[00:00:12.440] – Speaker 2
Well, hey, everyone. I’m Chris Tompkins, and welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading experts and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the world of our youth. Today, we have Dr. Regine Galanti on the show. Regine is a clinical psychologist and founder of Long Island Behavioral Psychology, where she specializes in treating anxiety, OCD, and behaviour challenges in kids, teens, and adults using evidence-based methods like cognitive behavioural therapy. She’s the author of several books, including Parenting Anxious Kids, Anxiety Relief for Teens, and the Children’s Book, When Harley Has Anxiety. Dr. Galanti is a trusted voice in the mental health space and has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major publications. She’s also the current President of the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, where she advocates for effective research-backed care for kids and families. I’m really looking forward to this conversation because Regine not only brings years of clinical experience, but also practical strategies that parents can start using right away.
[00:01:28.260] – Speaker 2
Whether you’re raising a toddler with big feelings or a teen struggling with anxiety, this episode is full of helpful tools and hopeful insights. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods. Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career. Career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Dr. Regine, it’s great to have you.
[00:02:20.380] – Speaker 1
Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
[00:02:22.400] – Speaker 2
As most of our listeners know, we like to dive in under the theme of our show and find out what shaped your world when you were growing What were the biggest influences for you when you were a kid or a teenager?
[00:02:35.360] – Speaker 1
I think as a teen, it was definitely my friends. I have the memories of taking the landline phone and the cord and pulling it to my room so I could talk all night to the people who were important to me. I think that was a big influence for me.
[00:02:54.340] – Speaker 2
I remember those days. Remember your parents could pick up another phone and drop into the line? I was like, Mum, I’m on the phone.
[00:03:01.380] – Speaker 1
Right. Hang up. Or if someone had to send a fax and you would have to hang up. Oh, yeah.
[00:03:07.680] – Speaker 2
Oh, man. We’re dating ourselves in this conversation. How the world has changed. You can talk on your phone anywhere you want. You didn’t need to have the world’s longest cord to get to your bedroom. Help us to get to know a little bit about what’s shaping your world today. What are your interests, hobbies? How do you spend your free time?
[00:03:27.880] – Speaker 1
I think the biggest thing shaping my world now is being a mum. I have three girls. I have a teenager. I have two teenagers now, actually, and an eight-year-old. I spend a lot of my free time, I guess, moming. Then my work is actually really important to me. I love what I do. Those are really my biggest things that I spend my time with right now.
[00:03:51.000] – Speaker 2
I don’t know if there’s real free time when you’re a mum and working and doing all of that. So help us to get to know about your work as well. What are you that shapes the worlds of kids and parents and teens?
[00:04:03.300] – Speaker 1
I am a psychologist specialising in anxiety, OCD and related disorders for kids and teens. I direct a practise in New York, and I’ve written three books. The most recent is Parenting Anxious Kids, but I have two books, a manual for kids and a manual for teens to help them with the anxiety. I really love just being able to talk about anxiety and talk about treatments that work for anxiety, either to my patients or to broader audiences like your podcast.
[00:04:37.640] – Speaker 2
I guess maybe as we dive into this, it feels like more and more this stuck, and I guess I maybe wasn’t having these conversations 20 years ago, but it feels like more and more this whole idea of anxiety in our culture is much more of a topic, more podcasts, more books written about it. But especially when it comes to kids, you just hear that conversation arising a bit more. And in our podcast, even when we’re on different topics, it seems to creep back. In your professional world, would you say that this is rising? Are we just having different language and talking about it differently? Where is it at in the world of young people today in anxiety?
[00:05:25.780] – Speaker 1
Chris, I think it’s a great question. Parents come in all the time and they say, Well, when I was a kid, we didn’t have this. Then they’ll go on to describe the most anxious behaviours I’ve ever heard. I’ll say, It sounds like maybe you just weren’t treated for your anxiety, but it existed. I don’t know. I So sometimes that’s the case. I also think rates of anxiety have been rising. And by I think, I mean, the research is showing that since 2010, the rates of anxiety in kids has been slowly increasing. It was always high. It was like one in four, but now it’s closer to one in three before the age of 18. So it is a very diagnosible problem among kids. Yeah, there’s probably things making it worse, but it seems like it’s a problem that has always been the case. But I’ll also add, I think it’s a normal human emotion. It is good to feel anxious. Sometimes it saves us from doing dangerous stuff. When we talk about anxiety, sometimes we’re talking about just it’s okay to feel the feeling, and sometimes we’re talking about a problem gets in the way.
