Generation Anxiety: helping our kids thrive, with Dr Judith Locke & Dr Danielle Einstein

Transcript for Generation Anxiety ~ helping our kids thrive ~ with Dr Judith Locke and Dr Danielle Einstein

 

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:00:03) – Hi, I’m Tracey Challenor. Parenting kids in today’s world can be challenging. We’re all in this together. And on This Life Ed podcast, I chat with a variety of experts who share their wisdom and advice to help you raise the next generation well.

 

Anxiety is affecting more kids than ever, but what’s behind this rise and how can we as parents help them manage it?

 

Whether it’s tackling social anxiety, school nerves or tech overwhelm, it often takes family wide support to help children move forward.

 

The earlier you can start supporting an anxious child, the better, but it’s never too late to implement strategies that make a difference. Joining me today are two of Australia’s leading psychologists, Doctor Judith Locke and Doctor Danielle Einstein, both experts on anxiety and parenting and co-authors of the new book, Raising Anxiety: Why our good intentions are backfiring on children (and how to fix it).

 

Welcome, Judith and Danielle. It’s great to have you with us.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:01:14) – Thank you. Thank you.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:01:16) – Congratulations on the new book, and it’s wonderful to have you here to talk about such an important topic.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:01:22) – Lots to unpack. Judith, perhaps you could give us an overview to start with. Your book, as the title suggests, highlights that conundrum that parents’ best intentions can add to children’s anxiety. I’d love to get into some of those areas, but before we dive in, why did you see a need for this book?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:01:43) – Well, as the title says, Raising Anxiety, we do notice that anxiety is has risen enormously, particularly in the last 20 years or so. And what has been frustrating for Danielle and I to see is that it’s almost seen now as an inevitable thing that all kids will get anxious. But I think, the title is a sort of play, because we actually think a lot of the kind of increase in anxiety is out of good intentions, but gone badly. So, in that fear of a child actually feeling anxious in the future and that impacting their wellbeing, parents are trying to prevent all bad feelings previously, which, is really part of the problem. It looks like a solution, but it’s not a solution at all.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:02:32) – If anything, it sort of makes it even more likely if you’ve protected them from everything.

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:02:37) – Because you talk about how different parenting styles can inadvertently increase anxiety in children. Helicopter parenting seems to be the norm now. How have you seen the focus of parenting shift in recent years? What seems to be the main goal of parents now?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:02:54) – When you talk clinically to parents. A lot of them talk about the fact that they want their child to have great self-esteem, and many are sort of seeing that great self-esteem comes out of a really, really good childhood and a really good childhood of success and daily happiness and not too much disappointment. And I completely understand why people may think that. But we find increasingly that really perfect, pristine childhoods that are unmarred by disappointment or difficulty don’t actually prepare them for future difficulties. So, you know, as long as you can kind of keep, you know, and the whole term helicopter parenting is very much about still hovering around a child at an age where you shouldn’t. But if it’s been your parenting actions that have taken away all problems, then it’s highly likely you’re going to have to keep hovering around them, and they’re going to be much more helpless because they’re relying on parent or other adult help all the time, and you want to make them more independent.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:03:55) – And that’s been the problem when not making them independent enough early enough.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:04:00) – You make a great point. This is a line that really jumped out at me early on in the book:

 

Children who experience nothing but happy outcomes are likely to be fearful of tricky situations and potentially difficult days. A child who has been brought up this way is at risk of becoming anxious or developing increasing anxiety as they grow up.

 

