How to cure social anxiety in parents

Hi everyone! Welcome to the blog! I will be posting about topics and themes relevant to how anxiety lives in kids, families, schools, and all the other places it weasels its way in and gets us stuck.

I recently read this piece from Parents.com which discusses how parental social anxiety impacts children. It occurred to me that a common pattern I see in socially anxious adults in my practice is that they report their parents had very few or no friends.

As we discuss in SPACE, we are our children’s greatest teachers and they often learn through observation, even more so than what we say to them. We are constantly modeling stepping in and stepping back, connection and disconnection, and managing initial feelings of discomfort and then getting used to things.

If you have crippling social anxiety, don’t avoid social situations!

When parents avoid school drop offs, events, or social gatherings they are missing opportunities to model crucial social skills kids need as they learn to navigate their own social landscape. These interactions often lead to invitations to other social events like BBQs, picnics, and family get togethers which provide more opportunities for children to form connections with kids in their class and buy them invitations to birthday parties and sleepovers.

This pattern may start as early as preschool. This is hard stuff for people with social anxiety. It can be uncomfortable to find one’s social footing, know the right thing to say, or even tolerate the “mompetition” of humble bragging about another child’s achievements. In my group, you will learn my opinion on that: no one knows what is actually going on behind closed doors and many parents are dealing with anxious kids, meltdowns, and door slamming, too. Knowing that while it can be uncomfortable at first, in the long run, authenticity is refreshing. And of course, what I say OVER AND OVER in the group, WHAT IS HARD NOW, IS EASY LATER; WHAT IS EASY NOW, IS HARD LATER!

This article is informative, but it was clearly written by the writer’s anxious part. It is rife with the language of anxiety, global thinking, and a permanent mindset that these kiddos will never have a birthday party. I would love to get this mom in my new Mom’s Anxiety Group.

How to cure social anxiety? You can’t. But you can treat it.

I love treating anxiety because it is HIGHLY TREATABLE. There is not cure, and no one grows out of it, but you can LEARN your way out of its predictable demands.

This group will teach concrete skills and strategies for interruption of common patterns of anxiety that keep us stuck and miserable. I invite you to continue this work of breaking intergenerational transmission of anxiety by joining my lunchtime group that starts Wednesday, July 12 from noon to 1:15.

Over six sessions, we will connect, learn, practice, and support one another as we create new patterns for managing uncomfortable feelings and embracing uncertainty to inhabit our lives more fully.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me for support!