Helping Anxious Kids Without Overwhelming Them

 When should I push my anxious child—and when is it too much?

In this episode, I share a personal story about my grandson learning to swim and the powerful lesson it taught me about supporting anxious kids through discomfort without sending them into panic.

If you're a parent wondering:

“Am I pushing too hard?”

“Should I back off?”

“How do I help my child grow without overwhelming them?”

…this episode is for you.

💡 You'll learn:

The difference between the comfort zone, growth zone, and panic zone

How to recognize your child's limits—and when to gently stretch them

Why anxiety needs baby steps, not big leaps

Practical tools for building your child’s confidence

🎯 BONUS: I’m hosting a live parent workshop this Thursday (July 24 at noon CST) where I’ll go even deeper into anxiety—what causes it, how it shows up, and how to support your child with calm, confidence, and clarity.

👉 Sign up here: https://cheerful-writer-462.kit.com/products/how-to-calm-your-teens-anxiety-witho

🧠 Your child can do hard things—and so can you. Let’s talk about how.

🔔 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more tools to navigate the anxiety maze. 

Find my podcast
Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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Transcript

Hi. Let's talk about how do we know when we've pushed our child too far, or we haven't pushed them enough when they have anxiety. This is such a huge question and concern for. It was a concern for me. It's been a concern for me still with my grandchildren. You know, how hard do you push kids out of their comfort zone?

And when is, when is it, you know, good to do that when you shouldn't do that. And so I wanted to talk to you about that today 'cause I had that question recently. We had a pool time at our, we have an above ground pool here at my house, and we had all the, all of our adult children and then their children come to play in the pool.

And one of my grandchildren likes the water, but he's pretty unsure about it. And we have to go [00:01:00] through kind of a process where he. First puts his feet in, and then he sets on the ladder and puts both of his legs in, and then maybe somebody can hold him in the water, and then he gets to the point where he jumps in if somebody's gonna catch him.

And he had a puddle jumper on so that he could float in the water because the, it's probably three or four feet deep. And so. We were showing him that he could float there without us holding onto him, and he was really getting upset about that. Like he wanted somebody to be holding onto him. And I feel like we did it right.

When I think about, you know, how do you know the difference, and I'm gonna talk to you about that, but I feel like we did a lot of the steps. Well, like doing like the let's do this baby [00:02:00] step, then this baby step. And each time he would feel confident with that and then he could move on to the next thing.

And even when they were pushing him. Out of his comfort zone, which needs to happen. And this is really important for you to know. We do need to push our kids into the uncomfortableness of doing things that seem too hard or seem too scary, not in a, not in a terrifying way. And there is a difference between out of your comfort zone, which is called the growth zone.

I love that. Or the panic zone. So this is what I think we did well. When he was like, no, no, no, don't let go of me. I I'm, you know, I'm scared of being in the water without someone holding onto me. When they took their hands off of him, they would just keep talking to him very calmly. Look, you're, you're fine.

You're floating. You're, you can do it. Kick your feet and [00:03:00] his. Nervousness, you could tell, was a growth zone where he wasn't screaming, he wasn't he wasn't in a panic. He was like, oh, you know, I don't like it. And that's like, okay, well we need to push through that. And when he did sometimes get overwhelmed, which he did sometimes, and then he would get really upset, then they pulled back and was like, okay.

Let's go back to the stairs or let's go you know, talk about what's going on, let's, you know, whatever. Like we would take breaks and then come back to it. And so I was thinking, you know, a lot of people probably wonder, and I remember wondering this too, how far do you push people? And I remember thinking this as a school counselor, how hard do I push kids who.

Seemed to not wanna come to school. Or maybe they were, they got to school, but then they wanted to stay in my office all day and, you know, I need to get them out, but they didn't wanna [00:04:00] go out. And how, you know, when is, how hard should I push somebody or when do I let them have a break? So I thought this is a perfect topic for, for us to talk about, you know, when to push and when to stop pushing.

And so some of those things are. When the challenge meets their stage their emotional developmental stage, and for my grandson who's three, I feel like that was the perfect mix of, you know, yes, you're nervous about like not having someone hold onto you, but it's okay. You know, it's okay to be nervous, but we're gonna let go of you just so you can see that you can do it.

The, the same thing goes like when you're teaching a child to ride a bike. Now some kids. You know, can't wait to ride a bike and they'll, you know, go through anything that's scary in order to be able to learn to ride the bike. But I'm, he hasn't learned to ride a bike without training wheels. But I can picture that when that [00:05:00] time comes, he's probably gonna be a little uncertain about don't let go of me.

And you kind of almost have to do it in a way. I remember so often, like letting go when they don't know you've let go and then they're doing it on their own and then you're like, look, you're already doing it. Because. Anytime we do new things, we're uncertain about like, can I do this? This is too hard.

Will I get hurt? And we're just letting kids see that they can do it, but that does have to be done based on the developmental stage that they're at. And then again, that comfort zone, growth zone, panic zone, like really just get in tune with your kid. You know, is this just like, uh, this is hard and I don't like it?

Or is it like I'm in a panic, I'm in fight, flight, freeze fawn response. And when kids get to that response, you're not gonna reason with them. You're not gonna teach 'em anything. You're not gonna show 'em anything. You [00:06:00] definitely have to stop at that point. Um, so just be really in tune and about 15 to 20% of kids.

