Understanding and managing parental anxiety with Dr Laura David

Or read on for the transcript

Lucinda Quigley: Hi, I’m Lucinda Quigley, Head of Working Parents and Executive Coach at Talking Talent.

Laura David: Hi everyone. I’m Laura David. I’m an NHS GP in London, and I’m the founder of Smart About Health. This podcast is all about helping you tackle the challenging areas and taboo areas of health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Lucinda: And it’s produced by Talking Talent in partnership with Smart About Health. Welcome to our podcast today everybody. Today we’re going to be talking about the subject of parental anxiety. Let’s start off with looking at that subject and what do we mean by parental anxiety, Laura? Tell us a little bit about it.

Laura: I think what we’re talking about here is anxiety, and then we’re thinking about it specifically to a group of people, parents. Anxiety is very much a normal experience. We’re going to talk about that a bit more. But it’s got components to it that people may feel uncomfortable to it. So, there’s a physiological, a cognitive, and a behavioral aspect, and that’s where CBT comes in.

So, thinking about physiological events to a threat or perceived threats. So, when we talk about anxiety, we’re thinking about how does it feel in the body? So, we’re thinking about raised heart rate or what we call palpitations. Some people experience breathlessness or feeling like they can’t quite catch their breath. Some people experience chest pain, which is often seen as part of a panic attack, which we can talk about a bit more afterward. But there are lots of physiological events: some people experience pins and needles, feeling lightheaded, feeling dizzy, feeling sick. These are all the physical changes that happen when we have a perceived threat.

Then we’ve got the cognitive aspect toward inner thoughts. What’s going on for us in our minds? And that often is negative thinking, thinking about this is going to be a disaster, what’s going to happen, you can’t necessarily get the clarity to find the solution in that state of anxiety. It may lead to some of the behavioral aspects, such as avoidance of that situation, and that can perpetuate the situation because by avoiding it, you’re not necessarily dealing with the fear.

In the sense that anxiety is normal, this kind of reaction, this fight, flight, and freeze response is essential to our survival. When we were in the caveman era we may have been threatened by an animal or something trying to eat us or attack us, and we need that anxiety to actually be able to function and be well and be able to stay alive. Anxiety related to parents, and I can really relate to this being a parent of two young children.

Lucinda: Me too.

Laura: Exactly. We’re right here with everybody listening! Is that specifically those anxieties may be related to what’s going on for you as a family, what’s going on for you in your complex lives, managing and balancing all those plates spinning up in the air, waiting for one of them to crash down, and the anticipation of that. And thinking about all of the needs that you have as a parent, and how that may be conflicting internally as well.

So, lots of that anxiety may be present for you as a parent, but it may also be anxiety around your children. How are they doing? Are they doing well at school? Am I going to be able to drop them off on time? Did I forget their water bottle today or did I forget to give them a snack? Lots of these things can trigger parental anxiety. Then also thinking about other strains and stresses to parents that may be around them, being part of this sandwich generation, that some of that parental anxiety may be about your parents, your relatives, what’s going on for them? Perhaps people in this position might be a carer or maybe have an ill parent. There’s a whole load of issues that can come up for parents that may influence anxiety.

Lucinda: Yeah and I think that’s the important bit, isn’t it about this piece around parental anxiety? I know why you and I were so keen to discuss this topic because we have both experienced it or experiencing it, and we’ll talk a little bit about that later. I think you have listed several of the reasons why one, it’s normal to feel, and a little bit later on we’ll be talking about how you can maybe manage some of these symptoms or behaviors to feel a little bit more empowered, I think, which certainly I know for me was really, really helpful. Let’s just talk a little bit about why is it important now do we think to talk about parental anxiety?

Laura: From my angle, and obviously we want to hear from you Lucinda as well with your coachees and in your life, but parents have had a difficult time during the pandemic and I’m not saying that they’re exclusive to any other groups. Everyone’s had their own set of issues and as a working parent, I’ve really felt some strains that parents are under and pressures. But before I talk about that, I just want to reflect that, of course, there’s been really good things as well, that have come out of this pandemic, and working at home and of course now going into a hybrid way of working. Much of that can be around the time that you have been able to spend with your family, that you may not have been able to achieve when you were in the office every single day. Lots of our clients have reflected that piece where they’re now having to leave children, take them to school and go into the office. Change feels difficult for a lot of people. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s probably a good thing. But actually, there have been lots of positive things that we’ve been able to do to get to know our children more as parents and spend more time with them.