Do you think, partly we perceive life as more competitive now and parents want to help their kids win at all costs, whether that’s choosing the right school and wanting kids to be happy and successful at school. It’s not a race, though, is it? You’d argue that parents should be focused more on the big picture, a striving for resilience and self-reliance rather than wanting their kids to be the best at everything.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:04:49) – And I think what’s happening and this is very much neoliberalism and increased competition. And I do think parenting is much harder than it ever used to be, because parents are trying to get their child as ahead as they possibly can and get them in the right extracurricular activities and give them lovely weekends, etc. so it’s much harder parenting, but it doesn’t prepare them for the hills and valleys that are going to come up in the future.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:05:16) – So I think if you give them that perfect sort of straight line of, you know, no hill, no difficulty, all perfect shaded, etc., they’re not ready for what they’re going to face in the years beyond. So I think, again, it’s with the best of intentions, but it really impacts child wellbeing. And actually it impacts parent wellbeing as well. Because if parents and lying sorry sitting there all day worried about what happened at school, they’re likely to come at parenting at the end of the day depleted because they’ve been overly concerned about minor issues impacting their child.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:05:51) – It’s that pressure all round, isn’t it? One thing that  also really surprised me in the book was your point that in some cases, kids might actually get something out of having anxiety, almost a kind of benefit or reward. Could you explain what’s happening here?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:06:07) – Well, again, this is out of really good intentions. So, a lot of listeners will recall when they told their parents their fear about the swimming carnival or their concern or their reluctance to go.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:06:18) – Probably a lot of listeners had parents that went, oh, well, you have to go anyway. Off you go. You know, they’re not really sort of saying, oh, gosh, now we’re a little bit better at acknowledging feelings now. But I do think that sometimes once a child has reported some fear about an event, and a lot of this fear is pretty natural, you know, not knowing if you’re going to come first or last or whether it’s going to be embarrassing, etc.. But I think once we hear that word, I’m worried or I’m nervous or I’m anxious, parents step in and do too much for children. And then what ends up happening sometimes, for example, with swimming carnivals, schools are reporting now that parents have not sent their child to any sporting event at all in their school because their child is reported fear, and then the child doesn’t actually face the swimming carnival and learn it’s not the worst thing. Or, you know, even if they are the worst swimmer, usually they make very good friends with the other bad swimmers.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:07:14) – You know, I visit a club of, oh, we hate this way. I mean, God, I said, they’re so awful. but they actually make friends on it. So, this avoiding things that you’re scared of actually inadvertently makes them even more fearful because you’ve not actually faced the event, realized that you can cope. So again, good intentions, bad outcomes. And it’s really hard for a parent to work out what can they face and what can’t they face. So, I understand why parents are saying protect, protect, protect.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:07:44) – That’s a vivid childhood memory for me because my mum used to write me notes so I didn’t have to go to swimming lessons because I hated it. And the swimming carnival as well. So, a very relatable one.

 

Let’s have a bit of a chat about social media, because a lot of parents and experts are very concerned about its role in mental health. We know about social media’s role in bullying, how it’s amplified comparison and FOMO, fear of missing out, especially when young people see posts of friends having fun without them.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:08:18) – On top of that, social media’s push for perfection, particularly around body image, has been linked to rising anxiety and even eating disorders.

Daniel, question for you, in your work. Well, first of all, can you paint us a picture of what social media is doing and how challenging has it been to counter these social media pressures on young people?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:08:39) – I think you’ve given a nice snapshot there, Tracey. And your question about what are some of the problems we’re seeing? There are just so many ways that social media plays into children’s insecurities, and so we’ve just got to be aware of how our children are using social media. And I think the biggest thing that that I’ve been certainly advocating for is that we do bring in this regulation in Australia because parents at the moment are stuck. If they say to their children, you can’t be on social media, then the children, teenagers are ostracised, they can’t make their social arrangements, they don’t see what’s going on, so they’re really in a tricky place.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:09:24) – And we do need a change in the norms. We need everybody to recognise that social media is, has got a lot of harms inherent in using it, especially if it is unchecked. So, I’d like to see, and I think Judith also, and in our book we talk about it just being introduced at the age of 16 after children already have some good friendships in place, and when the friendships are not quite so unstable as they might be in the younger years and, and we talk a lot about parents being involved in the early stages of social media.

 

Just just together understanding how you can respond too impulsively, how to handle unkind actions and, actions being just whether people message or not or when groups are being slightly mean and, and we just need to recognise the differences in maturity, in this.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:10:24) – Because it is that impulsivity and lack of judgment that is often the problem, right? And you’ve seen studies that say the more social media that young people consume, the less satisfied they are with day-to-day life.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:10:37) – And that’s a pattern that holds until about the age of 16 and even group chat can be risky, can’t it? Not just social media.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:10:46) – Yeah, and what’s interesting in the clinic is when, for instance, when young adults or older teens come in for help and they’re already experiencing problems, they want to make changes, like because, for instance, they might be motivated to do well in their final year of school and their final exams. So, they’ve got some other pull on them, or young adults who can really they’ve got a bit more maturity. They’ve got more of an understanding about how they’re affected. When you then explain how the social media feeds into it, and when you get them to experiment with putting proper limits and actually getting off it, they see the benefits immediately. But for the younger years, they can’t do that because social connection is one of their biggest goals.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:11:25) – Well, this minimum age of 16 for social media will hopefully be a game changer because parents are grappling with how to get a handle on technology, aren’t they? How to keep their kids safe.

