Parental anxiety is a feeling of fear or worry specifically related to your role of a parent. It can be experienced at any stage – from before your baby is born, through the childhood and teenage years and all the way to worrying about your adult children. Certain level of anxiety is completely normal and natural – we love our children and the anxiety we feel is meant to help us protect them from danger. Thousands of years ago it would have been triggered by seeing a snake that crawls by, or by hearing the heavy footsteps of a predator – being able to spot these potential dangers is what kept us and our children alive.

In modern world the triggers are different - it may be a social media post from another parent that makes us worry we aren't doing enough; it can be a fear about our child's health and wellbeing; it may be a concern about their relationship with friends, bullying or academic results.  Any of the worries about existing, past or potential challenges can lead us to experience anxiety. And while it is meant to help us stay aware of the risks and to spur us into action when needed, parental anxiety can start interfering rather than helping us to be the kind of parent we want to be.

What might it look like? You may feel a sense of dread that something bad is going to happen to your children and you may notice that you’re trying to imagine everything that could go wrong, and to come up with a plan to mitigate each risk. This can start feeling like a heavy burden, as feeling responsible to prevent “bad things not happening” is an enormous responsibility – it’s also an impossible task to succeed in. You may also feel isolated and lonely as when you share your fears or concerns, you may feel unheard or be told to just stop worrying about everything.

Parental anxiety may show up as a feeling of persistent worry that doesn’t let you relax, and possibly affecting your ability to fall asleep or stay asleep. This, in turn, adds to the exhaustion you are already experiencing, making you more likely to feel anxious, thus creating a vicious loop.

You may notice some physical symptoms too, such as recurring stomach aches or headaches – although needless to say, if you do suffer from pains or physical discomfort, please do speak to your GP to exclude physical causes.

It’s important to address the anxiety to prevent it from dominating your life. Untreated anxiety can with time lead to parental burnout, which feels like extreme emotional exhaustion in the role of the parent, feeling detached and losing the sense of joy from the experience of parenting.

In the next post I’ll talk about the steps you can try to help manage your parental anxiety, and while no solution is universal, there are things you can do that can make a difference. As always, if you feel that you would benefit from counselling to support you in managing your anxiety, you can get in touch with me via email info@breathingspacecounselling.co.uk