Penny Williams [00:00:03]: That avoidance keeps us from developing the strategies to get through discomfort. When we avoid things that make us anxious, guess what? The next time, what is our response? We're anxious again. We have to experience going through something that's anxiety provoking that feels very unsafe and being able to be okay. And once we have those successes, those small wins, we get more and more of them. Successes, those small wins, we get more and more of them. Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid.

Penny Williams [00:00:52]: Let's get started. Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex. We need to talk about anxiety, folks. We've gotta talk about it. People don't wanna talk about it. We try to deny that we're anxious.

Penny Williams [00:01:11]: We try to deny that our kids are struggling, but they are. 1 in 5 youth today will self report anxiety. 1 in 5. It is being called an epidemic, and it is the number one mental health challenge among children in the United States now. Anxiety is a real problem, but it's actually not anxiety that's the problem. The fact that your kid feels unsafe, whether that's psychological, social, emotional, that's the problem. When they feel unsafe psychologically, unsafe socially, unsafe emotionally, and, of course, unsafe physically, that is what is driving anxiety. That's what triggers our nervous system into fight or flight, and that's anxiety.

Penny Williams [00:02:15]: That's the space that our bodies are in when we are anxious. When our bodies sense danger, they are sending up a flare because they are trying to keep us safe. We could even label our nervous system. Right? Hey, Betty. I hear that alarm that you're sounding. I see the flare. I'm gonna check on it, but let's not assume that there's something to be anxious about yet. Right? It can sound like that when we're challenging those thoughts of anxiety, but our kids don't necessarily know how to challenge that thinking yet.

Penny Williams [00:02:55]: They don't necessarily know how to regulate their nervous system yet, and so they get stuck in that activated anxious state. That's where we need to focus a good portion of the work that we want to do to help anxious kids. I've been recording the workshops now for our 2024 Anxiety SOS Summit. They are amazing. I can't even tell you. I literally just got goosebumps when I said that these workshops are amazing because they really are. They're really going to change so many kids' lives, so many families, so many parents' lives, classrooms. All of this information is really gonna help us to address this epidemic of anxiety that our kids are facing.

Penny Williams [00:03:49]: I wanna talk to you a little bit about some of those common threads that I am hearing again and again from all of these different experts when we're talking about how do we help kids feel safe, secure, and emotionally stable. One of those really common through threads is that we have to lean into connection. We have to lean into connecting with our kids in a genuine way, in a focused way, in giving them all of our attention for a period of time. I'm not saying that one kid gets all of your attention all day every day, but we need to be giving them some focused attention. We need to help them to feel seen, heard, understood, respected, acknowledged acknowledged for what they're going through and how hard it is for them. And sometimes as the adults in their lives, we struggle with this. Sometimes their anxiety doesn't make sense. It seems illogical.

Penny Williams [00:04:58]: It seems overblown and inflated, but what you need to know is it's actually their real, honest, true experience. They are letting you know how they are feeling. Even if it doesn't make sense to you, it may not even make sense to them, but it is what their body is doing in sounding those alarms and telling them that they are not safe in some way or another. So many of our workshops talk about making connection, real, authentic, genuine connection so that our kids feel validated. Another big through thread, and I have to say just about every single expert in every single workshop has said, Well, the very first step, Penny, is that you have to address your own anxiety. You have to address your own nervous system. You have to address the way you're showing up before you can help your kid. And this comes back to that oxygen mask analogy.

Penny Williams [00:06:14]: Right? You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first because if you run out of air, then you definitely can't help anybody else. If you're not breathing, you can't help anybody else. And, you know, that is a very generic analogy, but it really does give us that foundation of what we're talking about when we talk about managing your own anxiety, your own nervous system, your own stuff before you try to help your kids, because we need to be the calm anchor. When we have an anxious kid, we need to be the calm anchor. They need to be able to borrow that settled, okay energy. If we come in unsettled, triggered, not feeling great, really reactive, that's the energy that we're giving them. And what is that gonna do? It's gonna escalate their anxiety. It is going to make that situation worse.

Penny Williams [00:07:12]: So many times you've heard me talk about co escalation versus coregulation. It is huge, huge when we're talking about anxious kids. Another very common thing that has come up again and again is talking about how trust is the opposite of anxiety, how we need to be working on building trust with anxious kids, not just in our relationships with them, but also helping them to build trust in themselves that they are capable of making good decisions, of problem solving, things like that that come up that create anxiety. It's because they don't trust themselves in some situations or with some decisions, and then they can get very stuck there. So it's not just I trust you, my child, my child trust me, the parent. It is also, do they trust themselves? How can we build that? How can we foster more of a trust in themselves? Something else that has come up again and again is the idea of really checking in with our kids and finding out if they want our help to problem solve or if they just want our help in being heard, if they want to vent, if they need somebody to listen openly. So often, and I am very guilty of this, and I am the first to tell you that, We wanna fix it. We wanna help.

