Why your anxiety could be shaping theirs
Firstly, a question. When your child is scared of something, what do you do?
Step in. Smooth it over. Keep them close.
Totally natural, right? But new research, recently published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence suggests that response, especially when it comes from an anxious parent, might be quietly teaching your child to be anxious too.
What the study found
The 2024 study of 316 parents and their 10-14 year olds looked at the link between a parent's anxiety and their child's anxiety. Nothing new there. We've known for a while that anxious kids often have anxious parents.
What's more interesting is why.
The researchers found that a mother's anxiety was strongly linked to her child's anxiety, and a big part of that link came down to one thing: overprotection. Anxious mums were more likely to shield their child from anything uncomfortable, whether that was criticism, disappointment, or everyday risk. And that overprotection, not the anxiety itself, was what predicted the child's anxiety levels.
Fathers showed a different pattern. Anxious dads were more likely to become overcontrolling rather than overprotective, think strict rules and less freedom, rather than shielding. Interestingly, this didn't translate into higher anxiety for the child in the same clear way.
It comes back to your sense of power and control
Here's the part I found most compelling.
The study also looked at what's technically called locus of control, but I prefer the term the creator of The Thrive Programme, Rob Kelly, uses which is sense of power and control over experiences (SPACE).
Parents with a strong internal SPACE believe they can influence what happens to them and their family. Parents with an external SPACE feel like life happens to them, that outcomes are mostly down to luck, other people, or circumstance.
Mums with a more external SPACE, who felt less in control of their own lives, were more likely to have children with higher anxiety. It makes sense when you think about it. If you don't believe you can handle what life throws at you, how do you teach your child that they can?
Control the controllables, cope with the uncontrollables
I talk about this a lot with clients. Having a strong internal sense of power and control isn't about controlling everything. It's about knowing you can control the controllables, and cope with the uncontrollables.
When you believe that, you don't need to overprotect your child from every hard feeling. You trust they can handle it, because you know you can handle it.
When you don't believe that, overprotection becomes the coping mechanism. Not because you don't love your child enough, but because you love them too much to risk them feeling what you don't want to feel yourself.
What this means for you
If any of this sounds familiar, here's the thing. It's not your fault. And it's not set in stone.
Your sense of power and control is a belief, not a personality trait. It was shaped by your own upbringing and experiences, and it can be reshaped.
A few starting points:
Notice when you're stepping in to protect your child from something they could actually handle themselves.
Ask yourself: am I doing this for them, or because I find it hard to sit with their discomfort?
Work on your own internal sense of power and control first. Your child is learning it by watching you, not by being told to have it.
Your anxiety isn't a life sentence for your child's mental health. But addressing your own overprotection and your own sense of power and control might just be the most important parenting work you do.
If you'd like to explore this further, you can book in for a no-obligation 15 min conversation.
Zhai, M., Gao, W., Feng, Y., Jian, J., & Xu, F. (2025). Discrepancies in Parent-Child Perception of Parental Control and Associations with Children’s Anxiety: The Buffering Effect of Parent-Child Closeness. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 54(1), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-02038-y