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Fatima Bello
Apr 1, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Parenting & Family

Parenting with anxiety — how do I stop passing my fears onto my children?

I am an anxious person. I know this. I have worked on it, continue to work on it, and manage it reasonably well in my own life.

But I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old, and I worry constantly that my anxiety is bleeding into how I parent them. The catastrophising when they go somewhere without me. The overthinking about every school situation. The way I sometimes hold them back from things because I am afraid, not because they should be.

I want to raise children who feel safe and competent and unafraid of the world. I'm not sure a person who worries as much as I do can do that well.

How have other anxious parents navigated this? How do you give your children something you're still building yourself?
724 views 2 replies Last reply Apr 22, 2025

2 Replies

K
I have the same fear constantly. What helped me most was separating the fear from the action. My anxious thoughts say: "don't let them go." The action I actually take is: let them go, feel the anxiety, don't let it dictate behaviour. They don't see my internal experience. They see what I do.

It isn't perfect. But the goal isn't to be an anxiety-free parent. It's to parent in a way that gives them what they need in spite of the anxiety.
B
My therapist reminded me that children need to see adults name and manage emotions — not suppress them. She said it's okay to say "I felt worried when you were late home, and I took a few deep breaths and the worry passed." That's modelling, not passing on fear.

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724 views
2 replies
Posted Apr 1, 2025
Last reply Apr 22, 2025
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