Breaking the Anxiety Cycle
When Anxiety Runs the Show
If you're a parent of a child who struggles with anxiety, you've likely spent a lot of time searching for answers and maybe feeling a bit helpless at times. You want to support your child, to calm their fears, and to keep them from spiraling into panic. You find yourself answering the same questions over and over, letting your child skip the sleepover or class field trip, or letting them stay home from school on tough days.
You are noticing that your child’s fears aren’t getting better. In fact, they seem to be growing. Their world feels like it’s shrinking to fit around the anxiety.
This is a very normal cycle with anxiety. It’s counterintuitive, but the thing that makes anxiety feel better in the moment (avoidance) is the very thing that causes it to grow over time.
When Therapy Feels Out of Reach
Maybe you’ve thought about trying therapy, but you’re not sure your child will participate. Or perhaps you’ve already tried it, and your child had trouble using the strategies outside the therapy office. That’s incredibly common and frustrating for parents who just want to help.
The good news is that there’s a newer, research-based therapy called Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). Developed at the Yale Child Study Center, SPACE is a parent-based treatment program specifically designed to help children with anxiety and OCD.
What Makes SPACE Different?
SPACE doesn’t require your child to attend therapy. Instead, it works by supporting you, the parent.
That might sound a little surprising. After all, isn’t therapy supposed to be for the child? What we’ve learned is that anxiety doesn’t just affect the child. It affects the whole family. Let’s go back to that normal process of avoidance. Parents are not causing the anxiety, but the well meaning adjustments that families make can unintentionally reinforce it. SPACE treatment helps to break that cycle.
How Does SPACE Work?
The core idea of SPACE is that anxiety shrinks when kids learn they can handle discomfort and they realize they don’t need their parents to rescue them from it every time. SPACE therapists work directly with parents and caregivers to reduce adjustments (also known as accommodations). For example, if your child refuses to sleep alone, and you’ve been sleeping in their bed every night. You would work together with the therapist to create a supportive plan to to change that pattern. SPACE plans are not about letting your child suffer. Instead they are sending a powerful message: “I know this is hard. And I also believe you can handle it.” SPACE isn’t about tough love. It’s about confident love, the kind that supports your child without stepping in to remove every obstacle.
Why Parents Love SPACE
One of the biggest reliefs parents feel with SPACE is that the pressure to “fix” anxiety doesn’t rest on the child. Instead, you get practical tools to shift the patterns at home that are feeding the anxiety cycle.
And it works. Research shows that SPACE is effective in reducing childhood anxiety and improving parent-child relationships along the way.
Is SPACE Right for Your Family?
SPACE can help with a wide range of anxiety-related challenges, including:
Separation anxiety
Social anxiety
Generalized anxiety
School refusal
OCD and related behaviors
If you’ve found yourself rearranging your life around your child’s fears. Or if you’re feeling stuck and unsure how to help SPACE might be the shift you’ve been looking for.
Ready for next steps
I am trained in SPACE and would be happy to talk with you about whether it could be a good fit for your family Feel free to contact me at (216) 245-2421 for a free 15-minute phone consultation about my treatment approach. If you would like to know about how I use SPACE check out my website and for more information from the developers of SPACE including the research outcomes click here.