Anxious Parents Are Creating Anxious Kids!
- The White Hatter
- 13 hours ago
- 5 min read
Anxiety is not just a youth or teen issue, many families today include anxious parents who are raising and increasing risks to anxious kids. That matters, because youth and teens don’t only hear what we say, they watch how we react, how we solve problems, and how we cope. If we want calmer kids, we have to model calm, teach skills, and create homes where feelings are named, not hidden, especially when it comes to our kids use of technology, the internet, and social media.
Anxiety is a natural part of human biology. It helps us stay safe by keeping us alert to danger and motivating us to prepare. However, it becomes a problem when it shifts from being a protective tool to one of avoidance that now takes over and begins to shrink a youth or teen’s social world online and offline.
Both nature and nurture play a role when it comes to anxiety. Genes may set the stage for how sensitive someone is to stress, but environment can trigger the action. Research shows that environmental sensitivity is significantly heritable, with genetics explaining a significant variation in how strongly young people react to their surroundings. Moreover, the concept of differential susceptibility reveals that genetic differences don’t just influence vulnerability to stress, but also responsiveness to positive environments. (1)(2) The way families handle challenges, the climate at school, community events, and even what young people consume online all shape how anxiety presents itself.
Anxiety also changes with age. The things that rattle a seven year old may barely register with a teenager. Middle school often introduces brand new triggers such as peer relationships, performance pressures, and shifting identities that can all add weight during adolescence and increase anxiety.
Sometimes the way we try to help as a parent or caregiver can make things harder for our kids. For example, when we accommodate avoidance, rushing in to remove every discomfort, we bring short term relief but allow their anxiety to grow stronger over time.
Mixed messages also fuel uncertainty and increase anxiety. If one parent or caregiver insists a youth or teen needs to toughen up, while the other rescues at the first sign of distress, kids can feel caught in the middle and unsure how to respond.
Performance pressure is another pitfall. Parents and caregivers may sideline coach, criticize, or hold kids to the standards of their own childhoods with the intent of encouraging success. Yet in today’s onlife world, so different from the one we knew, these comparisons often generate anxiety, stress, and self-doubt rather than motivation.
Even silence sends a message. Youth and teens are excellent observers, and when they watch parents and caregivers catastrophize or spiral into worst case thinking over technology, the internet, and social media, they absorb those thoughts and habits too. Unfortunately, we see many in the delay movement oozing catastrophizing message surrounding technology all the time, hardly ever speaking to the positives, which now triggers parent and caregiver anxiety and concern, which then flows down to triggering youth and teen anxieties as well.
We continue to believe, based on the good evidence based research, that technology, the internet, and social media isn’t the root of anxiety, but it certainly can amplify it in a negative way with “some” youth and teens. Online comparison, fear of missing out, and the constant sense of being evaluated add fuel for young people who are already feeling stressed. Other life factors outside of technology that can play a significant role in increasing youth and teen anxiety include:
Instability at school
the increasing loss of independence
Academic pressure
Increase in school shootings and mass violence since 2007
Increased family conflict, family separation, and divorce rates
Domestic abuse
Increases in parental distress
Sexualized violence
Sexuality/orientation
Increased rates of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny
Relationship navigation
Poor Peer friendships
Unstable housing
Food insecurity for lower-income families
Concerns about climate change
The current climate of political polarization
Student debt
Applying to and financially affording university
Substance abuse
Physical health problems/disabilities
Class dynamics - Indigenous people across the world, especially Indigenous youth report higher rates of self-harm and suicide
Anxiety has many different triggers, which is why at The White Hatter we emphasize a multifactorial view rather than zeroing in on technology, the internet, or social media as the single cause, as some others often suggest and want you to believe. How can removing technology or banning it fix any of the above noted confounding factors? The Answer - it can’t!
It’s important to remember that correlation doesn’t equal causation. While some research shows patterns between heavy use of technology and anxiety in some youth and teens, the real picture is more complex and multifactorial. (3) However, we would agree that less isolated scrolling and more guided, and intentional social use of technology tends to be healthier for everyone.
Restricting phones only during class hours may help reduce some distraction and anxiety, but most anxiety provoking use happens outside of school. Bell-to-bell bans on technology don’t solve this bigger issue. Banning access to technology until a certain age doesn’t solve this issue either. Parents and caregivers need to look at the whole day and support healthy habits around devices and other confounding factors in our kids lives outside of school hours.
Parents and caregivers need reminders that anxiety doesn’t always equal danger. Our role as parents and caregivers is not to prevent anxiety, but to sheepdog our kids in how to focus it in challenging rather than frightening or threatening ways. When it comes to technology, the internet, and social media our goal as parents and caregivers should be to focus on positive growth via digital literacy education , combined with parental participation, parental communication, and where needed and reasonable to do so parental overwatch, rather than through banning or controlling our kids use of technology.
It has been our experience that technology often becomes the gilded stage where parental anxiety plays out most visibly. When parents and caregivers catastrophize about social media or the internet, kids absorb the fear. When parents and caregivers ban or restrict without explanation, youth may view tech as forbidden fruit, seeking it out in secret which can actually cause more harm.
Parents and caregivers, you can not stop anxiety from showing up. However, what you can do is prevent it from taking the lead in a negative way. Families that speak a common language about feelings, favour a balanced approach over avoidance, make thoughtful choices about the use of technology, the internet, and social media, and build real world connections with their kids, will help youth and teens learn to manage anxiety instead of being managed by it when it comes to their use of technology. At the White Hatter, we emphasize and promote this as the way forward towards building confidence, and the healthy, positive use of technology both inside and outside the home.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
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