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Anxiety & Worry

How worry works, and what genuinely helps

The alarm system explained in plain language, with graded, everyday practice that builds durable courage.

The FeatureCo-Parenting

The shadows of two people standing together on sunlit pavement

The Handover in the School Car Park

Ninety seconds between two cars, in public, with a child's backpack as the only witness. Handovers are where separated co-parenting is most visible — and most likely to go wrong. Here is how to make them survivable.

Reviewed by Sian TrombleyCanadian Certified Counsellor

The archive

More in Anxiety & Worry

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Anxiety

6 Picture Books That Help Children Understand Anxiety

Therapist-recommended stories for talking about worry, brave feelings and what happens in our bodies when we're anxious.

A twelve-year-old girl sitting close to her elderly grandmother on a sofa, holding her hand in soft afternoon light

Grief

When a Grandparent Has Dementia

Helping a child hold on to someone who is still here, and still changing.

A packed travel bag with a passport and boarding pass resting on top

Family Life

When a Parent Works Away From Home

What repeated goodbyes do to a child, and how families make the rhythm survivable.

A nine-year-old child talking quietly with a parent on a staircase in soft natural light

Safeguarding

Surprises vs Secrets: Teaching Body Safety

Teaching children the difference between a surprise and a secret — and why it protects them.

Bare feet on a floor in near darkness

Sleep

The Child Who Walks at Night

Sleepwalking, night terrors and the strange hour between deep sleep and morning.

A young person working through a payslip with a calculator at a wooden desk

Teens

Your Teenager's First Job

What a teenager's first job really teaches them — and the anxiety nobody mentions.

A ten-year-old child laughing at a wooden classroom desk, hand over mouth, warm afternoon light across the room

Anxiety

The Class Clown: What the Performance Is Hiding

The child who is always funny is not always fine. For some, performing is the safest way to be seen.

Students working together in a lecture room, one girl typing at a laptop

School

The Group Project: When Your Child Carries the Whole Team

Some children do everybody's work and call it fairness. It is usually anxiety wearing a very responsible coat.

A teenager looking out through half-open window blinds in warm light

Anxiety

The Worry They Will Not Name: When a Child Keeps a Secret

A child who is holding something in is not shutting you out. They are deciding whether you are safe enough to hear…

A child sitting on the edge of a bed in soft afternoon light, looking down at their hands

Anxiety

The Thought They Are Afraid to Say Out Loud: Intrusive Thoughts in Children

Sudden, horrible, unwanted thoughts are one of the most common experiences in childhood and one of the least talked about. What frightens…

A child at a kitchen table quietly watching a parent's back across the room in morning light

Family Life

The One Watching You for Weather: The Child Who Worries About Their Parent

Some children track their parent's mood the way sailors track the sky. It looks like sensitivity, and it is often praised. Underneath,…

A small child standing on their parent's boots on a woodland path

Anxiety

The Child Who Follows You Everywhere: Clinginess at Home

They are fine at school and fine at their grandmother's. At home, they will not let you out of the room.

A child peeking out from under a white duvet pulled over their head

Sleep

The Child Who Cannot Fall Asleep Without You

Every evening ends the same way: on the floor beside their bed, waiting for their breathing to change.

People crossing a city street in low golden morning light, long shadows ahead of them

Confidence

The First Shift: A Teenager's First Job

A part-time job can build more confidence than a year of encouragement — or quietly dismantle it.

A parent sitting on a sofa with an arm around a quiet child wrapped in a blanket, both looking towards a window

Trauma

When a Child Sees Something Frightening: The First Week Matters Most

An accident on the road, a fight in the street, a parent taken ill. What you do in the days afterwards shapes…

A close black and white portrait of a teenager with eyes closed, breathing hard

Teen Mental Health

The Body Sounds the Alarm: Panic Attacks in Teenagers

A panic attack is not a teenager being dramatic. It is a false alarm from a very old warning system — and…

A child resting on a sofa under a blanket beside a glass of water, looking towards a window

Anxiety

The Child Who Is Always Ill

Headaches with no cause, a hand that keeps reaching for their own forehead, the same question asked six times before bed. Health…

A school-aged child sitting by a rain-streaked window with schoolbooks nearby

Anxiety

Climate Anxiety in Children

When a child’s worry about the planet becomes a nightly fear about the future, they need honesty and agency, not reassurance that…

A teenager studying late at night under a desk lamp with energy drink cans beside the laptop

Sleep

Energy Drinks and the Teenage Night

Caffeine has quietly become the scaffolding of adolescent life. Here is how energy drinks, iced coffees and pre-workout powders interact with an…