Certainly, with talking about it generally, dads have actually been able to spend more time with their children and are more involved. So, there have been some benefits to the family unit. However, this blurring of home and work life has been difficult for many, many people, and separating what’s going on at work and what’s going on at home, particularly when parents were homeschooling, that was a very difficult period of time. I think that has just added to a lot of anxiety and of course we’re all anxious about our children missing out in school.

But all of the different pressures that have changed and are now changing again as we go into hybrid working can make us feel more anxious. So, I think this is a really important piece about why parental anxiety is such an important subject that we feel able to talk about and we normalize. What about from your experience Lucinda?

Lucinda: Yeah, I think I agree with everything you said, and I think there’s hybrid working and there have been lots of benefits. But I think also one of the issues with hybrid working for a lot of parents is it’s then that question of choice and are they making the right choices in the terms of: they’re being given all of this freedom to make a decision about what’s best for them, but then do they always know that that is being viewed as the best thing for them by their employer for their career?

It’s that constant juggle for working parents particularly around are they doing the best for their family? Are they doing the best for their career, which is still really important to them? Then of course what happens is that the best for themselves as individuals gets pushed a little bit further down the pile, and their actual ability to see that they’re not managing their mental health and their levels of stress, which then lead to anxiety is just not being seen.

I think, for me, there’s another thing to consider particularly in the arena that we’re in now around social media as well. I think for parents in particular, things like, I mean, don’t get me wrong I’m a big fan of going into the scroll hole of Instagram, but that can also add pressures that maybe we wouldn’t have had in the past around being a perfect parent, having a perfect house, having a perfect outfit. And all of that is also distracting from all of the other things that we are trying to achieve in a day. Ultimately the reality for parents now is that the pressures that they’re experiencing having to achieve so much in one single day are phenomenal. And I think it’s that lack of space and time to think about what actually is important to them.

I know we’re going to talk about some of this later, but I think the lack of space and time to think about what’s important to them is really what’s feeding some of this anxiety. I think with my coachees, what I’m definitely seeing is that for parents who are going off to have children, there are still lots of concerns around actually, what kind of world are they bringing them into? Are they making the right choices for them? And of course, there are still some underlying concerns around what the experience might be like currently. I think for parents returning to work, I’m seeing a lot of separation anxiety at the moment, and I know this is something that you’ve mentioned to me as well. If you imagine parents have been really not been able to leave their children because of COVID, and now they’re having to, but also, they can’t settle their children still into nursery or into childcare settings in the same way.

So, that I think is really affecting people. And just generally, people have had to deal with a lot. I think, you know, it’s really important for me when I’m coaching people to help them realize that as you say, anxiety is a really normal feeling to have. But it’s knowing and noticing when it might be holding you back from things and stopping you doing things. I think also feeling empowered as someone who experiences anxiety, feeling empowered to know what you can do about it, which hopefully we can talk a little bit about today. I mentioned the normalizing side of things. In your opinion, how do people know whether it’s normal or not? What are your thoughts?

Laura: So, I think really it comes down to, as you said how much it affects your daily life and your daily function and what you’re trying to achieve. Some anxiety is normal, exactly how we said it and there’s going to be periods of everyone’s day that they go through some anxiety-provoking experiences and it can actually help with performance. It can actually help with output and help you with clarity of thought if it is in small doses. I think the issue is really around the chronicity of anxiety. So, how that underlying level of just slightly heightened level of anxiety that’s always undulating, that’s always there, that can cause some issues, because what it means is our thresholds can be reduced for things like overwhelm, not being able to cope, not being able to take on new pressures, and then thinking about where there is very long or prolonged periods of high stress and high anxiety. And there doesn’t seem to be that break at the end of it. There doesn’t seem to be any let-up in the future. That’s when people can really burn out. They can go through a lot of physical, mental, and emotional changes that mean that their reserves are really, really low and they don’t have anything to pull back on.