Penny Williams [00:08:51]: Many of us have that fix it, check the box, get it done type of personality, and I certainly am one of those people. And so when my kid comes to me and says, I'm so anxious. I'm really struggling. My first instinct for response is, oh, well, have you, you know, challenged your thinking? Have you done your breathing exercises? How about shaking it out? Right? And so often, especially when kids are my kids' age, teens and young adults, that is not what they want. And when they start ruminating on how much they didn't want advice from you, it can escalate their anxiety. So we need to really show up in the ways our kids need, and part of being able to do that is to find out from them what they need. I literally just finished recording my workshop with doctor Amy Apigian, who is a trauma expert, and one of her big recommendations for us as parents or teachers or other caregivers is to ask the child if what we are doing feels okay to them. So we might feel like our anxious kid really needs a hug and really needs to be told that things will be okay, but what if that doesn't feel good to your kid? What if touch on their activated nervous system actually increases their anxiety? What if closeness increases their anxiety? Right? We think we know what's going to be helpful because we've been taught that certain things help our kids when they're struggling, but they don't help every kid, and they are not helpful in every situation, in every environment, in every moment that our kids are struggling.

Penny Williams [00:10:55]: Ask your child, what can I do that would be helpful? Can I give you a hug? You might put your arm around your child and then say, is this okay? Does this feel okay to you, or do you need me to do something else to show you that I'm here for you and I wanna help you? That is so so powerful. I'm always looking for ways to make drinking more water easier for myself, so I don't even have to think about it. That's why you've got to check out AquaTru. AquaTru purifiers use a 4 stage reverse osmosis purification process, and their countertop purifiers work with no installation or plumbing. It removes 15 times more contaminants than ordinary pitcher filters, and it's specifically designed to combat chemicals like PFAs in your water supply. PFAs are found in almost 45% of tap water, and I'm glad AquaChoo is certified to remove these contaminants. And they have water purifiers to fit every type of home. From installation free countertop purifiers, to high capacity under sink options.

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Penny Williams [00:12:48]: That's 20% off any AquaTru water purifier when you go to aquatrue.com and use promo code complex, c o m p l e x. I wanna talk a little bit with you about using that terminology that it's okay or it's going to be okay. I watch a lot of TV, which I'm also the first to admit and have talked about many times in this podcast. It is what I do to shut my brain off at night to be able to get to sleep within a couple of hours of going to bed. I have a really hard time getting to sleep because I have a really hard time turning my brain off. My brain is constantly thinking, and part of that is my own anxiety. I have general anxiety. I also have social anxiety, and so my brain is thinking about either what needs to be done, because I'm a box checker, or what I could have done differently during my day or my week, worrying about, oh, I have to go to this thing with some people I don't know or I don't feel worthy of being around, and that's 3 weeks from now.

Penny Williams [00:13:53]: But my brain is gonna start worrying about it right now when I close my eyes and all day long for 3 weeks. Right? So I watch TV at night for a few hours to just turn the world off and be able to start to key down, And so I've been really noticing lately as I've been focusing on anxiety more and doing all these interviews for anxiety SOS that so often when people are in terrible situations, they're really emotional, things are really awful for them, we go to them and we say, it's okay. And what we mean is you're safe now. I'm here with you. You're going to be okay. But when we say it's okay, we have invalidated what that person is going through. Because I tell you what, if I'm panicking and I am really insecure and you walk up to me and you say, it's okay, my first thought is, you don't get it. You don't understand what it's like to be in my head.

Penny Williams [00:15:07]: You don't understand what it's like to have my nervous system. You do not get what I am going through. It is not okay right now. Right? When we're in those moments, think of something was really hard and really challenging and really emotional for you. If somebody had said to you, it's okay, how would you have felt? You would have been very reactive and defensive and upset about that because it feels very invalidating. I understand completely that that is not your intention. Of course, you're just trying to make them feel better. And what I'm saying is we have to think about how it sounds on the receiving end.

Penny Williams [00:15:48]: How is your child or teen receiving that it's okay message? What I would challenge you to do is try to swap that out for you're safe. I'm here. How can I help you? It will be okay when you get through this. And a lot of times for anxiety, we tend to avoid that's our coping mechanism, growing up with social anxiety. I did not go anywhere that I didn't know someone, and I would get punished. I would get in trouble. You know, my parents would expect me to go and do these things, and I was defying them because they had no idea I had anxiety. They had no idea.

Penny Williams [00:16:36]: So it wasn't their fault. If they had known it was due to anxiety, they would have handled it much differently. But I was masking. I was hiding it. I just thought it was me. Right? And so I would, you know, get grounded in things. And, of course, that was painful, but I couldn't force myself to go in social situations where I was the new person and I knew no one. I just couldn't do it, and so I was avoiding.

Penny Williams [00:17:04]: Right? My body was like, nope. Can't do that. We're not doing it. I wasn't learning how to challenge that. I wasn't learning different coping strategies to be able to work with my nervous system and work with my thinking in order to be able to do it. Now most of the time, I can get myself to do something if I really don't wanna miss that experience, but it takes a lot, and I'm still very anxious while doing it. But what I wanna get you here is that that avoidance keeps us from developing the strategies to get through discomfort. When we avoid things that make us anxious, guess what? The next time what is our response? We're anxious again, because we have an experience that we can get through it and get to the other side and be okay.