[00:06:31.340] – Speaker 2
Yeah. I do think we have different language today. I think the more and more we talk about it, the more we do feel okay to use the language to describe some things that may have been true when we were growing up. You specialise in treating anxiety. How can a parent recognise when their child’s anxiety is part of their typical development? As you mentioned, it’s just part of who we are as people. When it’s something that might need extra support or intentionality? I know you deal with this question in your book, Parenting Anxious Kids: Understanding Anxiety in Children by Age and Stage. Help us understand when we need to, I won’t say be alarmed, but even to start to pay attention to it a little more.
[00:07:18.580] – Speaker 1
Right. I think it’s important to start with the context of some anxiety is normal. Everybody’s going to feel anxious sometimes. If a bear comes out of the woods, it’s normal for you to be like, Oh, my gosh, there’s a bear. I should move. I should do something. That’s the anxiety that gets us to move. If we didn’t have that, we would do dangerous things. We would cross streets without looking both ways, and that would be dangerous. So recognising the normalness is important. And then knowing the tricky part, I think for parents is to know when does this rise beyond normal to a problem? So for that, I look really for two things. When I look for whether it’s getting in the way of a kid’s functioning. So can your kid do the same things as their friends? Generally, I know culturally, we say, Don’t compare yourself to others. But here I think it’s helpful if all the other second graders can go on playdates and your kid will never go on a play date, that should be a sign that maybe this is something to pay attention to. And the other thing I like parents to look out for besides for functioning is that anxiety at a period of transition is totally normal.
[00:08:29.270] – Speaker 1
So beginning of school, beginning of camp, it’s normal for kids to be homesick the first week of camp. That typically fades. If the anxiety is not fading, then that’s a problem.
[00:08:41.860] – Speaker 2
Those are really good. Is there anything around Just the level of feelings. I’ll give you an example from my own personal life. When you’re driving and a car veers into your lane or something happens quickly, it’s common for your sense is to be aroused, for you to be responsive. But I noticed for myself in a period of time when the anxieties that I was facing, I was navigating some adrenal fatigue in my life coming out of the pandemic and different things like that, that if something startled me like that, I would felt like I leapt out of my skin. The intensity was a lot higher than it would normally be. I was startled way more often, which just made me feel like I was much more and anxious. Is there anything to add even around that? Is that a normal part of understanding that maybe something is going on below the surface more than normal?
[00:09:41.460] – Speaker 1
I think absolutely. I also say, typically when that happens, it impacts your functioning. You’re snappier at your kids, you’re not functioning at your ideal way. I think that goes under that functioning bucket, but it’s a helpful way to see it. Actually, I would say the way I see anxiety is it’s a mix of mix of your thoughts. So like, Hey, there’s a bear that’s dangerous, the danger part. There’s that physical fight or flight reaction. So that tension, the breathing, your stomach aches. And then there’s your behaviours for anxiety that’s escape or avoidance. So when you’re running away from something. So I look for those three pieces when I’m looking for anxiety in a kid. I’m looking for, are their thoughts just so turned up that they can’t think about anything They can’t study for the test because they’re so nervous they’re going to fail the test. Are they so activated in their body that they can’t sleep and they can’t calm down in their pacing? And are they not doing the things they need to do? Are they avoiding?
[00:10:44.820] – Speaker 2
You have a book that focuses on each, or you have three books that focus on different audiences when it comes to kids and anxiety. You focus on parents in your book, Parenting Anxious Kids. Focus on teens, anxiety relief for Teens: Essential CBT Skills and Mindfulness Practises to Overcome Anxiety and Stress, and Younger Kids 5 to 7, your book When Harley Has Anxiety, a fun CBT Skills, Activity Book to help manage worries and fears. Each of these have tools and different approaches, and I want to get into that. But before we do, your book and your work deals with cognitive behavioural strategies to help kids cope with anxiety. How does cognitive behavioural therapy different from other forms terms of therapy?