So, I think a lot of it’s around the length of time and all the undulating pressures and there may be that sensation that I can’t ever relax, I’ve never got any time for myself, and if I do put the time in for myself, what am I sacrificing?

Lucinda: Yes.

Laura: That’s often what comes up a lot of the time.

Lucinda: A lot of the shoulds as well, isn’t there? I should be doing this, or I should have done that. Because there’s the term isn’t there? High-functioning anxiety. I think that’s what you are talking about, isn’t it? So, people who live day to day but on a certain always feeling slightly anxious?

Laura: Yes. Always on, always under pressure that, and as I said before some anxiety can really help with performance and there is a performance curve. It’s basically a bell curve and in a way, you are in the middle as you’ve got a good amount of anxiety, pressure and pressure and stress and you’ve also got good output. As you go down the bell curve on the end you are entering the harmful levels of anxiety and the effects that that has physically and mentally on your body and on your mind.

And I think what you were talking about before, I really loved that, and I want to pick up on that social media piece where that is what potentially is also contributing to our undulating levels of pressure and stress: how are we supposed to be perceived? We’re supposed to be able to hold all those plates up in the air, let them spin and not drop any, and actually, everything’s going on for us.

We may feel there are some barriers to really bringing our authentic self, what’s going on with us, to our workplace, to our friends, to our colleagues. Social media is certainly contributing to that. The reality is that, okay, great we might have a nice top on, but really down here, I’m covered in this morning’s breakfast, there’s a few stains there and actually, nobody’s going to see it so I’m not going to show anyone. But what do you see? You see somebody else, and we’ve got that whole concept of the good enough parent, that I know we’ve talked about before, and thinking about what’s good enough for you and how do you bring in all the elements of your life that you want to do well in, but do you have to excel in all of them?

There’s going to be some that you can excel in and some that you can feel it’s good enough. Okay. Maybe for my daughter’s snack, I didn’t cut up five different varieties of fruit and put them in a box and label it and do all these things. I just put an apple in her bag and that’s okay. She’s still getting a nutritious snack and she’s not complaining, so why should I cut up all that fruit?

So, I think there are so many things that we feel pressured about that may be external, but having that reflective practice to think about what do I need? What do I want to achieve? That can be helpful in managing anxiety, we can talk about other ways as well.

Lucinda: So, we talked about normalizing haven’t we, and as we’ve both said, we’ve both had experiences with anxiety. I know that you are happy to talk about your experiences. So, tell us a little bit about what you’ve been going through.

Laura: Yeah. I mean, I just count myself as somebody who’s a regular human being that goes through the stresses and strains of life, and sometimes, I feel like they’re overwhelming. And that’s probably because I’ve also got this underlying level of pressure and stress that’s taking up that bottom quarter of my stress bucket, how I’d like to call it, and it means that I can’t get to the reserves that easily. Sometimes my stress bucket is overflowing, and I’ve got to find ways that I can try and deal with it. I don’t always have the answers. As a doctor, I don’t have all the solutions. Certainly, it doesn’t always translate to your own lives, and I suppose that also is something to reflect on for other people, is that they may have a role that they’re trying to do and fulfil: iIt doesn’t mean we always have all the answers.

I do see a therapist, I’m very open to say that in many of our meetings, in our sessions, because I want people to realize that one, having therapy or having somebody to talk to a professional to talk to, an impartial individual in your life, can be a really good thing. As we invest in our physical health – hopefully, we do. A lot of people have neglected their physical health as well as their mental health, particularly during the pandemic – but as we might have a personal trainer, we might see a chiropractor or an osteopath if we’ve got back pain, we might see a physiotherapist. We also might need something for our mind and something to help manage our daily stress. And I don’t have all the answers, I know that, so I need to speak to somebody. And for me, it’s partly preventative because it’s an investment in my mental wellbeing and my mental health.

It’s also something that if I’m having a problem, I can have somebody that can take me through some of the solutions. I mean, the other day I was completely overwhelmed. I would say my stress bucket was definitely overflowing, because I couldn’t find a parking space near the school. I drove round and round and round, and I could feel myself getting panicked, I was sweating, I was feeling unwell, I was sending my husband voice messages obviously safely through the car system saying I can’t cope, what am I going to do?