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:11:36) – You could say it’s one of the biggest challenges of modern parenting. Danielle what are the non-negotiables as you see it when it comes to setting screen time limits that support mental wellbeing?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:11:48) – I think the first thing is for parents just to model, how how they allow their phones and computers to pull them in and one thing that I think parents and can really insist on is notifications. So, making sure that notifications are not set up to interrupt, time when you’re with a family. Putting phones, computers, everything at completely away and off a person when you’re spending time together as a family. Even the sight of a computer or a phone will pull your attention towards it and make you feel less satisfied with what you’re doing at the time. So, so really concentrating on not keeping devices on a person all the time, and particularly not when they’re in family spaces. Another thing that we talk about is, the parents being in charge. So, parents should be in charge of any devices that, teenagers have.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:12:46) – And I think that’s an interesting one because, you know, with alcohol, it wouldn’t matter who has bought the alcohol, if you found your 15 year olds swigging alcohol in your lounge, you’d take it off them. And yet, devices parents seem to not have that same attitude towards, devices and device rules. And we just need, to really shift the understanding of how important it is to have great screen discipline in, in your house.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:13:17) – And you’re a fan of, maximum daily limit of screen time as well, aren’t you?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:13:22) – Well, I think if you’re working with your children, then just checking how much time they’re online and having them check with you is part of that developing self-control.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:13:33) – Well, let’s talk about some more anxiety solutions. You outlined so many helpful strategies in the book for turning anxiety around. Let’s explore a couple of them. Judith, you mentioned the importance of changing the goals. Could you explain what you mean by that?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:13:49) – Well, I think, you know, back to what I was saying about self-esteem and just trying to make sure your child’s life is perfect so they’re ready.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:13:56) – You think that they’ve got better self-esteem. They can face the future. One big message of the book is to actually make sure your child has got the skills for the future, and self-esteem in itself is not a skill. Self-esteem is actually created by children having what we see as the five essential skills, which is resilience, the ability to face difficulty, self-regulation, the ability to do the tough things when they need to, resourcefulness, to the ability to solve their problems, respect, respecting authority figures, but also respecting each other and knowing that other people have a right to contribute to the conversation or get the last piece of toast. And the last one is, a responsibility which is an extension of respect. It’s moving into a child being capable of seeing outside themselves and being a community member.

Now, all of those things typically come from some difficulty. So, they only, for example, if the child’s not doing their homework, you continuing to remind them because you want them to do it well at school, will stop them from actually experience the consequence of their choice.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:15:07) – And even to a certain degree, if you’ve got a 17 year old who, rather than studying that for their Year 12 exams, they’re scrolling social media because they’re of an age now where they can do it, they will get the consequence of that choice, and you have to allow them to experience the consequence of their choice when they do badly on the assignment, because they were mainly scrolling. That’s the only way they’re going to learn. Oh, I have to put this stuff away, I have to work hard, etc.. So, it’s really kind of checking in.

 

And I think it’s critical here you check in with their teacher on those skills too. Hey, how’s my child? You know, are they as responsible as other children? Are they as respectful as other children? And remembering that a lot of times, back to that swimming carnival, it’s actually learning to cope when they don’t win the race and learn that they’re okay. And that’s what builds resilience. It’s not coming first in the swimming carnival that builds resilience.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:16:02) – It’s coming last often or third last or whatever. So, we’ve got to remember that success is not necessarily a producer of as much skill as disappointment as difficulty is.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:16:15) – So true because it is the the challenge and the setbacks that help all of us build fortitude in life.

 

A lot of parents will say that it’s often those everyday moments that bring up the most anxiety for kids: the first day of school, a NAPLAN test, having to give a talk in front of the classmates or, as we’ve mentioned, the swimming carnival.