Penny Williams [00:17:50]: That's what we have to do. We have to experience going through something that is anxiety provoking that feels very unsafe and being able to be okay. And once we have those successes, those small wins, we get more and more of them. You know, I've talked about before here, I think, my aversion to public speaking. I mean, it's a nightmare for someone with social anxiety. A room full of people who are looking at you. All eyes are on you, and all thoughts are on you. Right? That was, like, my worst nightmare.

Penny Williams [00:18:23]: I didn't even major in journalism even though I wanted to journalism and communications because there was one public speaking course. So I did something entirely different with my schooling, my college years, and, you know, took a different path. I mean, my life would have potentially been different had I done that. So I let it hold me back for a long time, and then I got to a place a few years ago where I was, like, I just really want to be able to say yes when people ask me to come speak to their group. And so I said yes, and it was the hardest thing. I I would say it's in my top five hardest things I've ever done. I felt less safe than I did giving birth to my 2 children. It was very hard.

Penny Williams [00:19:01]: I nearly passed out many times. It was excruciating, but I did it. And guess what? After I did it, I literally felt my body, like, exhale and go, oh, the world didn't end. You're still standing. People are saying nice things about what you said. This is okay. You can actually do this. And it has become easier and easier for me, and I am less and less anxious every time.

Penny Williams [00:19:28]: Those are the kinds of experiences our kids need. They're not always ready for them, and we have to be attuned to that, and we talk a lot about that in these workshops. But I wanted to give you kind of a taste of what these workshops hold for you. What can you learn from them? We talk about things like decoding your kids' anxiety without having to just guess at it, without having to sort of throw spaghetti at the wall and hope it sticks, which is what we do when we don't know. We wanna help, but if we don't know what to do and what's really gonna be helpful, we're just guessing. You're gonna learn how to teach your kid to move through discomfort instead of avoiding it, just what I was talking about. You'll learn how to help your kid manage their own stress and anxiety instead of relying on you. A lot of kids with anxiety find an adult to rely on, and we, as the adult, feel like that's good.

Penny Williams [00:20:21]: We want to help, but we can't be the sole source of help for anxiety. Kids have to learn how to manage it on their own as well. You'll also learn a little bit about getting anxiety support at school, being able to have the conversation with the school that your child needs some accommodation and how anxiety is impacting them in that environment. And you're gonna learn how to show up in the ways that your kid needs, not the ways that we need, but in the actual ways that our kids need. We're gonna learn to help our kids build grit and resilience, reduce the grip that anxiety has on them, how to tend to their nervous systems, how to feel safe, secure, and emotionally stable, and how to build self esteem, confidence, and independence. And I will tell you, building those things is like the counterbalance to anxiety. It's magical. And the more I've done these interviews and workshops with these experts, the more I have realized how much confidence matters, how much independence can be kryptonite to anxiety, how much autonomy reduces anxiety.

Penny Williams [00:21:40]: There's so much great stuff here, and I really, really hope you'll join me for anxiety SOS so we could help kids who are struggling right now. You can get that road map for reducing anxiety and all those negative impacts during anxiety SOS. You have two ways in which you can take advantage of these workshops. If you are all in for an intensive weekend of learning, you can join us October 3rd through 6th, and that is absolutely free. You can watch all 30 workshops. You can come to my free kickoff masterclass on September 26th, and you can get all the learning absolutely free. You can also purchase our action package, and that will get you ongoing access. It will get you a podcast version of all of the workshops to listen on the go.

Penny Williams [00:22:34]: You will get a workbook that I curate and design to help you build an action plan for your kid specific to your child and your family or your classroom and your students. You also get a q and a session with me a month after the summit so we can talk about what you've learned and how you're implementing and where you might need help. We'll celebrate wins, and we'll help you problem solve challenges in that call. And you also get a discount to all of my courses that I offer at parentingadhdinaautism.com. So lots of goodies there if you do purchase. That cost is starting out at $77 US. It goes up a little bit in increments as we get closer and closer to the actual event on October 3rd through 6th. You can go to parenting summits.com/anxietiesos.

Penny Williams [00:23:38]: You can grab your free spot there. You can grab your action package there. You can see a list of all of the workshops, all of the experts, and really do a deep dive to find out if this is something that might help your kid or your family. That's parenting summits.com / anxiety SOS. I really hope to see you there. I would love to be just a tiny part of your journey in helping your anxious kids or students or anxious clients. This is a passion project for me because of my own anxiety, my own experience in my childhood with anxiety, and I really, really want to help as many as possible. So whether it is right or wrong for you, please share.

Penny Williams [00:24:25]: Please let others know about it because we want to positively impact as many kids as we can. That's it for me for now, and I will see everybody in the next episode. Please take good care. Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parentingadhdandautism.com and at thebehaviorrevolution.com.