I felt completely panicked and I also had my two kids in the back which I felt really guilty about. We can talk about parental guilt, but I felt like I’m letting them down one because my daughter’s going to be late for school, but also because what kind of behavior is she seeing from me? Part of me felt like it’s okay for children to see some stress in their adults but also, we do have a responsibility to try and process our own stress so that we can be role models for our children.

Lucinda: Yeah. That role modeling piece is really important, isn’t it?

Laura: Absolutely, but I think it’s okay for parents to be emotional, to show their emotions. When I drop my daughter off on her first day of school in year two, not even in reception, I was bawling my eyes out walking around the corner. She didn’t see me cry, I managed to hold it back. But I do think it’s okay to show some emotions and to constructively express what’s going on for you to your children, so that they can have a voice around their emotions too.

You talked about separation, absolutely huge conflict for parents at the moment. It’s normal. It’s normal for your child to not want to separate from you, especially since they’ve been at home potentially more than they would have before. If you’ve got a baby that you’re settling into nursery they will potentially not want to leave you, and this is part of the attachment near a developmental theory that it’s normal that a baby would cry when they leave their mother or be distressed. That’s so heartbreaking for us as parents. We’ve got our separation anxiety that we don’t want to separate from our child. We might not want to separate from our home. We’re going back into the office for hybrid working. We’ve also got the child’s separation anxiety. There are things you can do to ease that.

But I think the main thing is that I want to say it’s okay to admit that you are sometimes overwhelmed with anxiety and to be able to speak to somebody, it might not necessarily always be a professional, to try and find your way through and find what works. And if it is a professional, there should be no shame in seeing that person, because what you’re doing is investing in your mental wellbeing and your mental health.

I know you’ve had some experiences as well Lucinda. I suppose it’s nice for people to hear from two professionals here that it’s okay to experience anxiety.

Lucinda: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have also had therapy, but I also think it’s important to acknowledge that therapy isn’t accessible for everybody is it? We’re going to talk a little bit later in the podcast, just around some things that you can do for yourself to start managing it. But yeah, absolutely. I mean being really explicit about it, I think my anxiety has definitely actually only really appeared since I’ve become a parent as it’s definitely linked to being a parent.

My son has a peanut allergy and I think that was a really big trigger for it. And I’ve learned to cope with it in a way, but I also know what my triggers are. So, for example, if he’s going to a birthday party, he’s seven now, so if he’s going to a birthday party without me, or a friend’s house it triggers my anxiety and there are certain processes that I have to go through. What I’ve learned is that those processes are important to me. I won’t hold back from having a conversation and talking about the way I feel with, you know, the parent or the person that’s going to be looking after him at the party. And I think that talking piece as we’ve said is really, really important.

Laura: With all that in mind Lucinda is there anything that you’ve found that’s really helpful for you to manage that anxiety?

Lucinda: Yes. So, I think as well as having the general anxiety about my son’s allergy, I think that does trigger just the general sort of high-functioning anxiety. One of the things that I really find that helps is mindfulness or meditation. And in really simple terms, I mean, some of our listeners may have tried this out, some people may have also found out it works for them. They’re quite common terms now but not everybody will know everything about them. I think the key for me actually is whether it’s mindfulness or meditation, it’s about slowing down. So, it’s about finding the space in your day to think about what’s important to you. So, for me a really good example is I work at home and have always worked at home anyway, sort of for the last five years. But I really try not to finish work at five o’clock and then run out the door to go and pick up my children, even though my daughter pleads me to. She said the same thing to me this morning, mummy, as soon as you’ve finished work you must come and pick me up. Then obviously we feel really guilty about it.

But what I try to do is I finish work at five or the time that I finish work and then I will spend 15 minutes. I will give myself 15 minutes. Sometimes it might be to do some housework, but sometimes it might also just be to have a glass of water, to make a cup of tea, to think about what I want to do with the children when they come back in, so that when I do pick them up all of my intentions around being positive and a good parent, and essentially leaving work behind and really being able to focus on the children, I’m able to do that.