 

These can feel huge for young people, even if they seem small to us. And for many parents, these chats often happen on the car ride to and from school. So, Judith, how can parents approach these conversations in a way that’s a bit more low key, that supports their child’s confidence and be the positive life coach, if you like.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:16:58) – So one, particularly if these conversations are happening in cars, which they often are set up the car environment correctly, you make sure that you’re not taking or receiving calls in that time.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:17:09) – Make sure that car is a phone-free time so you can genuinely check in, because in busy lives, you need to check in, so make sure your child’s not scrolling their phone. Make sure you’re not sort of doing a speaker phone conversation. So just making the moments, even if it’s just doing the washing up together, making the moment so you can sort of check in with them. When you do check in with them, don’t check in about their feelings about events, but much more just the events. So hey, exams are on next week. How are you going with them all? Rather than how are you feeling about exams next week? Because when you are checking with the feeling stuff, no child’s going to say, oh, I am so excited about the exams, I can’t wait. I think they’re just great. Like, no kids going to say that they’re going to go, I’m nervous and that sort of thing, and that will make you react much more. As a parent of, oh no, let me take that away or let me, you know, help you study all that, try and sort of stop it.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:17:58) – Whereas I think when you just say how you’re going with it is a more general question. Now, when they do express some sort of concern, you do the sort of classic, sort of steps where you listen to them, you empathise with their situation, but really critically you normalise, you go, yeah, a lot of kids get nervous about exams. So, you’re not sort of in any way dismissing it. You’re just sort of saying, hey, this is not an unusual situation. A lot of kids feel that way. So, then they don’t feel, as if they’re sort of freakish in their response, but then you’re much more moving to okay, what do you think you can do to get feel better about them? You know, and a lot of times it’s study, you know, or practice or whatever it is, but much more than taking the feeling away, which won’t make them equipped, to face it, is much more coaching them through the moment without taking it away, and making them feel like, yeah, nerves are normal and actually a good sign that they, think it’s important enough. If your child isn’t nervous about exams, they’re clearly not thinking about them hard enough that most kids do get nervous.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:19:07) – and they’re probably not studying enough if they’re not a bit nervous as well. So remembering it’s not a terrible thing to feel nerves.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:19:14) – So be supportive but let them do the work and and work through what they need to do to prepare. And that’s going to build their their confidence and their independence. Neither of you are particularly fans of mental health days are you? What’s the thought behind that; that opting out doesn’t build commitment and grit?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:19:32) – So mental health days. I guess they just they go completely counter to what Judith was talking about before with the swimming carnival. It’s just so important that we ride the ups and downs of life and that we’re actually at school, so allowing things to happen, it’s at school. We need to see that we can go to school tired, or we can go to school a bit exhausted or even when there are problems going on, because that’s when we then realise, oh, we got through it. Maybe something different happened. It’s much better than sitting at home.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:20:03) – And one of my greatest concerns is if you sit at home, is the child really sitting at home bored, or are they actually on a device doing other sorts of things? So, in fact, what happens is you start to reward the mental health days, and that tiredness and it’s not the same. and we need to really be cognisant and aware of that and not letting that be the default for I’m tired or things are a bit hard at the moment.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:20:31) – And the other thing I’d add to that too, is you’ve got to prepare kids for Mondays. Like nobody wakes up Monday morning. Go! I can’t wait to go to work.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:20:40) – Yes.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:20:41) – End my weekend. Nobody does that. So, unless you’re allowing them to face the kind of Mondays on a regular basis, even if those Mondays are happening on a Wednesday. you know, you just allow them to learn to cope with the blahs and the, and I don’t feel like it because that’s life. That’s that’s an adult life. Many parents wake up and don’t really particularly feel like being a parent that day, but still do it, you know, and get through it and learn that they can cope, you know, with tricky times and exhaustion.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:21:11) – So I think we’ve just got to remember we’re preparing them for all days of life, not just the Fridays or Saturday.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:21:19) – Yes, you both make a great point there. So, we’ve discussed about how rising to the challenge is key. The only way to get good at riding a bike or public speaking or anything is just to keep doing it. Avoidance makes it harder for next time. This might be a helpful one for parents. Can you explain the theory of the exposure stepladder? It sounds a bit technical, but it’s actually really quite simple how parents might be able to use that method to gradually build their young person’s confidence to tackle something that makes them anxious.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:21:51) – So. So if we’re thinking about, for instance, let’s talk about, getting the bus on the way to school. The first thing that a child might be concerned about is a fear that they won’t have anyone to sit next to on the bus on the way to school. and so the way that you test out whether or not that that fear comes true is to ask a child to first, catch a bus.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:22:24) – and secondly, actually see what happens. Now, two things might happen when the child is on the bus. The first thing that might happen is maybe they will have no one to sit next to on the bus on the way to school. And if that’s the case, the question is, well, how did they survive that? So, if they survive and because actually they all do survive, we all do. We survive. was it as bad as they thought it was going to be? Okay, so so when the bad thing happens, we go back and we kind of revisit, the fact that we could cope with it when the bad thing doesn’t happen, then we’re able to look back and go, oh, isn’t that interesting? Someone did sit next to you and have a little bit of a reflection on actually what happened. So, with an exposure ladder, what we’re doing is we’re putting steps together that get increasingly difficult, so it might be that going on the bus is one thing that’s difficult in a child’s life.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:23:21) – Going to a new netball team might be even more difficult. And again, we’re asking them to go and do what’s difficult and then take lessons away from it. And that’s really exposure. Step ladder should be comprised of different tasks that get increasingly difficult, but that always involve a lesson at each point.