A close black and white portrait of a teenager with eyes closed, breathing hard

Teen Mental Health

The Body Sounds the Alarm: Panic Attacks in Teenagers

A panic attack is not a teenager being dramatic. It is a false alarm from a very old warning system — and…

A child resting on a sofa under a blanket beside a glass of water, looking towards a window

Anxiety

The Child Who Is Always Ill

Headaches with no cause, a hand that keeps reaching for their own forehead, the same question asked six times before bed. Health…

A teenager resting her head on her arms beside an open laptop

Teen Mental Health

The Ones Nobody Worries About: Burnout in High-Achieving Teenagers

The straight-A student, the reliable one, the child every teacher praises. Perfectionism is the only mental health risk factor that gets applauded…

An empty classroom with tables and chairs waiting in morning light

Anxiety

Back to School Anxiety

The approach to a new school year can unsettle even confident children. Here is how to reduce uncertainty, respond to distress and…

A rumpled white duvet on an empty bed in the dark

Sleep

Nightmares and Night Terrors

A child screaming at night may be awake, dreaming or caught between sleep stages. Knowing which one you are seeing helps you…

An editorial photograph of an eight-year-old child reading comfortably on a neatly made bed while a parent places fresh pyjamas in a bedside drawer

Child Development

Bedwetting

Bedwetting is usually a developmental sleep-and-bladder issue, not misbehaviour. Here is how to respond without shame, choose treatments that work, and make…

Documentary photograph: a teenager writing at a wooden desk in soft window light while a parent stands nearby in a calm, supportive presence

Neurodiversity

Tics in Children

Tics are involuntary, often change over time, and can intensify when a child feels watched. Here is how to respond calmly, understand…

A parent sitting beside a school-aged child holding their stomach at the breakfast table on a weekday morning

Anxiety

The Tummy Ache With No Cause

When examinations and tests are reassuring, a child’s stomach pain can still be intense. Understanding functional pain helps you respond with compassion,…

A parent working through household budgeting at a table

Family Life

When Money Is Tight

Children need truthful, age-appropriate information about financial strain, not adult-sized responsibility. Here is how to explain changing circumstances while protecting security, dignity…

Editorial photograph: a child stands at a doorway, hand resting on the frame, watching friends gather in the next room with quiet hope.

Social Skills

The Social Skill Every Anxious Child Needs

The skill that helps an anxious child connect is not effortless confidence, but knowing how to return after a moment feels awkward.

A nine-year-old boy sitting up in bed with a small torch, looking calmly toward a softly lit hallway, warm nightlight glow in a tidy bedroom

Anxiety

Afraid of the Dark at Nine

Why night fears in older children are different from toddler fears, and what actually helps.

A ten-year-old girl doing homework at the kitchen table while her parents talk quietly with paperwork in the background, evening light

Family Life

What Children Overhear About Money

They rarely understand the numbers. They always understand the tone.

A nine-year-old girl sitting quietly at a kitchen table with an untouched bowl of food, gentle morning light, thoughtful expression

Anxiety

The Fear of Being Sick

Emetophobia is one of the most disruptive childhood fears — and one of the least discussed.

A ten-year-old standing on the pavement watching a dog on a lead across a quiet street

Anxiety

The Dog Across the Road

A specific phobia rarely responds to reassurance. It responds to a very slow, very deliberate walk towards it.

A blurred, motion-filled room of people at a busy social gathering

Anxiety

The Party They Will Not Go To: When a Child Refuses Birthday Parties

Your child said yes three weeks ago. Now they are in the hallway, coat on, refusing to move.

An eleven-year-old boy at a kitchen table studying a paper family calendar with a pen, quietly focused, soft morning light

Anxiety

The Child Who Needs to Know the Plan

When every change of schedule triggers a hundred questions, you are not raising a controlling child. You are raising one who cannot…

A ten-year-old girl sitting on the stairs looking up at an out-of-focus adult, gentle indoor light

Anxiety

The Child Who Cannot Stop Apologising

Sorry for asking. Sorry for existing. What compulsive apologising tells you about a child's inner rulebook.

A neon sign reading and breathe surrounded by green foliage

Emotional Regulation

Grounding, When Breathing Is Not Enough

Nine grounding techniques children actually use — and why 'take a deep breath' so often makes anxiety worse in the moment.

A therapist sitting with a notebook during a consultation

Mental Health

Does My Child Actually Need Therapy?

The honest answer from someone who assesses children for a living — including the times I say no.

A young person sitting with a therapist during a session

Mental Health

What Actually Happens in a Child's First Therapy Session

No couch, no diagnosis, and far less talking than parents imagine. A therapist opens the door.

