How much parental anxiety is normal?

This summer, my nine-year-old son wanted to spend the night on the beach without me. We were on holiday together in Italy. Our holiday camp had a children's and youth programme that offered an overnight stay on the beach once a week. The group was supposed to leave after dinner and come back the next morning for breakfast together. My son was by far the youngest. He was keen and enthusiastic, not a bit hesitant. In complete contrast to me. What if he got scared at night? If he tried to go back alone? If he got lost? My mind even asked the absurd question: what if he went to the sea in the dark to swim?

«Mum, can I?» my son asked, left with his sleeping mat and sleeping bag and came back the next morning beaming. My no-anxiety mantras, on the other hand, had hardly helped me against the thoughts of what-could-happen. I had slept badly.

Besides, I didn't like myself. I didn't want my children to remember me as an eternally worried mother hen with a thick worry line. Where had my lightness gone? How much anxiety was actually still normal?

Even before I became a mum, I was familiar with sayings like «With children come fears» or «Small children, small worries; big children, big worries». I thought they were old-fashioned, unhelpful and just plain daft.

I developed a tremendous protective instinct immediately after the pregnancy test.

Of course I wanted to be a relaxed mum. One who gives her children plenty of freedom and trust. One who encourages them to try things out and doesn't hold them back in their thirst for discovery, but supports them. I wanted to say to them «Have courage» and «You can do it». At least that's the theory.

As soon as the pregnancy test came back positive, I developed a tremendous protective instinct towards this little being that was growing inside me. My joy was accompanied by quiet doubts as to whether I would be able to fulfil this task.

There was so much that had to be taken into account during pregnancy. This assumption was fuelled by doctors, the grandparents-to-be and also by outsiders. An experience that many expectant parents and especially mothers have.

It seemed as if having children was actually a crazy project where a lot could go wrong. This awe doesn't diminish when you hold the baby in your arms and go home with the little one. Our instinct tells us that we will protect this fragile, wonderful being with everything we have.

Fear is rooted in our genes

From then on, we are internally conditioned to recognise and avert all dangers in good time. «There is nothing inherently wrong with this conditioning. Nature intended it that way. It wants us and our offspring to survive. Fear is our warning system and is designed to protect us from danger,» says psychologist and family researcher Annette Cina. She works at the Institute for Family Research and Counselling at the University of Freiburg and has three children herself.

It is therefore perfectly right and normal for us as parents to weigh up what we can trust our child to do and what we should support them with. «He or she can do it» may correspond to our wishful thinking, but it is not always the right option.

«Younger children often don't have an adequate sense of what they can and can't do. They simply don't always know how to judge a situation,» says Cina. Who hasn't sprinted after a child on a balance bike towards a red traffic light? Who hasn't stood on a climbing frame in a state of alert, arms raised to the sky to prevent a fall?

Fear is our warning system and is designed to protect us from danger.

Annette Cina

It is easy to smile at or criticise this parenting behaviour from an outside perspective. «Don't be so helicopter-like» is a pious piece of advice that is also often given by childless people, as is: «Anxious parents have anxious children. Courageous parents have courageous children.» But is that true?

Susanne Mudra, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, works as a senior physician at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf and is investigating the extent to which this assumption is true. Since 2015, she has been researching how parents' feelings influence children as part of the PAULINE study.

In fact, the interplay between parental anxiety and child development is not as simple as many assume. In the study, parents' worries often had an impact on children's behaviour. «If I as a parent avoid certain anxiety- or stress-inducing stimuli, I often transfer this to my child,» says Mudra.

An example: If a parent is very afraid of dogs and therefore consciously keeps their distance, perhaps changes sides of the road or is extremely tense as soon as an animal approaches, the child will very likely also perceive dogs as a danger. Parents don't even have to say «Be careful, it could bite». Children have perfect antennae for their parents' feelings; even a frown or a firm handshake tells them how to assess something.

The decision as to whether to encourage a child to take risks or to admonish them to be careful is a very individual one.