[00:11:32.060] – Speaker 1
I’m a cognitive behavioural therapist, and the reason why I think I got pulled by that orientation is because there’s a lot of research. There’s like 50 years of research at this point of what we can do to help an anxious kid and anxious teens and anxious adults. And CBT works the best. I’m a very practical person. I’m a very solution-oriented person. So when I see a problem that as a solution that works better than others, that definitely pulls me in. So specifically, I like writing about treatments that work to be able to give other families access to this information because it’s so hard to find a good therapist and find good resources. I probably don’t have to tell you that. So I really like to be able to share CPD tools with other people in a way that’s accessible.
[00:12:26.900] – Speaker 2
Let’s dive into these tools that work. And why don’t we start with parenting. Can you tell us what are a few tools that we as parents can have in our back pockets when it comes to dealing with anxious kids?
[00:12:41.560] – Speaker 1
I’ll start off by saying first that it’s so hard to parent an anxious kid. Parenting in general is so hard. I could sit here and say, Oh, do this, do that, and the other thing. You should do these things, but you should also recognise that you’re probably already doing the best you can with what you have. That being said, the first thing I always tell parents is we want to validate first. A kid’s feeling a strong emotion, your kid is sad, your kid is anxious, your kid is just overwhelmed. Start with recognising the feeling, saying something like, It looks like you’re sad, or, It looks like you’re really worried about this. That doesn’t always get a positive response, but what that does is it builds your child’s emotional literacy, which will give them the tools to process later. Because if we can’t name something, we won’t be able to understand it.
[00:13:31.020] – Speaker 2
I know for me, just in my world, at the end of a teenage career, my daughter’s 19, just as I’ve navigated, one of the things that I’ve realised is, like you said, acknowledging it. But as a parent, when my daughter’s anxious, I really want to fix and help and provide solutions. Even if I acknowledge that, Oh, you must feel sad about that, or that must be overwhelming. I want to move really quickly to solves. As a therapist, how would you encourage me in that? What are some tools that I can not just name it and then move quick to a solve? How can I be present and helpful, but also not… I feel like sometimes as parents, we feel like we have things to offer that can be helpful. How do you navigate that?
[00:14:22.760] – Speaker 1
It’s funny because when you asked about tools, I was thinking validation. And then the other tool I was thinking is telling parents that you should take a step back in those situations. So that struggle is real. Where adults, we have more life experience and you know how to fix this problem if only your kid would listen to you. That’s not helpful with a teenager They just throw it back in your face. They’re not going to listen anyway, so that’s not helpful. With younger kids, you could fix it, but it’s also good to give them an opportunity to try to fix it themselves. For younger kids, one skill I really like is to five before you jump in to help. So your kid is stuck, I don’t know, can’t get their sock on or whatever, and they’re like, Mommy, come help me. You count to five, Mississippi, and then if they still need help, then go. But sometimes kids figure it out on their own within that five seconds. With an older kid, I literally tell parents, Only problem-solve when your kid is asking you to problem-solve. So if your kid is not saying, What should I do about this situation?
[00:15:31.680] – Speaker 1
Then definitely don’t offer suggestions. But even if they are problem solving, prompting them to say, Okay, what are your options?
[00:15:40.460] – Speaker 2
Helping them think through the solve rather than just telling.
[00:15:45.020] – Speaker 1
Right. And I guess, bonus tip, only do that once per event if nothing changed. So you already talked about, Okay, what are we going to do about the navigating this party? And now the next day, it makes them anxious again, but literally none of the facts on the ground has changed. Don’t do the same thing you did yesterday. Trust your kids’ intelligence that they still know what you said, but they’re being anxiety is saying, No, let’s go through it all again.
[00:16:17.840] – Speaker 2
So validation, stepping away. I like that counting to five. Before we talk just about some of the activities for kids and teens, any other tools or tips for parents as they navigate kids that are are anxious?