I know from my experience coaching parents over the last couple of years. You were talking earlier on about that blurring between work and home and particularly when you’re doing all of this stuff. It’s intense to be doing all of this under the same roof. Recognizing the different roles that we play in a day or even in the space of half an hour sometimes is really important and focusing on, okay, so I’m in the role of mom at the moment what’s important to me about that role? How do I want to be with my children? And then maybe stepping away and saying, okay, I’m starting work now, how do I want to be in this role? And then there’s a really crucial bit about, well actually, how do you find the space to be yourself, when you’re not being a mum and you’re not being a parent?

There’s a brilliant Ted Talk by a guy who I love, he’s a coach in Australia, Adam, who talks about the third space. I know you’ve got some sort of experience of this idea of stopping and pausing as well. But for me, that’s how I’ve started to manage my anxiety. What about you? Tell us what do you do?

Laura: It’s been quite an uncomfortable experience for me to embrace certain aspects that I wouldn’t routinely do. So, one thing that really has always worked for me is exercise, and we know that exercise has got a hugely important role to play in mental wellbeing and of course, physical wellbeing.

But more recently I’ve felt the need to explore different options. What I would say is that hasn’t always been comfortable for me to immediately adopt these practices because they felt unusual to me. They were new and I think that sometimes we have barriers that we’ve put up to say, you know what, that’s not for me, I’m not going to do that. You think actually I’m going to try and embrace something new. So, a lot of the work that I’ve been trying to do to manage overwhelm, for example, is breathwork. That fits nicely with mindfulness and meditation, and it really also brings you into the moment, into the present, and focusing on your breath. Actually, we know that physiologically, which is great because it appeals to my scientific mind, is that it does slow down your heart rate. It slows down your breathing and actually works on the parasympathetic nervous system to activate that which actually slows things down. And actually, if you really are getting into a state of overwhelm and I can’t cope, I can’t think of the answer, then taking that moment to breathe is going to help you with clarity and get you back into being a productive mom or productive parent, productive at what you’re doing at work, quicker than if you were just to let it all just fizzle out.

So, putting some steps in place for me is what’s been helpful, and certainly, exercise again. It’s a really important part of my life that allows me to feel good. We talk about endorphins, we talk about some of the hormonal changes that happen when you exercise, and it certainly is a really important piece for most people. I would encourage anyone to exercise, of course, because of the cardiovascular and long-term effects that exercise can bring

Lucinda: But it doesn’t have to be 5k, does it? It could just be a 10-minute walkout outside in the sunshine, I think…

Laura: Exactly.

Lucinda: …is really important.

Laura: Yeah, outside is important.

Lucinda: Yeah. Outside in the sunshine or the rain. But yeah, getting those senses going. One thing I’ve been trying recently actually, which I’ll share with you, and it’s not for everybody, is cold showers. I thought I would experiment and I’m sure you’ll know more about the reasons why it works. But I actually have started really enjoying it, 30 seconds at the end of my shower, because it brings me into that present of the day, and now what am I going to go and do?

So yeah, not for everybody, but I think the message that we’re trying to get across here, isn’t it, that there are lots of ways in which you can start to manage your own anxiety. And it’s about finding something that works for you, but also finding something that, as you say, I think that’s really lovely, it’s not necessarily going to change overnight, but these little habits that you might be able to create that start to make you feel a bit better.

Laura: Definitely, and I think what’s also really important is to remember is that you can allow yourself to do these things and you find your way and you might not necessarily love the first thing you’re doing. One is it’s really good to obviously give things a chance to work and give them the best possible chance of working. So, not to give up on things straight away, but allowing yourself that time. And I love that you spend that time at the end of your working day, which helps you separate the two roles that may be conflicting for you and that’s okay to give yourself that permission to take that pause and take that step back, because you know actually in the long term, is going to help you fulfill your different roles. It’s going to help you be more fulfilled in your working role and more fulfilled as a parent. Because we are constantly distracted by all of the different multimedia channels that we have, our phones, our emails still pinging, we’re getting a WhatsApp message, you want to quickly check Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or whichever channels you’re using. Potentially we’re thinking about, oh, I’ve got a deadline, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that. What’s going to happen to my kids don’t go to bed on time? I’m going to start working again, I’m not going to have time. Constantly distracted.