But interaction with the parents is not everything. How courageous, adventurous or cautious and prudent a child acts also depends on (epi)genetic and prenatal influences as well as the child's temperament.

«Children are born with a different repertoire of behaviour and regulation strategies,» says Susanne Mudra. In turn, parents react to this temperament and are faced with the challenge of reading the child's signals and responding to them as sensitively as possible. Mums and dads who have a particularly bold child may tend to put the brakes on the child, while parents of a child who is already more reserved may want to encourage them.

The decision as to whether a parent should encourage a child to take risks or admonish them to be careful is therefore a very individual one.

Children must be able to try things out for themselves

Sometimes this also varies greatly within a family. My sister's first-born son was already very cautious as a toddler. He only ventured into new things after careful observation and some hesitation.

His younger brother has always been a «danger seeker», he seeks out danger. His system is to immediately throw himself into the unknown, including accidents. Everyone has this in mind, because of course no carer wants a laceration, an ambulance ride or a wait in the emergency room.

«There is no development without exploration,» says psychologist and family researcher Annette Cina. «If we try to organise everything so that nothing can happen, we deprive children of the opportunity to learn for themselves what they can deal with and how.»

According to the expert, this also deprives them of the opportunity to develop a basic trust in themselves. Because self-confidence and self-efficacy develop when you have the feeling that you are generally safe and are allowed to try things out. It is also important to realise that not everything always has to be a success. If something goes wrong, it's not a disaster.

«Children become more autonomous from the day they are born. Parents have to constantly and repeatedly detach themselves from them. That causes anxiety,» says Jeannette Fischer. The psychoanalyst from Zurich is the author of the book «Angst - vor ihr müssen wir uns fürchten». She is also co-director of the documentary film «Lisa and Yvonne» , which deals with the transfer of fear from a former Verdingkind to his daughter.

As parents, we have to accompany our children through the many stages of detachment. «For example, if a child wants to spend the night with a friend for the first time, but is actually still accompanied to sleep, you can still try it,» says Jeannette Fischer. «The only thing that can happen is that you have to pick up your child at night.» The child will not be harmed. It may be inconsolable in the situation, but it also learns what it can and cannot do.

When I think back to my childhood, I had plenty of opportunities to practise falling and getting up. I grew up as the daughter of a single working woman. My mum often didn't know where my two siblings and I spent our afternoons due to a lack of time. But the other parents didn't seem to care much either.

Did our parents' generation generally have less fear for us?

The rule was that we had to be back home for dinner. Sometimes my friends and I got lost between fields and woods or in the streets of our suburb and had to find our way back somehow. Every now and then my mum would say at dinner when we told her about our experiences: «You had a guardian angel.» Was she scared? She didn't seem that way. Did our parents' generation generally have less fear for us?

Many parents today worry whether they are encouraging their children enough.

«Parents are much closer to their children today than they used to be,» says psychologist Julia Tomuschat. She has long been concerned with the question of what gives children and adults good self-confidence and has written the guidebook «Nest warmth that gives wings» on this topic.

On the one hand, it is good that mums and dads today want to be more aware of their children's feelings and problems. On the other hand, this closeness often limits the children's freedom and room for manoeuvre, says Tomuschat, because: «If I don't know something, I don't worry about it.»

Fear is always an indication and at the same time an opportunity to develop further.

Society's expectations of parents and their role in raising their children have also increased. According to Julia Tomuschat, many parents feel that they are taking responsibility for their children's careers. A new fear of today's generation of parents is whether they are taking enough time to support their children. Do they accompany their children sufficiently in their everyday school life? Are they helping them to integrate and make friends?

This is well-intentioned, says Tomuschat, «but if parents take on all these tasks for their children, they can't learn what is their own responsibility.» A bad exam because they haven't practised beforehand can also have a learning effect. «And making friends in a group or in an unfamiliar situation is an important social skill that everyone has to develop.»