[00:16:31.820] – Speaker 1
One thing I like to think about is that anxiety pulls for avoidance in a child and an adult. So when I’m anxious about something, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to go to a party. I don’t want to take the test. I don’t want to go to camp. When your kid feels anxious, it makes you want to jump in and rescue them, which makes the pattern worse. My guiding rule for parenting an anxious kid is not to jump in and rescue if you can help it. Don’t be complicit in your child’s anxiety by helping them avoid. When you let your kid not take the bus, let’s say, and then drive them to school if their anxiety is saying, Hey, you have to drive them, you’re accidentally making the anxiety worse, not better, because you’re taking away their ability to cope and solve problems. Even though it can feel really, really bad, because often when kids are anxious, they’re complaining to you. As a parent, they’re saying, Fix this for me. When you have the quick fix by saying, I’ll just drive you, and then you won’t feel anxious, it’s very tempting, and it will deprive them of their ability to show themselves, Look, I can’t take the bus, and it will be okay.
[00:17:45.740] – Speaker 2
That’s one of the things we encourage parents at camp when kids are feeling homesick and pretty anxious about it is, Leave them here with us. We’ve got staff that are trained to deal with this and to distract them for most of the day and get them into activities. If they swoop in to come, some parents are like, I want to just come see them and let them see my face. And we’re like, No, that’s not helpful. That’ll make them want to leave more, right? And so They’re going to be okay. They’ve got food and shelter, and they’re going to make it to the end of the week. If you can just trust us and don’t make a decision to bring them home early before Tuesday or Wednesday. Wednesday. If it’s really going beyond that, maybe there is something there, but early in the week, let them get a few days under their belt and realise that they actually this is more fun than they think it is, and they are going to be okay.
[00:18:44.900] – Speaker 1
Right. And also they could be homesick and have fun.
[00:18:48.940] – Speaker 2
Right. Yeah.
[00:18:50.420] – Speaker 1
90% of kids, I think I read a study once, said 90% of kids who go to sleep away camp start off homesick. So that’s not an indicator of not having a good time at camp. So it’s just more a matter of how do we handle this? And if it happens at night, that’s also normal. That’s when everybody worries, right? You lie in your bed and you think, Oh, my gosh, these are all the things that can go wrong. So that happens to kids in camp.
[00:19:17.100] – Speaker 2
My daughter, when she was really little, because we work at camp, she wanted to be in camp at a young age, and she was so excited to go. I think she was seven at the time, her first cabin experience. I think she saw us on the first or second day, and she just burst into tears. And literally, it was just because she saw us. Her counsellor was like, She’s having a great time. So we had to literally hide for the rest of the week just because we knew she was having fun. It just when she saw us, it brought all those feelings of home and my parents missing them and stuff. We’re like, We’re actually here. We’re not even… So we had to sneak away to not be seen because You’re right. I think homesickness and missing home is normal. But you’re right, it doesn’t mean that the activity itself isn’t fun, whatever it is, sleepovers and school trips or overnight camp. I think, yeah, that’s really interesting that we all have… All kids have homesickness, but that doesn’t mean they’re not having fun in what they’re doing. Yeah, that temptation for parents to rescue and remove.
[00:20:26.080] – Speaker 2
I think there are times where we do that way too early Kids are resilient and they can work through it, and they may find they actually really enjoy that activity or that thing that they’re feeling anxious about at the end. We might not all enjoy tests, as an example, but I think, generally speaking, we can learn that we like the things that make us anxious.
[00:20:47.890] – Speaker 1
With Tess, I would say they still have to do them. It’s more learning that some things are not, don’t make me happy, but I can get through them.
[00:20:57.860] – Speaker 2
Which is a helpful tool for life. Life as a whole, like you said. Yeah, that’s really good. Let’s move a little bit to young kids. That’s what I’m really intrigued because I think even just anecdotally or high level, I think I would have been more familiar to talk about anxiety for teenagers, but younger kids, is that part of development? How does that factor in? I think I’m hearing more and more about anxiety in younger kids. I love that you have a book that’s focused on that when Harley has anxiety. Can you give us an example of a fun activity rooted in CPT that targets kids?