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:23:42) – And in your experience, does that practical exposure to the thing that can be a bit scary? Does that build that that confidence and the ability to cope better with those things?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:23:53) – Absolutely, absolutely. And sometimes when there’s a lot of social anxiety, we’re also giving some social skills, tips about how to make conversation or how to look people’s people in the eyes. And that might go along with those, hierarchies. But but yes, that is the that is the best practice approach for working with anxiety. It’s actually facing the issue and seeing it’s not as bad as you thought it was going to be.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:24:16) – Well, it’s not just kids that are worried. Parents seem increasingly anxious these days as well. What are some ways that parents can alleviate that anxiety and move to a sort of a calmer way of parenting?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:24:30) – Oh, absolutely.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:24:31) – It’s a really hard time to be a parent, and I can understand a parent tossing and turning because their child’s having some friendship issues, like their child’s, come into the relationships at school thinking they’re going to make immediate friends, etc. might have overshared something, or, you know, they might have sort of tried to get in with the cool group that is a little bit nasty, etc. and we talk in the book about reasons of, you know, the complexities of friendship, etc. so it’s very easy for a parent to be tossing and turning all night.

 

And a lot of times in those moments, even sometimes you do with what you do with your anxiety is not necessarily helpful as well. So, for example, you might go on social media and find that sort of ‘ask a question’ page and type in, “You know, I’m really concerned. My child, you know, was crying yesterday at the ….” And sometimes, while sometimes sensible advice comes back at you, often it’s bad advice. Okay? It’s like, oh, that sounds like the school’s not supportive enough and you need to move them.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:25:30) – And so you get a lot of hysteria. So, in the book, we very we are of course talking about anxieties, but we’re also trying to, first of all, calm parents fears in the beginning of talking about how, you know, anxiety is a part of life. When we explain and we talk about all the sort of things that are going on with anxiety and the different types of, sort of tendencies in people, that might make them more prone to anxiety. But critically, what we do is talk about what to do with your anxiety when it occurs. And we give parents really clear steps, and it sort of depends on the type of anxiety it is. It depends on the you know, who who you choose to speak to. You can make some sensible choices with that, etc. and we sort of give reasoned ways of doing that. But we just we want parents to be really well considered in all of that. And that’s what the whole book is about. It’s kind of, hey, step back.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:26:24) – Let’s look at the environment. Let’s look at the sort of way we’re going. Let’s step back and sort of look at it and see what are sort of better goals to go for. But then also what I can do when I am worried all day because it’s been their first day at school and I’m tempted to try and hide in the bushes and see how they’re getting on at lunchtime, etc. but to really sit there and go, okay, here’s what I need to do. And so, it’s a it’s a dual purpose in the book in that we are absolutely recognising that it’s not just the age of anxiety for kids, it’s the age of anxiety for parents as well. And we just want to make sure we support parents in the very, very important act of supporting their child.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:27:04) – I’d like to go over some of the most common questions that parents have about childhood anxiety, and you even dedicated a chapter in your book to frequently asked questions, which I’m sure many listening parents will relate to. So, let’s run through a few of those.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:27:19) – My child never wants to go to school when there is a school sporting event and report that they are sick. Do I force them to go? I feel for them because they are not good at sports.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:27:29) – I think that’s a typical thing, I think. I think just generally kids don’t want to do things they’re not good at. That’s completely understandable. So they might be a little bit more nervous. And often they’re a bit more nervous too, because they haven’t had as much experience. If you look at the Australians in the Olympics, you know, some some really good people did badly on the day, you know, and but it’s their experience of facing these days that they’ve learnt they could cope. If they really thought about it, they still wouldn’t do it. So likewise, it’s understandable your child is nervous and you can again coach them through it. Listen, empathise, normalise, but change the sort of narrative to be. See how it goes. Try it out. What can you do? Can you practice? running a little bit more before the sports carnival.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:28:17) – What can you do to be better prepared? Even looking back at things that I’ve not done well at in the past and that they cope with. Remember that first day you, went to Auskick and you weren’t that good, but, you know, you got slowly got better at it. it wasn’t the end of the world. So just reminding them of those things. But I do think it’s really important to for parents to remember that a full school experience involves everything. And I think if the moment we start missing certain events because they don’t don’t want to do it, they’re not getting a full school experience. And I think, again, most jobs involve boring or annoying or tiresome tasks. And I think again, it’s teaching them how to do those things. but letting them stay home, particularly, as Danielle has suggested, letting them stay home on devices is a disaster because of who wouldn’t be sick for everything if you could just stay home and game all day. And I think that’s a real that’s a real problem for the moving forward.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:29:21) – Because again, they miss the opportunity to be a part of a school event that ends up even for the kids that don’t like it often, like a way to meet other people and complain about it with each other.