One, that means it’s a less fulfilling experience for us in both of those roles. But two, it means that we then forget about ourselves. We’ve forgotten that we need some time for us as well, and that’s going to help us. So, thinking about the power of the pause and also recognizing anxiety and one of the things I really like to talk about is recognizing what the anxiety means to you, how does it manifest? And with that recognition, we can reduce some of the fear we have about the anxiety.

So, we talk about being anxious about being anxious. You’re thinking I’m anxious that I’m going to have a panic attack because of whatever situation it is. Then that perpetuates into that avoidance scenario. But recognizing that this is anxiety, recognizing that there’s potentially a way out if you’re experiencing acute immediate overwhelm or panic attack. And then thinking about the steps you can put in place in your life.

I want to talk quickly about this power of the pause, because it was such an important message to me, and we’ll talk also about role modeling. So, we’re role modeling as parents, we’re role modelling in our teams in the workplace. Also, role modeling that we aren’t necessarily the perfect parent and employee and manager and friend and colleague. That actually it’s okay to be slightly less than perfect. That’s alright.

But I had this experience when I was training as a doctor. I was in my first year after qualifying so I was very green, very new, and I was in an operation assisting a consultant surgeon. It was an emergency surgery. The patient was unwell. The patient was bleeding a lot and there were things in the operation that were not going right. And what should have been a four-hour operation turned into an eight-hour operation. But what I saw was that when things were not going right, and he tried everything he possibly could, and things were not progressing in the surgery, he said I’m going out for a minute. In fact, it was 15 minutes. Of course, he didn’t leave the patient unstable, everything was okay at that point, and there was me standing there, green and not being able to do anything, and the anesthetist, of course, the other doctor in the room. He said, I’m going to leave this theater for a minute.

So, he stepped out. He actually went and he had a quick shower. He changed his clothes. He had a coffee, and he came in after 15 minutes. He was refreshed and he had a completely new thought process and way of tackling the issue and it worked and the patient survived.

And just us recognizing that we can’t do it all to 100% perfection. We have to leave space in our day or space in our working day to actually take that pause and reflect and do something else because that will give us energy and clarity and increase our productivity. Something that I think as a parent we often feel is that we’ve got to rush, rush, rush. We’ve got to do all of it, so we can get to the school pick up and then we can get to the ballet class, and we can get them to do their reading and their homework and put them to bed, and then we can do more work. And there’s no space for that power of the pause in our lives, which we really need.

Lucinda: I just wanted to pick up on the role modeling piece. For me, it’s crucial in a way, particularly when we’re talking about parental anxiety, because what we’re really talking about here is as we know as parents, and as we’ve discussed, that there are lots of reasons why we experience anxiety. Actually, some of our anxiety as I shared, might be about our children. And some of our listeners may be experiencing pangs and anxiety because their children are experiencing anxiety. We know that there are so many more children and teenagers who are experiencing anxiety and then it becomes part of the family, doesn’t it? And it’s difficult then as a parent to think about, well, actually, what can I do to help my child? That is managing my own anxiety, and their anxiety at the same time, so it doesn’t become this self-perpetuating vicious circle.

Obviously, there are lots of ways and lots of areas that you can go and seek help. But I think the role modeling thing is important to recognize isn’t it, so that if your child can see how you deal with your anxiety, then they in turn from a very early age, as we know children learn from their parents, they in turn can see how they might deal with stressful situations. And that reminder that, for our children, we need to remind them it’s okay to feel nervous or anxious, and how might you deal with it?

Your example of the power of the pause, I think is a great one and I’ll very briefly share with you an acronym that I quite often use, that I think you can use as parents but also with your children as well. And it brings that idea of mindfulness and pausing together.

So, STOP is the word, and S is the stop. So, the S stands for stop and what that really means is just stop what you’re doing. If you’re at a computer, step away from it. If you’re on your phone, step away from it. Just to stop what you’re doing.

The T is take a breath and you talked about breathwork earlier on, but so important for just calming the nervous system down and the heart rate and feeling a little bit more in control, I think. So, a big few lungfuls of air are really important.

