level of disruption to the child’s day-to-day life
  • The youth’s developmental stage

Coyne and Lebowitz point out that anxiety behaviors activate accommodation behaviors—all the things that parents and other adults do or don’t do in an attempt to help the child feel less anxious. For example, if a child feels anxious about germs, a parent may take care to wash vegetables for an especially long time. If a child is afraid to be at home in the evenings without the parent present, the parent may opt to never leave home at night.

Through such accommodation behaviors, parents unintentionally worsen their child’s anxiety and interfere with treatment.

“Children are quite literally hardwired to respond to anxiety by looking to caregivers to help them to feel safer,” says Coyne. “Parents are also hardwired to notice, ‘These are the things that make my child anxious, and these are the things I have to do to prevent or alleviate that.’”

Coyne adds, “This makes the family context the prime arena in which to think about these problems playing out.”

Coyne and Lebowitz point out that while a pediatrician is often the first point of contact for a child’s anxiety concerns, it’s important for parents to find treatment from a mental health clinician who is specifically trained in treating children with anxiety disorders and OCD.

During treatment, it is crucial for clinicians to involve parents, provide education to the entire family, and account for the context of the home environment.

Since anxiety and OCD are fueled by avoidance, caregivers and other family members should learn how to be supportive without engaging in accommodating behaviors that ultimately reinforce the youth’s fears.

Audience Questions

  • What should we know about anxiety and OCD when it comes to their impact on children and teenagers? How do they typically present?
  • What are some ways anxiety and OCD can present that are a bit more hidden or seemingly unrelated?
  • How can we differentiate typical child and adolescent behavior from problematic signs of OCD and anxiety?
  • What are some of the more common anxiety disorders? Which are the more common ones in kids and teens? How does OCD factor in?
  • How does the diagnostic process work for OCD and anxiety? Who tends to make that diagnosis for kids?
  • Why is the home such a critical venue for addressing anxiety and OCD challenges in kids and teens?
  • Can we walk through a hypothetical case of how family dynamics might impact a child living with OCD?
  • How can clinicians involve parents in their child’s treatment?
  • What should parents know about validation and modeling when addressing anxiety with their kids?
  • How can a parent support their child with social anxiety when their child is resistant to receiving that help?
  • How can we know if a mental health professional is the right one? How can we find experienced professionals trained in OCD treatment?
  • Is every thought and compulsion that comes with OCD treated differently?
  • What should we know about how siblings might contribute in a constructive way to the recovery process?

The information discussed is intended to be educational and should not be used as a substitute for guidance provided by your health care provider. Please consult with your treatment team before making any changes to your care plan.

Helpful Links

You may also find this information useful:

Organizations and Support Resources

Articles and Videos

Books

About Dr. Coyne

Lisa W. Coyne, PhD, is a senior clinical consultant at McLean Hospital and an assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, part-time, at Harvard Medical School. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, an internationally recognized acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) trainer, and the author of numerous books for parents, children, and teens.

About Dr. Lebowitz

Eli Lebowitz, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychologist who studies and treats anxiety in young people at the Yale Child Study Center. His research focuses on the development, neurobiology, and treatment of anxiety and related disorders, with special emphasis on family dynamics and the role of parents in these problems. He is the author of numerous research papers, books, and book chapters on childhood and adolescent anxiety.

Originally aired March 26, 2025

Topics