Why Your Kid’s Anxiety Might Be Yours
Jon’s eleven-year-old had been more anxious than usual, and it took his wife to name why: “You’ve been more stressed at work lately. He’s a reflector, he picks up on your energy.” Bryan Post, in a short cut from one of the best conversations on the Front Row Dads feed, gives Jon something more useful than reassurance. Your child has his own anxiety, formed long before this week. You have yours. The moment you personalize his behavior, you lose the ability to be present for him, because you’ve made his stuff your stuff. Post gives the actual words to use, and the principle behind them: all behavior arises from stress, a stressed child regresses to a younger age, and between the stress and the behavior there is only ever love or fear.
Your Part, Their Part
Post starts by separating the two threads. Your son’s anxiety is partly his own, shaped by his own history going back to infancy (he points to psychologist John Bowlby’s work on early attachment). But because every relationship carries energy, a child who is closely bonded to a parent stays more tuned in to that parent’s state, and picks up more of it. The trap, Post says, is what most parents do next: they take the child’s behavior and personalize it, treating it as a verdict on themselves. That’s the moment you lose the ability to actually be present for him.
The Script, Not the Lecture
Post’s fix isn’t a talk about feelings. It’s honesty about your own state first: take a few deep breaths, take an honest accounting of your own stress, then go to your son and name it plainly. Then stop talking and listen.
“Dad’s been really stressed lately, and here’s some things I’ve been stressed about. And I’ve noticed you’ve been a little stressed too.”
All Behavior Arises From Stress
It’s the principle underneath everything else Post says: a child who’s acting out is a child who’s stressed out, and a stressed child regresses, often several years younger than his actual age. An eleven-year-old under pressure can start acting more like a five-year-old, not because anything is wrong with him, but because stress pulls all of us back to earlier ways of coping.
“All behavior arises from stress.”
Love or Fear
Between the stress and the behavior, Post says, there’s only ever one of two emotions running the show: love or fear. When a child’s fear triggers a parent’s own stress, the instinct is to control, suppress, correct, and call it good parenting. It isn’t.
“We’ve been conditioned to believe that we’re doing that because we’re good parents. No, you’re doing that because you’re scared.”
Turtle Children
Some kids act out when they’re stressed. Others go quiet, what Post calls turtle children. Digging at a turtle with a stick, trying to force it out of its shell, never works. Neither does pushing a child who’s shut down. The move is the same one Post keeps returning to: slow down, breathe, relax, and wait.
“Pretty soon the turtle’s going to come out of their shell.”
The Linchpin
Asked whether that’s the single best parenting advice there is, Post doesn’t hedge. He backs it with the science, neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux on stress shutting down short-term memory, physiologist Herbert Benson on the body constricting into survival the moment it gets stressed. Three to ten deep breaths interrupt both.
“That’s the linchpin to relationship.”
“Bruce Lee said the most important lesson we can learn in life is how to master the ability to remain calm.”
This is a short cut from one of the best conversations on the Front Row Dads feed. Listen to the full conversation, “Love-Based Parenting Is Firm, Honest, and Harder Than Yelling Ever Was,” here. For the full list of books this community keeps recommending, click here. Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is actually like? Join a free 60-minute Brotherhood Experience on Zoom here.
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