A twelve-year-old girl in school uniform standing composed by a window, a faint distance in her expression

Trauma

The Child Who Seems Fine

After something frightening, some children fall apart. Others become impeccable. The second group worries me more.

Two teenagers working together over notes and a laptop at a desk

Anxiety

The Night Before the Test

Test anxiety is not about revision. It is about a body that has decided tomorrow is dangerous.

A small teddy bear sitting alone at the end of a wooden boat on still water

Anxiety

Homesick at the Sleepover

The half-past-ten phone call, and what you decide in the next sixty seconds.

An eight-year-old girl at a kitchen counter looking up at a parent mid-question, morning light, cereal bowl and school bag nearby

Anxiety

The Child Who Asks the Same Question Again

Reassurance feels like love. Repeated forty times a day it becomes the fuel the worry runs on.

A twelve-year-old sitting beside a parent in a quiet clinic waiting room, hands in their lap

Anxiety

The Needle and the Waiting Room: Fear of Injections and Doctors

Medical fear is one of the most treatable anxieties in childhood — and one of the most often left untreated.

An eleven-year-old girl sitting on a staircase at night listening, warm light spilling from a doorway below

Family Life

When a Child Hears You Arguing

Conflict itself is not the damaging part. Unresolved conflict, witnessed and never explained, is.

Cupped hands holding a small collection of tiny treasured toy figures

Anxiety

The Child Who Keeps Everything

Ticket stubs, broken toys, the wrapper from a birthday sweet. When holding on becomes hard to live with.

Teenagers in a car at sunset, seen in silhouette through the windscreen

Raising Teens

The First Time They Drive Away

Handing over independence is a parenting skill in itself — and it does not come naturally to anyone.

A fifteen-year-old girl sitting at a kitchen table with a barely touched breakfast plate pushed away

Teen Mental Health

The Plate That Keeps Getting Smaller: Spotting Disordered Eating in Teenagers

Disordered eating rarely announces itself. It arrives dressed as discipline, health and self-improvement.

A nine-year-old boy at a wooden desk pausing over an open maths workbook with his pencil still

School

I'm Just Not a Maths Person: Maths Anxiety in Children

Maths anxiety is a working-memory problem wearing the costume of a personality trait.

A composed 13-year-old girl sitting at a desk surrounded by textbooks, with a tired but determined expression, in warm editorial light

School-Age Wellbeing

The Good Kid Who Is Burning Out

When straight A's, perfect attendance, and a polite smile hide anxiety, exhaustion, and the fear of letting anyone down.

A teenager scrolling on a phone with earbuds in

Teen Mental Health

The Quiet FOMO: Why Your Teen Is Always Online But Never Happy

Understanding the low-grade dread that keeps teenagers scrolling—and why it doesn't disappear with more screen time.

A fifteen-year-old teenage girl sitting at a wooden study desk late in the evening with an open notebook, looking stressed by perfectionism

Anxiety

The Teenager Who Refuses to Submit Work That Is Not Perfect

When academic excellence turns into paralysis, late-night tears, and missing deadlines. Understanding maladaptive perfectionism in high-achieving teens.

A hand squeezing a yellow smiley-face stress ball in warm evening light

Anxiety

The Quiet Worrier Nobody Notices

Not all anxious children ask questions or seek reassurance. Some go very quiet, over-prepare, and hold their breath until they get home.

A calm sunlit clinic waiting area with two empty linen chairs and a folded cardigan

Anxiety

The Appointment They Dread: Dentist and Doctor Anxiety in Children

Needle fear and dental panic are not squeamishness. They are a learned alarm, and learned alarms can be unlearned.

Young people gathered around a campfire in the woods at night

Resilience

The First Night Away

Homesickness is not weakness. It is attachment doing its job in the wrong postcode — and it is highly trainable.

A child's hands cupped around a small string of warm lights in the dark

Sleep

The Light Left On: Night-Time Fears in Children

Night-time fear is not a stalling tactic. It is a young brain doing exactly what it was built to do at the…

A child's hands worrying at a jumper cuff on a school desk beside a notebook

Anxiety

Where the Worry Goes: Nail Biting, Hair Pulling and Worry Habits

Bitten nails, pulled hair, chewed sleeves, picked skin. Body-focused habits are not bad manners — they are anxiety finding an exit through…

A school uniform laid over a wooden chair beside a half-packed backpack in a lamplit bedroom at dusk

Anxiety

The Sunday Night Feeling: Anxiety Before the School Week

The stomach ache arrives before the school week does. Anticipatory anxiety is not a child avoiding school — it is a nervous…

