Dr. Penela's Blog: Anxiety and OCD Coping Tools

How to Stay Calm During Your Child's Anxiety Storm

5/9/2025

For many children, anxiety is like a storm. They eventually pass, but anxiety and storms are intense, messy, and can come out of nowhere! When these storms show up, parents often want to step in, talk kids through it, and teach them how to deal with it.

That instinct comes with good intention, but the middle of an anxiety storm is actually one of the hardest times for children (or anyone!) to talk through thoughts and feelings rationally. Instead, in these big moments, it’s most helpful to focus on helping our kids get through that wave (while we ride our own emotion wave too!).

So, how do you stay calm, to then be able to help your cope with anxiety? Let’s review evidence-based strategies to identify these incoming anxiety storms, calm ourselves down, and help your child cope with those intense feelings of anxiety.

If you prefer to watch or listen, check out Dr. Eli Penela’s on-demand webinar on the same topic!

Signs That Your Child’s Anxiety Storm is Brewing

Children are more likely to feel anxious when they’re already struggling! So if your child is experiencing one or more of the following, they may be more likely to feel nervous:

Not sleeping well
Not eating well
More screen time than usual
Intense sibling conflict
School-related stress

It's also normal for children to want to avoid situations that make them feel anxious. Their body and brain is interpreting the situation as dangerous, so they’ll look for ways to avoid it. *Of course it's our job as parents to help them face these situations - CBT therapy can help with that!
Avoidance might sound like:

“There’s no way….” (I’m going to go to that pool party)
“You can’t make me…” (Go to soccer practice)
“You know that’s too hard for me” (To talk to my teacher about questions I have on my homework )

And when kids feel anxious, they seek reassurance. They want to hear from their loved ones (again and again) that everything is going to be okay.
Seeking reassurance might sound like:

“Are you sure that..?” (So-and-so will be there)
“How do you know that?” (I’m not going to get food poisoning)
“I’m going to double check…” (That I’m allowed to bring a friend)

*Check out Dr. Penela's blog post filled with science-backed tips on how you can respond to these anxiety-driven reassurance-seeking questions!

Do you recognize avoidance and/or reassurance questions in your anxious child? What are the common triggers they experience (big groups of people, insects, going to a new place)? What do they say when they’re trying to avoid a situation (negative self-talk, a gazillion questions, silence)? And what do they do when they're anxious (taking forever to get ready, out of the blue complaining about a stomachache or headache)? Noticing these signs is a key first step in helping your child to cope with anxiety.

How to Calm Yourself When Your Child Experiences Anxiety

Being with your child when they feel very anxious is hard! It can be frustrating, sad and overwhelming to see your child repeat these patterns. You might notice:

Criticizing yourself or your child

“Why does my child always…” (Panic at the worst time, get nervous when we’re about to go somewhere, freak out about the smallest things)
“Why can’t I just…” (Do what I learned in therapy, be calm for my child, get them to stop)

Instead of criticism, can you lean into a moment of self-compassion? It's not easy, but having empathy for yourself and quieting the critical part of your mind can be a game-changer in these situations. If this is hard for you, picture a loved one in your mind (your partner, your BFF, your sister…) and think about how they would respond to seeing you in this situation. Take in their words of encouragement and try repeating them to yourself.

Take a beat to validate this emotional experience for yourself. Try out this kind of self-talk:

“It's hard for me to see my child having a hard time.”
“I’m glad I can be here and support them through this.”
“I know I’m not alone in this. Many parents struggle.”
“This is a hard season, and I am learning how to handle it.”

While trying out this self-talk, ground yourself physically to relax your body. For a moment - put your hands on your heart and belly so you can feel your breath. Breathe in and out deeply, focusing only on your breath, letting some of your tension go. If you practice deep breathing in times of calm, you’ll feel more prepared to use this strategy when emotions are intense. Once you quiet down your nervous system, you’ll be at your best to stay with your child through their anxiety storm.

If you need to step out of the situation for a moment to ground yourself - that's okay! As long as your child and those around them are safe, it’s most helpful for you to be grounded and relatively calm when you return, than for you to be physically present 100% of the time.

Once you feel grounded, ask yourself: Is my child in actual danger or perceived danger?

Thankfully, if you're even asking yourself this question - you are likely dealing with perceived danger.
Actual danger? Get them to safety first and address their feelings later!