And then the O stands for observe. So, that’s really about noticing what you’re feeling both physically and emotionally. Is the emotion you’re feeling anger? Is it frustration? Because it can be a number of different things that we might be feeling. Or is there something physical going on? Is something hurting? Quite often as parents, maybe we don’t go to the loo and then we don’t do that for three hours, then that’s the physical stress that we’re feeling. Or we might not have eaten or drunk enough that day. So, also noticing those things, I think.

Then the P stands for what’s the positive step forward. What’s the next thing that is going to be a positive thing for you to do? I think we’ve all had experiences as parents where we’ve maybe been going to get a bit cross with our children, and actually being able to take ourselves out of that situation, and then go back in and think about how we might want to positively handle it. So, it’s just the sort of extension of that really.

So, it’s STOP, and using that to help you manage any feelings of anxiety, I think can be really, really helpful.

Laura: That’s great Lucinda. I think it’s really important for people just to have a little process that they can go through. What I would say as well is, as a family, as a unit, to come together to talk about. First of all yes, normalize it. My daughter told me, well, you know, she was a bit nervous to go to school, certain things about her anxiety. I think one, it’s important to use the language in your conversations and allow your child to develop that emotional intelligence so that they can use that language if they’re feeling that way. And where you talked about naming that emotion, you’re trying to help your child to navigate what is the emotion you’re experiencing. Is it anger? Is it frustration? Is it feeling sad? Is it feeling overwhelmed? And as they get older, they will hopefully be able to use some of that language. And that’s really important, especially as they become teenagers, that they can use that expressive language and that can be a way that they can process that emotion.

There may be other things you need to do at the time. To really also think about doing, for example, mindfulness exercises or breathwork exercises as a family. Not to feel that, okay, I’m feeling really overwhelmed. I’m going to have to step out of the room to do my breathwork. Actually say, look, this is what I’m going to do now to hopefully help me feel a bit better, and then your child will see that’s potentially a solution that they can use. Actually, we’re seeing so much more mental health in teenagers and children at the moment, as you said, and mental health problems. And actually, being able to role model what you do can help them to process and make it feel normal. We know that with panic attacks, one of the really good ways to try and relieve that panic, relieve anxiety is the breathwork. So, breathing in for four and breathing out for five, or doing box breathing. So, it’s square breathing. Lots of different techniques that you can use but do it together.

And we talked about escalation of emotions, but actually, there may be things you can do together, to prevent that emotion escalating to your full red zone, try and keep it in the amber and bring it back to green, if we’re looking at the traffic light model. But there are things that you can do with your child that can both role model and help them to manage their emotions.

Emotional literacy is so important for children. They’re saying that in schools that this is a really important part of the curriculum that they should be teaching children, as well as all the academics. It’s going to help them to navigate the world and some of the struggles that we’re potentially living in at the moment.

Lucinda: Yeah, absolutely. But it, that idea of naming your emotions is so important, isn’t it?

Laura: Absolutely.

Lucinda: Shall we talk a little bit about what clients can do to support parents who might be feeling anxious or experiencing problems with anxiety?

Laura: Yes, absolutely. I think the first thing as an employer, or as a manager, as a colleague, somebody in the organization, who’s looking out for other people, and we hope that everybody is anyway. But I think the first thing again is to recognize everybody has had a unique experience in the pandemic. Parents have had a difficult time as a group and that there are specific issues around, for example, separation anxiety and starting new roles, complexity of your routines. As I said before, change is not something that we naturally always love as human beings, we might be daunted by that. So, just recognizing that there are different experiences and there may be added pressures, added anxieties.

I was watching something recently where I really resonated with it, it was that how many times do you text your partner towards the end of the day when are you coming home? What time can you get home? How many more minutes is it going to be until you can come back into that family unit, if you are in a relationship.

I think recognizing that there are pressures now when people are going back into the hybrid model that maybe may feel uncomfortable and having that conversation as a manager or as an employer to find out what are you struggling with? Everybody’s struggling. I think it’s okay to use that terminology. What are you finding difficult? Really have those conversations and use open questions to try and find out what’s going on for people. That may be temporary, or it may be a bit more long-term. It may be, I’ll come back to what I said right at the beginning, that parents may be in a sandwich of caring responsibility, and it may be also that pressures are arising from, are you looking after an older adult or somebody with disabilities? That’s also putting additional pressure on how you spend your time.