[00:21:40.920] – Speaker 1
I’m not going to lie. Treating anxiety is not as fun as we want it to be because it’s about facing your fears. I like to be transparent. But in When Harley has anxiety, I actually had a great illustrator. So it’s an adorable book, so kids tend to like it. And some of the things are fun, but then the other things are explaining to kids why it’s helpful to face your fears. So what can I do to be braver and talk back to my anxiety? So some of the strategies are literally giving your anxiety a name. So for an older kid, a lot of them will think of mean girls, and it’ll be like Regina George or some bully. But I think of anxiety more like a trickster that’s trying to keep you safe but doing it in the wrong way. So that’s how I try to orient kids. Or what would you name it? Is there somebody in your class who’s a little annoying who’s always doing the wrong thing? Or is it more of a monster? We’ll draw out anxiety and we’ll give it a name, and that’ll externalise it for the kid. So instead of Joe is telling me, Oh, he’s super anxious, it’s Joe’s anxiety named Mr. Worry Monster is saying this, but we know it’s not true because we together can push Mr. Worry Monster away.
[00:23:00.000] – Speaker 1
So I like that strategy. But I also have one where I teach problem solving by walking through the steps of trying to get an Oreo in your mouth without using your hands. So walking through what’s the problem? And then what are my options? Brainstorming without knocking any options down and then trying these options. So kids tend to like that because they get to drop cookies all over my office floor. And then If it didn’t work, we go back and we say, Okay, let’s pick an option that works. Because sometimes anxiety gets you stuck in one mindset and you don’t think what else can be a possibility here.
[00:23:41.040] – Speaker 2
That may also help in focusing your energy on the solve, not just the problem itself, as you try different things and see your thinking about what you’re doing and how you’re trying to tackle that problem. I think that’s really great. What about for teens? What’s an example of a CBT-based strategy from anxiety relief for teens that they couldn’t use to manage their anxiety?
[00:24:09.640] – Speaker 1
I think at the risk of being a broken record, it’s all about facing your fears. However we get there, we get there. But I tell teens all the time that our main strategy here is breaking up your fear into pieces that you are comfortable facing, but that you will not probably feel comfortable facing. Because if you’re afraid of dogs and I say, Okay, I know that if I bring a dog in here, you’re going to freak out and run out of my office. That’s not helpful. But if I take a well-behaved dog and I leave them across the street and you have to look at them, chances are you’re also going to be a little bit anxious. But we’re trying to find that sweet spot of a step that I’m willing to take to face my fears. That’s a big thing I talk about with teens is how do I break down the fear into manageable parts and then practise the parts repeatedly.
[00:25:04.420] – Speaker 2
Connecting these two together without putting words in your mouth, I would imagine that would also apply to parents in their anxiety as well. One of the interesting things is as we’re navigating this as parents and we’re thinking, these are all the things that we can do to help. I know often a big source of our own anxiety is how our kids are doing. What are practical ways you can take these fun activities for kids and different strategies of breaking down the fears into the fear we have as parents?
[00:25:35.760] – Speaker 1
I think that’s a really good question. I think parents often struggle with this because you want your children to be successful and you want the best life that you can possibly give them. At a certain point, of course, it sounds like you know because you have someone at the end of the teenage years, you don’t have any more control. You worked really hard to get to this point, and now it’s just up to them, and you have to hope that whatever you did works. That’s super anxiety-provoking, especially. I am a pretty type A person. I want my kids to be a certain way. And it’s accepting like, No, this is my kid, even if it’s not necessarily how I imagined things would be when they were two, three, and four. So exposure means facing that when you don’t have a choice. If you You have a choice, if you’re like, Don’t give up on your kids when there’s actually a chance, or it’s not even giving up. But if there’s a problem that you can help them with, you can help them. But sometimes they need to figure out on their own that this is what makes a not great friend, or this is how I successfully navigate my academic world.
[00:26:52.000] – Speaker 1
You swooping in, it’s not doing them any favours. You taking that step back long term will help them, but short term will feel It’s pretty unpleasant as a parent, and it’s still the right thing to do.
[00:27:04.740] – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s tough when there’s tension in that and you know it’s right, but it feels wrong because it’s like letting kids cry it out when they’re babies, right? Everything in you wants to go in and pick them up, but you know you just need to make the decision that’s best and let the situation play out. But it’s so hard to do. You mentioned at the other end, parenting. We could probably have a whole other podcast on parenting adult children because, like you said, the control goes out. My wife and I read a book called Doing Life with Your Adult Children by Jim Burns, where it says, Keep your mouse shut and the welcome mat out. It’s like, Oh, theoretically, that’s good, but it’s really hard to do.
