5 ways to support your teen with anxiety
As a parent, watching your teenager struggle with anxiety can feel heartbreaking and overwhelming. You want to help, to fix, to soothe — and yet sometimes, the things we do with the best of intentions can unintentionally reinforce anxiety. So how can you support your teen in a way that builds resilience, connection, and confidence?
Here are five evidence-informed, compassionate strategies you can start using today to support your teen’s mental health — without falling into the trap of avoidance or overprotection.
1) Avoid avoidance - Gently tiptoe into discomfort
It’s instinctive to want to protect your child from distress. But avoiding anxiety-provoking situations — like social events, public speaking, or difficult conversations — can actually make anxiety stronger over time. Avoidance teaches the brain, “That thing really was dangerous.”
Instead, help your teen face their fears gradually. Think: small steps, not leaps.
Offer options like:
Going to a party for just 30 minutes with a friend.
Attending an event with you waiting nearby.
Having an “escape plan” they can use if needed.
Encourage them to stay just long enough to feel the discomfort and discover that they can handle it. This is how we build tolerance and confidence — by gently stepping into discomfort, not being thrown into the deep end.
2) Practise grounding techniques together
When anxiety comes up, our nervous systems become extremely activated and the body and mind go into overdrive. Grounding techniques help bring your teen back to the present moment and nudge their nervous system into a lower level of activation. By practising them together (or using a YouTube video to guide you), your teen will have an action plan if they experience anxiety when you’re not around.
Note: the idea isn’t to make anxiety “disappear” exactly, but to gently dial down the intensity a bit — sometimes teenagers think these techniques “don’t work” as they may be expecting their anxiety to completely go away which may not be realistic.
Here are a few favourites:
The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique: Name 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste.
Box Breathing: Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4 — repeat.
Mindfulness Apps: Try free and accessible resources like Insight Timer, or explore Headspace and Calm.
Make it a shared practice — whether it's a 5-minute breathing session in the car before school or winding down together with a meditation app. Practising together helps normalise these tools and shows your teen they’re not alone.
3) Practice mindful acceptance using tools from ACT
Because anxiety is such an intense, activating emotion, many teenagers (and adults!) try to “get rid of” their anxious thoughts by attempting to “fix” or argue with them. This can cause never-ending loops of thoughts called “rumination” which can leave teens feeling stuck and exhausted.
Tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) aim to teach teenagers how to accept and “be with” their thoughts and feelings without entering into a conflict with them.
Anxious thoughts don’t always need to be analysed or disproved. Sometimes, the most helpful thing we can do is acknowledge them and let them pass by like clouds in the sky.
Try these tools from ACT such as:
Defusion: Take a few deep breaths. Notice your thoughts. Say to yourself “I notice I am thinking…”. Take a moment to allow your thoughts to be. Imagine they are like clouds in the sky arriving and floating away. Take another deep breath. Say “thank you mind”.
Passengers on the Bus: Your anxious thoughts are passengers — loud and sometimes rude — but you’re the driver. You’re in control and can keep moving forward even with them on board.
These approaches encourage self-compassion, psychological flexibility and acceptance — powerful antidotes to anxiety.
4) Be the anchor: Your calm presence matters
Anxiety is a really intense emotion as it can make us feel unsafe wherever we go. Being a grounded, calming, steady presence in your teenagers life can give them that sense of safety and anchoring when the rest of the world feels too much.
Even if there is space in your relationship at the moment (your teen may be separating and exploring their identity away the family which is developmentally healthy), holding these qualities in mind in your interactions can non-verbally communicate safety to them.
It can be helpful to try not to under or over-react to their distress, avoiding panic, frustration, or minimising. Instead, work on grounding yourself so you can be that calm, steady presence they can return to.
Ask yourself:
What or who anchors me and helps me find calm when life feels too much? Can I put more of this in place?
Can I regulate my breathing and tone of voice to stay calm?
Can I offer empathy without immediately trying to “fix” things?
The nice thing about this approach is that it is under your control, which can be helpful if your teenager isn’t willing or ready to engage themselves.
When you model emotional regulation, you can help co-regulate your teenager’s nervous system and become an anchor of safety in their storm.
5) Create a Self-Soothe Box together
A Self-Soothe Box is a simple but powerful tool that can help your teen manage overwhelming feelings when anxiety spikes. It’s a collection of calming, comforting items that engage the senses and offer grounding — a tactile reminder that they have coping tools right at their fingertips.
It could be in a pencil case or small box which they can carry around with them for difficult moments. It’s sometimes quite nice to have something tangible to use as a helpful tool at difficult moments when it might be hard to think.
Creating a self-soothe box together can be a moment of connection, an opportunity to highlight strengths and things that can help, and it empowers your teen to take ownership of their own wellbeing.
What to Include:
Sight: Photos of loved ones, affirmations, a favourite postcard, fairy lights, or a calming image.
Touch: A soft fabric, stress ball, putty, a smooth stone, or a small plush toy.
Smell: A scented candle, essential oil roller, lavender pouch, or perfume.
Sound: Headphones with a calming playlist, a mini sound machine, or a list of go-to songs.
Taste: Herbal tea bags, mints, gum, or a small piece of chocolate.
Comforting Tools: A grounding technique card, a mini journal and pen, worry stones, or a note from you with a message of reassurance.
Let your teen take the lead in choosing what goes in their box. The key is personalisation — it should reflect what soothes them. Keep it accessible: under the bed, on their desk, in a bag they can carry with them.
Walk the balanced path together
Supporting your teenager with anxiety isn’t about pushing them too quickly out of their comfort zone and it’s not about enabling the avoidance of anxiety-provoking situations. It’s about providing them with the safe foundation from which they might be able to challenge themselves into taking some small, manageable risks. Giving them the tools they need to sit with the discomfort these will inevitably bring. And helping them learn that they are stronger than they might imagine along the way.
It’s about walking alongside them to build them up — gently encouraging growth while respecting their pace.
And finally, remember: you and your teenager don’t have to do this alone. Seeking support from a therapist or parenting coach can be a powerful, proactive step toward healing and resilience.
Final thoughts
Parenting a teen with anxiety is a journey of compassion, courage, and connection. With your consistent presence and support, you're not just helping them manage anxiety — you’re helping them build the inner resilience to face life’s challenges head on.
