Dear parents of anxious children,

I am your anxious child, all grown up, reporting from the vast and wild fields of that experience.

Do you find yourself at a loss, with a child constantly acting out, purposefully trying to be difficult for no reason? Have you tried everything and are at your wit’s end?

Does your child keep complaining that they can’t sleep, even though they haven’t tried? Are they having tantrums over smaller and smaller things; melting down faster than ever? Do they keep losing or misplacing valuable things, forgetting how to help around the house, or refuse to come out of their room?

Yes? Great. You’re in the right place.

Something most parents don’t understand is that their child is not actually “acting out” or “being difficult for no reason.” There is always a reason. No child acts out just because.

I want you to try something. The next time everything in your day goes absolutely upside down: you’re running late for work and the subway leaves just as you reach it, the next subway stalls in the tunnel for 20 minutes, your phone dies while waiting on a potential job offer, your kid gets the flu and they’re now staying home on your one night off—describe to someone else your complete and utter frustration but you can only use the limited vocabulary of a 5 year old.

Hard, right?

Kids don’t have the words to describe how they feel—hell, adults can barely do it, yet so often we unrealistically expect our kids to meet us where we are, and not where they are.

When you don’t have a language to explain the sensations you’re experiencing, the experience becomes amplified. In the space between having a bad feeling and failing to explain it, is a channel where anxious kids fall, treading water, desperate to be rescued.

They need a bridge. You are that bridge.

Routines and self-soothing at bedtime.

This might sound odd, but your anxious child doesn’t know how to “try to sleep.” Not without some help. What they are looking for is comfort and soothing. The transition from day to night, from awake to asleep, from loud to quiet, is acutely difficult for anxious people.

Transitions are uncertain, and uncertainty feels dangerous.

An anxious kid needs help down-regulating. Anxious kids need to be taught how to self-soothe in ways that are healthy. That’s what you’re there for—to walk them through. To set up routines you’ll help your kids implement and stick to.

Going to bed can be rough (hell, it’s still rough for me, and I’m an old).

Anxious kids need more help than your non-anxious children. If your child is having tantrums that you can’t explain, that are getting worse, the tantrum is the frustration they feel at being unable to express themselves and ask for what they need.

Typical kids experience everyday life without too much internal tumult. They don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the next day, and they’re fine with that.

Things are vague and abstract? Not a worry.

But anxious kids are not fine with that.

Create a sense of certainty

Anxious kids need things to be concrete; they need to know what’s going to happen.

Anxiety isn’t a fear of concrete tasks or activities—it’s a fear of feeling the physical discomfort of fear. Anxious people confuse those feelings of discomfort for danger, and danger signals action. But when a kid doesn’t know how to handle uncertainty, they don’t know what action to take when it arrives.

That not knowing manifests as a profound dread that feels annihilating.

Of course, no one knows what’s going to happen tomorrow or the tomorrow after that, but teaching your child how to break down abstract concepts like time is a good place to start.

My sister, Kara, did something with her youngest daughter that was revelatory for me. Every night, she walked her through the day she’d just had. Then, she walked her through what would happen tomorrow. She told her what to expect so that she knew what was coming.

She created a SENSE of certainty. Watching this blew my mind. It was the simplest thing in the world, but it was life-changing for me. Now, before I go to bed, I run through the next day so I don’t feel paralyzed when I wake up.

Just like uncertainty signals danger to a kid, dealing with your child’s anxiety often feels intuitive for a parent feels. But uncertainty is not always dangerous, and dealing with anxiety is not intuitive.

This is why so many well-meaning parents get in over their heads.

As a former panicked child, I want to offer the two best non-intuitive pieces of advice for how to deal with your anxious child.