[00:27:45.940] – Speaker 1
Right, but that’s great advice.
[00:27:48.020] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it is. As you hear it unpacked by him, you’re like, Okay, it makes a lot of sense. But it’s like a lot of these things. Intellectually, we can wrap our heads around, but then in practise, it’s harder to do. So I love the idea of the tools that you had for kids and teens and how we can do that as parents. We just had another expert on the show that was talking about the importance of mindfulness techniques. Do you think mindfulness and a connexion to the present is something that has gotten away for us in a distracted and overconnected world that we live in? What’s the connexion between mindfulness and anxiety among kids and teens, if there is any?
[00:28:30.060] – Speaker 1
I think mindfulness is a skill within the CBT toolbox of being able to notice your emotions. I think I started out with, right? Validating means noticing in your kids, but validating yourself means being aware like, Oh, I’m feeling anxious. How do I know? I have a pit in my stomach. My throat feels a little tight. Noticing that can open up possibilities to change, whether that means facing my fear or getting out of a dangerous situation or anything else. I do think mindfulness contributes to awareness in a way that’s very helpful. I’m always hesitant to say, Oh, overconnected world. We’re some more distracted, because no matter what, I often find it gets into the, Kids these days, they’re so much worse off than we were. Whether or not that’s true, we’re not going backwards. What are you going to do? Just take away cell phones and go back to the time when I had to meet my friends and get lost. It’s not going to happen. I like to deal with the reality that we are are in, not a possible other reality instead. So maybe it’s true, but either way, this is the hand we have.
[00:29:38.060] – Speaker 2
And so what can we do to help kids or teenagers practise mindfulness, to be present. You mentioned validating emotions, how we’re feeling. Are there any other tools or tips, in general, to help people, our kids that we care about, be a bit more connected to how they’re and what’s going on around them in the present moment?
[00:30:03.500] – Speaker 1
I’ll bring up modelling. I think modelling is a really good technique for parents to be able to say, Oh, well, I have been on my phone for an hour. I’m noticing that my eyes are tired, my brain is feeling like mush, like I’m a little bit in brain rot territory, like I need to recharge. Maybe I’ll go outside. But not doing that with the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, now follow me, kid. Actually just saying, This is how I feel. I’d like to think of mindfulness as awareness. It’s being aware of what’s going on in your world and inside your body. Ways to help little kids with that, or you can do games like, I spy as you walk down the street, or I’m noticing that person looks sad because they have tears in their eyes. Storybooks, if you read to your kids, like pointing out how do you think that person is feeling and why. As teens get older, I find that an adult teaching mindfulness probably goes against the developmental perspective of a teen, which is a little bit more of parent, move away, friend-focused. I think this would be a hard skill to teach in a non-modeling way for a parent unless a kid very actively wanted to seek that out with their parent.
[00:31:28.160] – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s good. That’s a really good insight because I know when I was a teenager, if my parents said left, I’d be like, Oh, let’s go right. I think that’s even more important for younger kids. Then if they can practise that, maybe that will stay with them in the teen years a bit more as they learn to practise mindfulness at younger ages. Maybe some of that stuff sticks with them as they get to that season of life.
[00:31:56.360] – Speaker 1
I don’t know. Through modelling, you have a really valuable tool parent, and that’s yourself and the way you handle your feelings.
[00:32:04.620] – Speaker 2
High level, zooming out from thinking about individuals to more broaden society. If there’s one shift you’d love to see in how our world approaches childhood anxiety, what would that be?
[00:32:18.560] – Speaker 1
I would love if more people stopped bubble-wrapping their kids and let them experience more challenge and failure, especially at a low level. I think that that really builds resilience and allows people to emotionally regulate more because they’re feeling more negative emotion, but in smaller doses that are manageable. Not everybody wins all the time. So it’s more how do we handle it, not twisting the losses into wins all the time.
