Breaking the cycle of childhood anxiety [Book Review]

A student — call her A — has just been placed in an advanced math class at the start of a new semester. The whole family is proud, but A quietly wonders whether she can keep up. On the first day, her anxiety kicks in: the lesson makes little sense, her stomach churns, and she feels faintly dizzy. Back home, she tells her parents the class is too hard and she wants to quit. Should they let her drop it, or encourage her to give it a little more time?

Children today show high levels of anxiety regardless of whether they excel or struggle in academics, art or music. According to data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, 41,611 teenagers received treatment for anxiety disorders in 2024 — a 65.2 percent increase from the previous survey in 2020. Meredith Elkins, a Harvard Medical School clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent anxiety disorders, argues in her new book "Anxiety-Free Kids" that parents who want to help an anxious child must start by understanding what anxiety actually is.

According to Elkins, anxiety is one of the emotions that survived millions of years of human evolution because it was essential for survival and reproduction. Imagine an early human foraging for food who suddenly encounters a tiger. If that person had to reason through — "A tiger is a predator, so it could hurt me, so I should run" — the tiger might strike before the thought was complete. But someone who felt an immediate surge of anxiety at the sight of the tiger from a distance could flee faster and survive. Anxiety, in other words, is an innate alarm system built for survival, which is why Elkins argues it is not inherently bad.

Anxiety is, of course, genuinely uncomfortable and distressing. When parents notice their child is anxious, they naturally want to make it go away. The spread of intensive parenting culture — which places responsibility for a child's happiness and success squarely on the parents — pushes them to eliminate anxiety as quickly as possible. But helping a child avoid anxiety is not the answer; it only makes the anxiety worse. The belief that "the outside world is too dangerous for me to handle on my own" can develop into an anxiety disorder that disrupts everyday life.

Elkins advises that the goal of parenting should not be to eliminate a child's anxiety. Instead, parents should empathize with how the child feels while helping them build experience tolerating and moving through anxiety. For student A, struggling in the advanced math class, the right response combines empathy — "It makes sense you'd feel thrown off by the harder material," "Stress can really make your stomach hurt or give you a headache" — with an expression of confidence: "I believe you can get through this." The experience of trusting oneself to manage despite anxiety builds resilience — the ability to shake off setbacks and keep going, Elkins explains.

"What children need is not a 'perfect' parent as defined by society," Elkins writes. "A parent who consistently offers both love and boundaries is enough. You already have everything it takes to be a good parent."

"Anxiety-Free Kids" / by Meredith Elkins / translated by Ko Yeon-su / Gyoyangin