Of course, we’re hard-wired to respond to our child’s distress - so it's normal for you (their parent/their protector!) to want to jump in and help them feel better asap! But try to just notice that urge, and remember: When we jump in to make their anxiety go away - our child learns: I need Mom/Dad to fix this; I can't handle it on my own.

So our goal is not to end the emotion as quickly as possible, but rather to equip our child to cope with this anxiety storm. If they learn how to do that now, they will learn to face challenges on their own later.

How to Talk to Your Child When They Are Feeling Anxious

So if you are not helping our child avoid or reassuring them (because we know that's not helpful in the long run) - then what exactly can you do?! Once you are feeling grounded, validate your child's feelings. That just means, let them know you understand this is hard, and you are here for them.

You can validate using touch if they’re open to it (a hand on their back to let them know you’re there, holding their hand so they can squeeze it). If you’re not sure whether your child would be comfortable with physical contact, trust your gut! And validate your child’s experience with a few key words.

As your child comes down from the wave of anxiety, offer them Supportive Statements. This is an evidence-based strategy from the SPACE treatment, developed by a psychologist at Yale, Dr. Eli Lebowitz. To create a Supportive Statement, you need two key ingredients:

Supportive Statement = Acceptance + Conveying Confidence

Acceptance: Validate your child’s emotion with sincerity and empathy
“I understand this is hard.”
“I totally get that you’re feeling scared.”

Confidence: Let your child know you believe in their ability to cope
(careful to not reassure them by promising a specific outcome!)
“I know you can handle these big feelings.”
“I know you can handle this.”

Put this together to form a Supportive Statement:
“I understand how hard this is for you, and I know you can handle it.”
“I get that this is scary, and I know you’ll get through it.”

Parents are usually better at one ingredient or the other, and we end up with only half of a Supportive Statement. Instead of “You just have to power through” (which conveys only confidence), try - “It’s hard, but you have the power to get through this.” And instead of only saying “I understand that this is very hard for you” (which conveys only acceptance), try - “I understand how hard it is for you, and I know you’ll be okay.” Find the words that feel right for you to convey these important messages to your child.

Many parents (including me!) are tempted to say more in this moment (e.g., reassurances, explanations, logical arguments). But when your child is in their most anxious moment, their prefrontal cortex (the logical part of their brain) isn’t working at its best, so it will be hard for them to take that in, and might even make them feel defensive (e.g., Mom doesn't get how hard this is!).

How to Talk to Your Child Once Their Anxiety Subsides

When your child’s anxiety begins to calm, their logical part of their brain is more available - and this is the time to brainstorm, problem solve, and help them use active coping tools. It's easy to slip into lecturing: explaining your own ideas and making plans for your child. But this type of conversation likely won’t help them become independent problem solvers (and most kids aren't receptive to a lecture!).

Instead, try Socratic questioning (learn how to do this step-by-step in my previous blog post). This is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) tool to meet your child where they’re at by asking them questions so they can get to ideas on their own. By working collaboratively, your child can lead the way in coping with their own anxiety while you just step in as needed.

Another key CBT tool for anxiety is identifying errors in your child’s thinking (“I’ll never be able to go to a birthday party again!”) and helping them notice and challenge those thoughts:
“Have I gone to birthday parties before? How did it go?”
"It feels scary to go, but in the past it's usually worked out fine."

And no matter how nervous your child is feeling about a specific situation, help them to find a place to start facing their fears. If going to a birthday party feels too hard, could they could meet with two friends at the library? If your child has their guard up for this kind of conversation, try talking to them as you do something else together, like going on a walk, playing legos, or drawing/coloring.

Finding a CBT Therapist to Help Your Anxious Child

Dr. Penela smiles in her Pembroke Pines office. She provides effective CBT and ERP therapy to individuals in Florida and most other states.

Working with a therapist with expertise in treating anxiety or OCD in children can help your child see their own anxiety storms coming, learn effective CBT coping tools, and work with you (their parent) to learn to overcome these challenges.

Dr. Eli Penela is a bilingual, licensed psychologist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety and OCD in children and adults. Dr. Penela uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure and response prevention (ERP) - treatment approaches that we know work well based on lots of research.

Dr. Penela also works with parents using SPACE therapy, an evidence-based approach working exclusively with parents to help children learn to cope with anxiety and OCD. She provides in-person therapy sessions from her office in South Florida, serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach communities. She also provides therapy sessions via tele-health to children and adults in most states across the United States.

Schedule your free consultation call today