A child in pyjamas standing in a bedroom doorway at night holding a blanket

Sleep

Why Sleep Battles Are Usually Emotional, Not Behavioural

When a child fights bedtime, we often look for a new rule. But the real resistance is often the feelings they have…

A teenager in a denim jacket sitting with hands clasped in her lap, shoulders drawn in

Teen Mental Health

When Teen Anxiety Looks Like Laziness

The essay is not written. The room is a mess. The alarm is ignored. Before you decide they do not care, consider…

A fourteen-year-old boy sitting on the edge of his bed lacing school shoes in soft morning light

Family Life

The Ordinary Life Around the Diagnosis: Raising a Child With a Long-Term Condition

Children with chronic conditions do not need to be treated as patients at home. They need to be treated as children with…

Pencil drawings pinned across a studio wall beside an easel

Confidence

The Rubbed-Out Page: Perfectionism in Children

The homework is torn through from erasing. Perfectionism in children rarely looks like ambition — it looks like paralysis, rage, and a…

A teenager lying on the floor with headphones and an old radio, feet up against the wall

Teen Mental Health

Four People Before Breakfast: Teenage Mood Swings

Adolescent mood swings are not a character flaw or a failure of discipline. They are the predictable output of a brain rebuilding…

An eleven-year-old pausing in a dim hallway with a hand on the light switch, checking it again before bed

Anxiety

The Rituals Nobody Talks About: OCD in Children

Childhood OCD is rarely about tidiness. It is about a frightening thought and the desperate act that makes it go away.

A blanket and cushion left on a sofa beside a mug and a child's drawing on the rug in afternoon light

Family Life

When a Parent Is Unwell

Children do not need the whole truth. They need a true, small version of it — and something concrete to hold onto…

A child seen from behind at a bedroom window at dusk, faint stars beyond the glass

Anxiety

The Questions That Come at Bedtime: When a Child Worries About Death

Almost every child, somewhere between five and eleven, works out that life ends. What they do with that discovery — and what…

A child at a tablet on the kitchen table, head resting in one hand, mid-way through schoolwork

School

The Homework Hour: Ending the Nightly Standoff

By four o'clock a child has already spent six hours regulating themselves in a demanding environment. The worksheet is not the problem…

A tense child in a kitchen doorway while a parent crouches nearby with an open hand

Anxiety

When Anxiety Shows Up as Anger

The child slamming the door is often the most frightened person in the house. Fear and fury run on the same circuit…

A parent walking beside a school-age child with a backpack towards a school gate in morning light

Anxiety

Separation Anxiety in Children: Why Longer Goodbyes Make It Worse

The instinct to stay one more minute is loving, reasonable, and the single most reliable way to make tomorrow morning harder.

An empty school corridor in morning light with a single backpack on a bench

School Refusal

School Refusal: What Actually Helps When They Cannot Get Through the Door

It is almost never defiance, and it is very rarely about the lessons. A clear-eyed guide to the mornings that stop working…

A sharpened pencil and a blank sheet of paper on linen beside a glass of water in soft window light

School & Learning

The Night Before: Helping a Child With Test Anxiety

A child who knows the material and still freezes is not underprepared. They are over-alerted — and that is a different problem…

A teenager in headphones with tears on their face

Raising Teens

Quieter Than Usual: Recognising Depression in Teenagers

Teenage depression rarely announces itself as sadness. More often it arrives as irritability, exhaustion and a slow withdrawal that looks, from the…

An empty school corridor bench with a single canvas backpack resting on it in soft morning light

Friendships & Social Skills

The Corridor: What to Do When Your Child Is Being Bullied

The instinct is to fix it in an afternoon. The thing that actually restores a child is slower, quieter and almost entirely…

A girl of about twelve sitting quietly by a window reading in warm natural light

Neurodiversity

The Girl Who Was Never a Problem: Autism, Missed

Autistic girls are diagnosed later, less often, and usually only after something breaks. Here is what is being overlooked, and why it…

Children playing on a climbing frame in low golden sunlight, one standing slightly apart

Anxiety & Worry

The Edge of the Playground: Social Anxiety in Children

It is not shyness, and it does not pass with time on its own. Social anxiety is a fear of being judged…

A bedroom door left ajar with warm light spilling into a calm hallway, an untouched schoolbook on the floor beside it

Neurodiversity

When Every Request Becomes a Threat: Understanding Demand Avoidance

Some children do not refuse because they will not. They refuse because a request — any request, even a welcome one —…

A folded newspaper and a warm mug on a linen-covered kitchen table beside a child's sage cardigan on a wooden chair in morning light

Anxiety

When the World Gets In: Helping Children Cope With the News

Children no longer hear the news at six o'clock. They absorb it in fragments, without context, from a phone in a bedroom…

A nine-year-old standing quietly beside a school corridor doorway, watching classmates talking in the background

Anxiety

The Child Who Cannot Speak at School

Selective mutism is not shyness, stubbornness or choice. It is anxiety severe enough to freeze speech.