So, finding out what people need, I think is a really important part, and thinking about what the organization can do, if anything. It may not be that the organization has the solution. There may be some things that can be done for example, to working patterns or days that you’re going in. There may be external support that people can be signposted to, or just by having the conversation people may be empowered to seek external support as well.

Lucinda: When I’m teaching managers, I quite often talk about having a toolkit in place. So, as a manager or someone who’s looking after people, what have you got in your toolkit that’s going to help you? So, things like knowing how to respond to someone who may come to you with an issue around anxiety. It’s about acknowledgment, about acknowledging that they’re experiencing somewhat something that’s difficult. And acknowledging, I think is really important that everybody brings their own layers of identity to that as well. There are going to be some people who find that really difficult, or more difficult than others, for various different reasons. Then, as a manager thinking about, well, am I the right person for them to be talking to? What do I do with this information? Knowing that you don’t have to have all the answers, but where can you add additional support? So, is it through an EAP, if you have one? Is it through occupational health? And also continuing to support that person by consistently providing the safe spaces, I think, to have those conversations so that they can be heard on an ongoing basis, is really important. Is there anything else that you think Laura, that employers can do?

Laura: I think, I think one of the issues, and I’d love to hear your opinion on this Lucinda, is that it’s hard to create those safe spaces in the workplace because typically there’s this conflict that, and it again goes back to that good enough role that we’re trying to achieve in all aspects of our lives, and we’re trying to excel at. If we talk to our manager or somebody about something that’s difficult for us at home, or maybe perceived as a conflict are we going to be judged? Or are we going to be perceived as weak or not good enough? Or dismissed for the next promotion or the next opportunity? How can we try and create the right space for these conversations to happen without judgment and fear, for both parties?

Lucinda: I think it’s a really lovely point. There’s I know, a subject that you and I are both fond of talking about when it comes to, how do you create safe spaces? And that is role modeling vulnerability, I think, is really important to do that.

Everybody has had a difficult time to one end or another over the last couple of years. In life, everybody has different challenges and different things that they’re dealing with. I think, as a manager or a leader, if you can show some of the vulnerability that feels comfortable to you, but that is ultimately going to make you seem more authentic and more approachable to your staff, that can really help encourage people to maybe then share some of the things that they are having challenges with, and encourage open conversations. I think it can be done on a one-to-one level, but it can also be really nicely done on a team level as well. Encouraging people to share on a team level about the different challenges that people might be facing, and how as a group of people, a group of humans, how can you support each other?

It’s really about acknowledging that people have a life outside of work, isn’t it? And that they are so intertwined. Particularly for working parents though, consistent juggling of the priorities can be hugely overwhelming. How can you acknowledge that and allow them to talk about that if they need to, within the workplace?

Laura: Yes, and I think it’s also very useful to have things like networks for parents to come together and seek peer-to-peer support and have those conversations. But when we think about networks to not think of them in silo, to really make sure that there is that additional team support, that it’s not just thought of as, okay, go to the parent’s network and they’ll sort it out for you.

Actually, peer-to-peer support is great but it’s also important that on a day-to-day basis there are these conversations happening, and the acknowledgment and then the additional layers can be put in place as well.

Lucinda: Yeah. I think the other thing I would just add that can sometimes be a bit of a challenge is trying to remove any assumptions. We talk a lot about assumptions when I’m working with managers. And really important to say that neurologically our brains are trained to make assumptions for us. We shouldn’t judge ourselves for any assumptions that we might be making, but it can be an easy assumption to make that just because someone is suffering from anxiety as a working parent that their needs and challenges are the same as someone else. And just making sure that you’re exploring it in a way that is appropriate to the individual, I think, from a support basis and also when you’re having a conversation is really, really important.

So, I think that’s all we’ve got time for today. It’s been a great conversation as always. Thank you so much, Laura, for all your insight you’ve brought to the podcast today.

Laura: And to you Lucinda. It’s been really great working with you on this. Thanks, everybody for listening, and just to let everyone know, we’ve got two other podcasts running which are on menopause and perimenopause, and also on perinatal mental health. So we look forward to you tuning in for those as well.

Lucinda: Absolutely and thank you so much for listening today.