When a child struggles with anxiety, sometimes parents do as well. This can negatively impact the family. As parents, we want to protect our children, remove all obstacles in their path, and reduce uncomfortable feelings. However, this approach may unintentionally reinforce their fears.
A family-centered approach to reducing child anxiety, called SPACE, was developed at the Yale Child Study Center by Dr. Eli Leibowitz. This approach shifts the focus onto the parents and changes their behaviors, which helps to reduce their children’s anxieties.
SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions. There are two main goals: increasing supportive responses, and reducing accommodations. Increasing supportive responses refers to helping parents develop the ability to communicate empathically and confidently with their children. Parents innately seek to eliminate a child’s discomfort, perhaps by minimizing their feelings and telling them, “There is nothing to worry about.” This approach may not be practical and does not help a child deal with anxious feelings, mainly because a parent can never guarantee that anything “bad” will not happen. Parents can help children acknowledge their feelings and face their fears by increasing supportive responses and validating anxiety. An example is shifting your response to your child from “I’ll talk to your teacher so you don’t have to read aloud in class” to a supportive response such as, “I know reading aloud can feel scary, but I believe you can handle this.” Supportive responses aim to validate the child’s emotions while building their confidence to face challenges.
The second key idea in this approach is known as reducing accommodation. Accommodation is well-meaning parental actions that seek to change a situation or behavior so a child is free of anxiety. Parents often err on the side of avoiding situations that may trigger anxiety because they don’t want to upset the child. For example, if a child fears dogs, parents may avoid interacting with a dog, walking near a dog, going to a friend’s house with a dog, etc. Unintentionally, this communicates that dogs are scary and the child should avoid them at all costs.
Instead, by reducing accommodation, we can help support a child in their ability to work through anxious feelings. Strategies to help a child with this approach may involve setting small, manageable goals. Talking about dogs, looking at pictures of dogs, and reading books about dogs are good starting points. Observe dogs from a safe distance and then gradually move closer while offering supportive encouragement to how well your child is doing when they are close to dogs. Avoid over-reassurance and emphasize that you have confidence in their ability to handle this. Celebrate small moments of facing anxiety! Gradually, children will learn that they can handle challenging emotions and situations.
A new way to approach our children’s anxieties and change our responses may take time and patience. Research shows the effectiveness of SPACE as not only reducing a child’s anxiety but strengthening the family. These tools can help create a supportive environment where children can learn resilience.
For more information on SPACE:
Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents, Eli Leibowitz, PhD
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