We are literally raising a generation of children and youth with epidemic levels of anxiety. Highly sensitive kids are particularly impacted since their sensitive reactive brains are so very responsive to the environment. 

Which came first? The chicken (parental anxiety) or the egg (child anxiety)? The research is clear (Haidt, 2022) and parental anxiety is at the root of the problem. However, a complex relationship between the two is full of twists and turns and not a few surprises. 

Do you remember when you learned about stranger danger? It didn’t appear in my childhood, 50 years ago. But today’s parents were raised with the pervasive fear that freedom could mean danger for the children. Parents began protecting and sheltering their children–and significantly limiting their experiences–limited freedom, limited challenges, limited experiences, limited interaction with strangers. All of these experiences in early childhood build a child’s resilience.

A couple of decades later, the internet, online video games, and smartphones hijacked childhood and guess what? Parents kept protecting their kids in the outside world, but ignored the growing world of children and youth on various online platforms, especially video games and social media, both places with no regulations to protect the youth.

Now, here we are… with an epidemic level of anxiety in our kids. And child anxiety is almost guaranteed to raise parental anxiety, especially in the presence of Sensory Processing Sensitivity, the innate trait of highly sensitive people.

In this masterclass, Alane Freund explored the problem briefly, and then offer tools for interrupting the anxiety cycle in both kids and parents. Here are some of the questions discussed:

1. I would love to hear some insights in helping with back to school anxiety. My daughter is going into the 8th grade and is switching from private school back to public school. She has had a lot of trouble making friends in the past and is extremely anxious that she won't be able to make friends at her new school.

   2. Your explanation of the 9 year change has helped me so much with my sensitive son. He just turned 10 and I think we are right at that point. All of the sudden, he is outgoing, sociable, confident, and wanting to try new things. He doesn't seem anxious at all. It is wonderful, but I keep thinking about you saying that often HS youth go through a stage in adolescence where they temporarily act outside of their sensitivity, they act as if they have "outgrown" it. I definitely did that and I think it burned me out terribly as a teen and made my anxiety skyrocket. I want my son to go through this developmental stage as he needs to, but I worry about the adverse effects. Can I help him stay connected to his sensitive nervous system even as he experiments in this stage? Or does he just have to realize his limits through his own painful trial and error? Can I prevent his temporary 'denial' of his sensitivity from making him more anxious down the road?

   3. I have a daughter who is 35 and deals with very high anxiety. She has been in therapy and is on medication, but it's very pathological. She has an older sister who deals with this as well.
   It's very much in our family. My 35 year old daughter has a 3 year old. I can already see how this affects my granddaughter. There are times when my daughter comes into our home and her anxiety level is already so high from work, or her daughter acting out, or some situation. It doesn't take much. This only heightens everyone's anxiety but I am most concerned about how this is affecting my little granddaughter. My daughter and I have spoken about this and she is aware of it and working on it in therapy. It usually results in impatience, anger or she's in a heap in tears. I have explained to my granddaughter that Mommie is upset about work, or a situation and it's not about anything she had done. It still concerns me greatly.
   My question is how can I help my daughter and granddaughter in the moment to help calm things down?

   4. My almost nine-year old son is now pretty resistant to moving towards signing up for a couple of movement- type after school activities that I think will really help him (developmentally, health -wise and spiritually) - dance classes with a neat person nearby or a mountain bike group. Any advice you might use to gently nudge versus forcing him to give them a try?
   Additionally, my son would like to do a weekly outdoor after school class a lot like the camp he took this summer, which I know is a great benefit and something I’d love for him to do to help him with his worries and yet, I just am not secure in my budget to be able to pay for this and I wonder how you might navigate this conversation without leading to too much anxiety about finances since this has come up recently.