Are you feeling anxious? Are your kids? If the answer is YES, we aren't surprised. In this conversation with Dr. John Duffy, we break down the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to anxiety. Most importantly, we talk about how your anxiety, as a parent, affects your kids. You may be forging a path for how they will always relate to anxiety and stress in their life. Not only are they learning- in the now but they may carry these habits for a very long time. And right now we are feeling an epidemic proportion of stress and anxiety. In fact, as the coronavirus spreads so does our collective feeling of strife. Listen to the episode for some relief and ideas as to why you are feeling it and how to deal with it.

John asks that we all check three things; our ego, our fear, and our judgment when it comes to our kids. We can ask ourselves to check their presence in any of our relationships. I believe those three things get in our way because we are projecting our own fears, ego, and judgment onto our kids. They become the receptacle for many of our anxious feelings. 

John also explains how anxiety can be a motivator for performance. The Yerkes-Dodson law suggests that elevated arousal levels can improve performance up to a certain point but at the point when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes. Many of us are operating in a state of high anxiety and low-performance on the downside of the bell curve. That's where the downward spiral of anxiety sets in and we become anxious about our anxiety.

How do you feel about the way you were parented? Do you want to be a different kind of parent? Parents have the best intentions but their actions don't always reflect those same intentions. You can start by asking yourself if you are connected to your kids or if you are treating them like a check a list. Are you teaching confidence, resilience, tenacity, and grit or are you rescuing them all the time? If so, that's where their anxiety may be coming from. Rescuing them or preventing them from ever feeling uncomfortable isn't reality. They will stop trying new things. Doing things they aren't necessarily great at, fosters a growth mindset and resiliency. Yet we save them from their own anxiety. A mantra I ask parents to remember, in terms of anxiety, is "In trying to fix it, we exacerbate it, and in trying to rid it, we perpetuate it."

John is the best go-to expert for teaching, in understandable terms, how stress is damaging us, why anxiety is prevalent, and what to do about it.

Listen to his relevant and important contributions.

John Duffy, Psy.D., a highly sought-after clinical psychologist, bestselling author, podcaster, and parenting and relationship expert. He hosts a  podcast with Chicago Tribune Columnist, Heidi Stevens, called “On Purpose: The Heidi Stevens and Dr. John Duffy Podcast.” He also hosts another podcast, "Better", with his amazing wife,  life partner, and co-author, Julie Duffy.

His latest book timely Parenting the New Teen I the Age of Anxiety

In this episode, we also refer to The Available Parent - go get them both!