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:29:35) – So it is a case of suck it up to a certain extent, a certain degree to be quite forceful as a parent.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:29:41) – Education. Yep, I paid for that day. Yep. You’ll be going.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:29:47) – Brilliant. Another question. My child has been seeing a psychologist every fortnight for a few months now, and while they enjoy the sessions, I’m not seeing any change in their anxiety. How long does it take?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:30:01) – I guess the first thing that we need to think about is if the treatment is for anxiety, then usually a psychologist will, hopefully have a good idea about what’s happening at home in terms of meeting with parents and, having a bit of an idea of the home setup even before they start the treatment with the teenager or child and some of the things they might be looking for.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:30:27) – as we talked about before, device use so often, I might have clients come to see me where, they’ve got this really big anxiety problem, but I find out, as I’m chatting with them, that there’s a massive computer screen in their bedroom and they actually, because of their anxiety, don’t have to leave the bedroom and they don’t have to do normal chores and they don’t have to join the family for dinner. So, there’s, there’s it’s very important that the psychology sessions go hand in hand with understanding what’s going on at home. and what are the factors in which that anxiety exists in. Once we’ve got a good understanding of that, then the treatment for anxiety is not necessarily that much fun for the teenager, because it does involve what I was talking about before. It always involves, first of all, explaining and understanding what the anxiety response is. Secondly, viewing that anxiety response is actually normal, and thirdly, setting the teenager up to face whatever it is that they’re concerned about in graded ways that we talked about.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:31:40) – And that’s the case for children as well, like actually putting them in a classroom, where they’re uncomfortable to practice, for example, doing, questions for a hard exam, in a classroom before the exam. So, so we want to actually never take them out of a situation, but always put them actually in the situation and slowly step them up. But but treatment itself shouldn’t take that long. That process actually doesn’t take long. What’s important is that you’re working with parents and with the child to work out what are all the settings that they can get practice at facing their anxiety in?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:32:24) – What we see is almost misunderstandings of therapy. Now a lot of people see therapy. You just go and complain about your week and talk about who’s annoyed you, and the therapist just listens and like a venting session. Yeah. Venting session. And who wouldn’t want to pay for that? That just sounds great. But will it get you better or. No, not if it’s not with some really good ways of overcoming it, if it’s just complaining about it.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:32:48) – If anything, if you were given an hour to complain about your work every week, your work would probably get worse over time because you’d be almost looking for something to complain about. Whereas if the therapist is teaching you better communication skills, better way of managing yourself. That’s what’s critical. So we’ve just got to get therapy, right. And you know, again, with good intentions, I think we sort of misunderstand what it should be doing. And it’s not a downloading. It’s an actual, you know, clinically proven treatment of getting them out of the situation in which they find themselves.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:33:21) – Moving on to another common question that I think a lot of parents can relate to in in this day and age for both primary school children and teenagers, my child keeps texting me during the school day when they are bored, lonely, or worrying. But I have a job. I can’t always reply what should I do?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:33:40) – Yeah, it’s a hard. It’s a really hard one, that one. Because, you know, even when most schools have now put phones away, kids are unable to access them.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:33:49) – They’re in their locker or locked away, but they can contact you on email. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to be available to children at all. And I think it’s important to say to them, look, I can’t answer emails from you. Be, trusting of the school that if your child is sick, that the school will contact you so the child does not need to be in contact with you through the day, and you don’t need to be telling them, hey, I’m picking you up at this time. That can happen immediately after the school day ends, but I think it’s really important that a child learns to cope with the circumstances therein. We find, and I even see this on campus, too. We find that sometimes students move out of the situation they’re in, which they should be chatting with peers, and they should be sort of getting to know each other. They move out and they just complain to their parent or they, you know, just send emojis. And it just it takes them out of forming friendships.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:34:42) – So even if it is their first time on the bus, if they’re spending their whole time texting you, they’re not realising there’s another child from the school there that they could talk to. So, I think you’ve just got to make sure that that they are present in the moment, because that’s going to teach them good social skills. but texting you on the is not teaching them great social skills.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:35:03) – It’s great to get the insight from both of you on those issues, and there’s some great topics there. I guess it’s fair to say that most children with run of the mill anxiety won’t need professional help, but sometimes it’s essential. How can parents tell if their child’s worries are part of life’s normal ups and downs, or something more? Are there signs to look for and when should you seek help?

