This week, host Leslie Cohen-Rubury sits down with anxiety expert Lynn Lyons. Together they discuss the challenges of parenting anxious children and the importance of addressing anxiety in families. Lynn’s work is research-based and her practical strategies for dealing with anxiety may surprise you but will make sense as you listen to this episode.  There’s a lot to learn about anxiety.  Leslie and Lynn’s conversation focuses on how  parents and caregivers can unintentionally make anxiety worse, how anxiety works and how to live with it effectively - and no, the answer is not eliminating it.   

About our Guest: Lynn Lyons is a psychotherapist, author, and speaker with over 30 years of experience and a special interest in interrupting the generational patterns of anxiety in families. Her latest book, The Anxiety Audit, looks at the seven sneaky ways that anxiety and worry weave their way into our families, friendships, and jobs, and provides actionable steps to reverse the cycle and reclaim emotional well-being. Her podcast, Flusterclux, is filled with so many of her strategies for managing anxiety, as is her website: lynnlyons.com

Time Stamps

• 3:43  Defining Anxiety
• 5:00  Avoidance begets Avoidance
• 8:43  The keys of anxiety are certainty and comfort
• 9:38 Plans that work vs plans that don’t work 
• 12:20 The three X’s - expect it, externalize it, experiment with it. 
• 15:40 Elimination strategies make anxiety worse
• 15:50 Tolerating uncertainty is what makes it better. 
• 20:45 Research on kids who are raised by anxious parents - 4 takeaways
• 26:25 Change the question from how do we help the child calm down to how does this child continue to freak themselves out. 
• 29:20 Why the accommodation model at schools to treat anxiety is not working
• 31:50  Parental Experiential Avoidance - Parents unable to tolerate their distress or their children’s distress
• 33:05 Expectations of therapy if your child is being treated for anxiety
• 37:24 Stopping the transmission of generational anxiety
• 38:40 Anxiety and Depression are disorders of passivity.  Retraining the brain for action

Resources:  

• Website: lynnlyons.com  Podcast: Flusterclux.com
• Instagram: lynnlyonsanxiety  Facebook: Lynn Lyons Psychotherapist

Leslie-ism: Remember Lynn Lyon’s 3 X’s - We need to expect it, externalize it, experiment when dealing with anxiety

For  more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook and Instagram. Join the conversation with your own questions and parenting experiences.

Credits: Is My Child a Monster? is produced by Alletta Cooper,  AJ Moultrié, Camila Salazar, and Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Theme music is by L-Ray Music. Graphics and Website Design by Brien O’Reilly. Transcriptions by Eric Rubury.