[00:32:54.860] – Speaker 2
I think that sets our kids up well. I think it connects to back to just a little bit ago when we were talking about as parenting, using some of the tools you mentioned, just taking our fears down into these more manageable bite-size things and practising what would we do in this situation or that. I think rehearsing some of that and walking ourselves through the solves where we don’t jump in and rescue or help, I think would be important to do preemptively as well, because I think you’re right. I think that’s one of the gifts we can give our kids is learning some resilience and learning what it’s like to pick themselves up when they fall down using a metaphor and giving them some of the tools that they can have without us just doing it for them all the time. I think that’s great.
[00:33:45.400] – Speaker 1
Absolutely.
[00:33:46.880] – Speaker 2
So what would be… I mean, obviously, we’re going to recommend our listeners to check out your three books that you’ve written. Are there other resources that you have or a website we can point people to? And then building off of that, any other tools or resources or websites or things that you can suggest to parents who want to help their kids manage their anxieties?
[00:34:11.880] – Speaker 1
So some websites I really like. One is anxietycanada. Com. It’s fantastic. It just has so many resources for parents about different kinds of anxiety and practical strategies. I would also suggest effectivechildtherapy. Org, which is a website that outlines what effective child therapy for kids looks like based on different conditions, including anxiety. So one thing I know just from my clinical experience and from research is that not all therapy is the same. So if you’re looking for more resources for your kids, what I really want you to think about is finding resources based on treatments that work. So for anxiety in kids, that’s cognitive behavioural therapy, but specifically using exposure. So helping kids face their fear. So looking for resources that orient that way and also being very careful if you’re using, let’s say, Instagram or TikTok to find information to really bet your sources because there’s some good accounts, and then there’s a lot of not great accounts. And honestly, sometimes they pull me in. I’m like, That’s so interesting. And then I’ll be like, Wait a minute. No, that’s false. I know that. This is my area. So just be careful.
[00:35:32.180] – Speaker 2
Oh, that’s great. That’s helpful. And again, your books, we can find them on Amazon and other places you can buy books. Any other resources that you can think of to point people to?
[00:35:44.900] – Speaker 1
If they’re looking for a therapist, abct.org is a good one. It has a good find a therapist finder. And then one other resource, I would say is there’s Let Grow, has an independence project, which is a one-page sheet that helps parents set up a project that their kid is going to do alone. It’s really good for building independence. Helping kids say, Oh, look, I can bake cookies by myself, or I can go to the store. It walks you through it on the website. So that’s nice.
[00:36:18.000] – Speaker 2
Well, it’s been great having almost like a free session with a professional therapist, someone who spends all their time helping families. I know there’s lots that I’ve taken from this that have been encouraging and the tools, I think, are really helpful for families. You have worked with so many families over your time in the work that you’ve done. What’s one piece of encouragement or a final thought you’d like to offer to parents who feel overwhelmed or unsure of how to support their anxious child. I mean, there’s been so many, but maybe we can wrap this up with you giving us a little bit of a charge and an encouragement at the end of this conversation.
[00:36:58.380] – Speaker 1
Like I said, I really that parenting is so hard, especially when your kid is anxious because they’re pulling you in a direction that’s not helpful for them. But we know the right way to help anxious kids. It’s just not so intuitive. Trust me when I say that the best way to help your anxious kid is to help them not avoid, to help them approach things, even if it feels unpleasant for you and for them.
[00:37:27.380] – Speaker 2
Well, thank you for your time today and all the best in the work you continue to do as you help so many families and young people. It’s great to have people like you out there in our world that can help us navigate these things. So thank you for that and for your time today. It’s been great to have you on the show.
[00:37:43.760] – Speaker 1
Thank you.
[00:37:46.480] – Speaker 2
Well, that’s it for today’s episode. So many helpful tips and tools from Dr. Regine Galanti. If you found her insights into childhood anxiety and practical strategies for supporting your kids helpful and want to explore more conversations like this, visit muskokawoods.com. There you’ll find a blog post for every episode of Shaping Our World, packed with highlights, key takeaways, and a link to listen again. And while you’re there, explore how Muskoka Woods is creating life-changing experiences that help young people grow in confidence, character, and connexion. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode with someone who you think needs to hear it.