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:35:27) – So it’s a good sign if they’re telling you a little bit that they’re they’re concerned about something that’s upcoming at school. Like we’ve been talking about school camp exams, going to some new event. That’s good because they’re actually telling you that there’s something going on, and it’s really important at the time that you just sort of normalise it and say, and you can always see that as a typical challenge.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:35:48) – and, and come back to them with that. That sounds pretty normal. when we start to think about getting therapy for that, it would be if all of a sudden you say that their personality is changing, or if you’ve gotten into a rut and you’re not able to get them to those events, or you’re spending a lot of time talking about it and a lot of time talking about those events, because really, you should be spending minimal time, a little bit of acknowledgement, but then getting them to not giving them a way out. another thing would be if they really do seem to be depressed, or if you’re concerned about any potential self-harm, if they’re spending all their time online and not being themselves at the dinner table, not even wanting to come out, those are other times that you’d also think about, making sure that you are getting help and a good place to go would be the school counselor as a first step, or obviously your GP.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:36:48) – Absolutely. So, people can speak to their GP, get a referral to a psychologist, and I should just mention as well that if this chat has raised any issues for listeners, please reach out to Kids Helpline on one 800 double five one 800 or Lifeline 13 11 14, where you can get 24 seven crisis support.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:37:09) – Judith and Danielle, I could chat with you all day about this topic. Thank you so much for sharing your time and expertise with us today. It’s been enlightening.

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:37:19) – Thank you Tracey.

 

**Dr Danielle Einstein ** (00:37:18) – Yeah. Thanks, Tracey.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:37:20) – I think the big take out for me is and for parents, hopefully listening is just the importance of resisting that parental urge to protect your child from all challenge, but instead empowering them to sit with the temporary discomfort that anxiety can cause and push through to the other side so that they get a sense of personal mastery and and self-esteem and confidence. Let’s not try to remove all the obstacles in life because that’s just part of life, right?

 

Dr Judith Locke (00:37:48) – Absolutely. Mondays come in every week.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:37:53) – They sure do. Well, you’ve given parents so many great tools to work with there, and I’m sure your book and your work will continue to help a lot of people. For more about Doctor Judith Locke and Doctor Danielle Einstein and their new book, Raising Anxiety, visit our website where you’ll also find a full transcript of today’s chat.

 

**Host – Tracey Challenor ** (00:38:12) – Head to Life Education QLD dot org dot au for Queensland listeners or life ed dot org dot au in other parts of Australia. I’m Tracey Challenor and you’ve been listening to the Life Ed podcast. We’d love to hear your feedback, so feel free to reach out. Until next time. Thanks for joining us.

 

CLOSER

Life Education acknowledges the Kombumerri people of the Yugambeh Language area as the traditional custodians of the lands and waters on which this podcast is recorded, and we pay our respects to the elders, past and present.

 

Bottom of Form