Have a more anxious personality style that they're born with. And so maybe your child is more anxious about activities and doing new things, and that's okay. We're not gonna let 'em out of those things. They need to work through uncomfortable things. That's the secret sauce to the world. But how can you do it in steps?

How can you look at us growth? They're growing and learning in that uncomfortableness, and we're not pushing 'em into panic.

If you are watching this video when it is released, then I have a parent workshop coming up this Thursday. This next Thursday, July 24th at noon central time, and I'm gonna talk about all things anxiety, about where does it come from and what do you do. And if you come [00:07:00] live to that workshop, you can ask questions about these very things or any other things anxiety related that you have questions about.

And I had recorded this. Previous this workshop, I had recorded it previously and I was listening to it today and I'm like, this is so good. So many people need to hear this information and I wish I would've had it years ago. So look for a link in the description or the show notes, or probably anywhere on social media or my website, and you'll be able to sign up for that.

Workshop and I just wanna see you there because talking about anxiety and getting answers for your child's anxiety is so important.

Now using rewards is always something you can use when you're trying to get your children to have certain behaviors. And I think rewards can be used in these situations. Of course, you're not gonna use 'em too much because they shouldn't be rewarded constantly for just doing everyday [00:08:00] activities that make them a little bit uncomfortable.

But if they have really had trouble doing something like going to school and they start. Taking those steps in and going to school and spending more and more time there, then, you know, having a reward after a few days don't make the reward a long time away because they're, they'll lose track and it won't be as enticing, but you know, every, and make 'em small, you don't have to spend a ton of money.

And I would ask them what they want and tell them. Uh, I want these, let's talk about what the rewards could be, and I don't wanna spend money on them. So what kinds of things? Like we could play games. I, we could have a, a dance party. I can take you for something small, like, or maybe just like going to the park, which would be free, but you know, maybe it's a small cone or, you know, something that doesn't cost as much or something, you know, that's not too [00:09:00] unhealthy.

Too many times. And just talk to them about how they are accomplishing things, not comparing them to other kids or other times or whatever, but just like, look at, look at what you've done here. You made it through this day at school. You went to the new club and you stayed there the whole time. You got in the pool and stayed in all day and even jumped off a couple times and.

A couple times you were floating without anyone holding onto you. Those are things that you can just praise them for. Hey, you made it. You did it. You're strong enough to handle things that are uncomfortable.

In some anxiety producing situations, you can do things to stimulate the vagus nerve. 'cause remember, we've, there was a podcast and I'll have to try to link it. About how you calm your vagus nerve, because that also calms your [00:10:00] mind and your body. And so there are things that you could do to calm your vagus nerve, like chewing gum, singing or humming, breathing slowly, and you could help them through a breathing exercise.

Eating a piece of dark chocolate. I love this one because I love dark chocolate. Now some people don't like it because it's not as sweet and there's probably something in the dark chocolate, like the bitterness or you know, so it's not so sweet. That probably helps the vagus nerve more than just regular chocolate and gargling water, which I think is interesting.

I sometimes wonder if. I don't think you gargle water, but I, I remember when there was the trick about if you had the hiccups, you would just drink water without breath. Like you would hold your breath and you would just drink water until you couldn't. Like you had to take a breath and that would help your hiccups go away.

And sometimes it did. And I wonder if that was similar [00:11:00] to this gargling water. I don't know. Also, crossing the midline, and this is something I don't think about very often, but doing things where. You have to cross the middle of your body. So like having your child march and having them reach across and touching their opposite knee or doing windmills.

If you remember those in PE where you swing your arms around across your, like your, both of your arms are windmills or doing things that are heavy, pulling a wagon or lifting heavy things. All of these kind of get you out of that. That part of your brain that tends to go towards panic or anxiety.

And then if you were, if you do some of those things to calm the nervous system and then try the anxiety producing activity, that could be helpful because they're, they're at a calmer state and so then they feel like they their mind is more [00:12:00] online to. To problem solve and deal with whatever it is that they're anxious about.

And then I think it would be great to reflect on it afterwards. So just asking them on a scale of one to 10, how do you think you did? How did it feel? What was something that helped you get through it? What's something that you thought about to help you get through it? What is something that you ended up enjoying?

Once you were in the pool and you jumped around and you know what was fun about it, or once you went to school, who did you see? Or what class was fun? Or if they go to an activity that they've been avoiding, you know, what did you, what was fun about the activity or who did you meet there? So that way, that kind of brings in the.

The joy of why we want to do things that make us uncomfortable. So I hope this was helpful. Sign up for my parent workshop. I'm gonna do a, a workshop a month, so if you happen to miss the one [00:13:00] that I'm talking about in this episode, just keep looking for what the next one is. I'm gonna do different topics.

I mean, they're all gonna be anxiety related, but. Like different parts of anxiety. I think next month I'm gonna do like a masterclass on seven, seven steps to help your child with anxiety. And I'm just gonna keep like, trying to find different things to, to click with you. So. I am so glad that you listened all the way through today, and you're still here, and I appreciate you so much and make sure that if you're watching YouTube, you subscribe.

If you're not watching YouTube and you're listening to this, go over to YouTube and subscribe. It might be fun. I know I, sometime I follow people on YouTube and listen to their podcast, and so depending on where I am, if I can watch the video, I do. If I. I can't watch the video. I, I listen to the podcast, but the subscribers, the subscribers and watches really help people who are on YouTube, so [00:14:00] that would be amazing if you did that, and I'll talk to you soon.