An exercise book with a torn-out page and neatly rewritten handwriting

Confidence

The Cost of Getting It Right: Perfectionism in Children

The child who rips up the page, refuses to start, or cries over a single mark is not being dramatic. They are…

A pale ceramic plate with a few simple foods barely touched, a child's fork resting on a linen cloth

Nutrition

The Quiet Standoff: Ending the Nightly Battle Over Food

Mealtimes turn into a contest the moment eating becomes something a child can win or lose. The way out is to stop…

Two children sitting on a blanket in a sunlit empty room, looking out a large window with moving boxes softly blurred in the foreground

Family Life

Everything in Boxes: Moving House With Children

A move looks like logistics to adults. To a child it is the removal of every external structure they use to feel…

An open notebook beside a worn eraser, pencil, and a small crumpled paper ball on a cream linen desk with eucalyptus

Confidence

The Weight of Being Good: Perfectionism in Quiet Children

The child who never causes trouble, always tries hard and cannot bear to get it wrong is not thriving quietly. Perfectionism is…

An open canvas backpack resting on a wooden chair in a quiet bedroom

Teen Mental Health

The Vape in the Backpack: What to Do in the First Ten Minutes

Almost every parent handles this discovery badly the first time — usually because they respond to the object rather than to the…

A thoughtful child sitting on a windowsill in soft daylight

Confidence & Resilience

How to Help a Child With Low Self-Esteem (When Compliments Do Not Land)

Telling an unconfident child that they are wonderful rarely works. Self-esteem is built from evidence, not reassurance — and evidence takes a…

A teenager leaning against a sunlit brick wall, hand shielding their eyes

Teen Mental Health

Your Teenager Isn't Lazy — They're Overwhelmed

The horizontal teenager on the bedroom floor is rarely refusing to start. They are stuck at the point where the size of…

A child wrapped in a green blanket looking out of a rain-streaked window

Anxiety

The Weather Inside: Helping Children Carry Anxiety About the World

Climate, conflict, headlines they were never meant to see. Children are absorbing global fear at an age when the world should still…

A child's bedroom at night with a soft toy, an open book and a lamp still glowing

Sleep

Why Anxious Children Sleep Differently

Bedtime is the first moment all day with no distraction, no noise and nothing to do but think. For an anxious child,…

An eleven-year-old in school uniform resting their head on their hand at the kitchen table before school

School Refusal

When School Becomes Too Much: Understanding School Refusal

School refusal is almost never about school. It is about a nervous system that has learned mornings are dangerous — and it…

A girl standing with her arms open by the sea

Resilience

Growing Brave: How Real Courage Is Built in Small Steps

Courage is not the absence of fear, and it cannot be given as a pep talk. It is built one rung at…

A child's bedroom prepared for sleep at dusk with a small warm lamp and books

Sleep

The Science of Sleep: Why Bedtime Falls Apart and How to Rebuild It

Almost every difficulty a family brings to therapy is worse on four hours' sleep. Bedtime is not a discipline issue — it…

A parent kneeling at eye level with a worried school-age child in a calm, sunlit living room

Anxiety

What Childhood Anxiety Is Actually Asking For

A therapist's guide to what anxiety in children really needs — why reassurance stops working, how avoidance grows worry, and the calm,…

A woman's hands writing in an open journal beside photographs and a lamp

Parent Wellbeing

When the Worry Is Yours: Parenting as an Anxious Parent

Anxiety travels through families along invisible wires. The good news is that the wires run in both directions — and the repair…

A family sitting together at a table putting coins into a piggy bank

Family Life

What Children Learn About Money Before Anyone Teaches Them

Financial habits form far earlier than most parents expect — and they form from what children watch, not what they are told.

A young teenager in a new school blazer waiting alone at a bus stop on a grey early morning

School

The Year Everything Gets Bigger

The move to secondary school asks a twelve-year-old brain to manage eight teachers, a new social order and a locker combination —…

A hallway with a child's backpack on one hook and a set of house keys on a second hook, morning light through an open door

Family Life

How to Tell the Children: Talking About Divorce and Separation

Separation is not what harms children most. Conflict they are placed in the middle of is. Here is how to have the…

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