Instead of worrying about uncertainties as parents, you can also ask the teachers: How is my child doing at the moment - in terms of performance and in the classroom? If they give the all-clear, you can simply let your child get on with it. «They don't have to excel, they just have to be happy.»

«We can't simply switch off fears»

Our own experiences often play a role in the fears we harbour about our children, says Julia Tomuschat. Whenever children enter a certain developmental phase, our memories of our own biography are reactivated. «It's like a parallel track.»

So when we as parents worry about our children, it's worth remembering that anxiety is always an indication and at the same time an opportunity to develop further. Or as Julia Tomuschat says: «We can deal with negative beliefs and feelings that we unconsciously carried with us from our childhood and ask ourselves whether they are still appropriate.» The first step in dealing with parental fears is therefore to consciously reflect on our own patterns.

Children are allowed to realise that their parents are afraid in certain situations.

«We shouldn't trivialise our fears, but we shouldn't pathologise them either,» says child and adolescent psychiatrist Susanne Mudra. «We can't simply switch off our fears.» But once we recognise that certain fears restrict us and take away our freedom and zest for life, we can deal with them and find strategies for dealing with them by talking to our partner, our social environment or professional helpers.

For example, we can ask friends with children of the same age or older how they dealt with certain situations. When were their children allowed to cycle to school? When were they allowed to go to the swimming pool alone? How long are their teenagers allowed to go out and what are the rules for going home? The exchange helps to rationalise the - often justified - concerns.

Hiding your own fears from your children doesn't work

If necessary, we can also go to a low-threshold counselling service and get help there. «It's much better to seek counselling at an early stage if you have parental concerns or stress than to let weeks or years go by that may have a lasting negative impact on the child's experience and parenthood,» says Mudra. Just one counselling appointment can sometimes be enough to better assess your own concerns.

«There's no point in simply trying to hide your fears from your children. That doesn't work because we also express our emotions non-verbally,» says Annette Cina. If we don't want our parental fears to be transferred unconsciously, it helps to deal with them openly and constructively. As soon as children are old enough, negative feelings can be addressed.

We all need the conviction to master even challenging situations.

«You should make it clear that the worry concerns you and not the child itself,» says psychoanalyst Jeannette Fischer. «The message should be: I'm struggling with this situation. And not: You have to be afraid of this and take good care of yourself. Otherwise the parents' fear will be transferred to the children, and that's something that needs to be prevented.»

Children may realise that their parents are stressed or anxious in certain situations - and then look for a good way to deal with their fears. With a younger child, a sentence like «I'm a bit nervous and anxious now, but we'll see if we can manage it well» works.

You can discuss the situation with a teenager. Does your daughter or son want to go out alone at night for the first time? Then you can discuss what behaviour will protect them. You can talk about alcohol, drugs and harassment without appearing suspicious or panicky. You can agree on rules that are non-negotiable. It's not about ignoring existing dangers, but about teaching people how to deal with them sensibly, says Jeannette Fischer.

Provide the child with approaches for action in the event of external crises

«This also applies to crises that are brought to families from outside. Wars, climate crises and pandemics can create the feeling of being at the mercy of the world,» says Cina. It helps if we provide approaches to such existential issues, for example by showing how we can behave in an environmentally friendly way or how we can help people in crisis areas.

«We will deal with it and find a way is an approach that we should exemplify and pass on to children,» says the psychologist. We all need the conviction to master challenging situations and trust in our interactions.

While my son spent the night at the beach and I waited sleeplessly at holiday camp, I thought about my own teenage nights. My mum often didn't know exactly when I would be coming home from a party. But she had always clarified in advance who I was travelling with and what the emergency plan was.

When I sat at the breakfast table in the morning, she would sometimes say something like: «That was pretty late tonight.» She had her eyes on me. She was probably worried too. But her will to trust me was stronger.

When my nine-year-old came back to the holiday camp in the morning, I could tell he was relieved, although he acted very nonchalant in front of the older boys in his group. «The sea was really loud and the sand was scratchy,» he said. «But you get used to it. Easy.» «Are you proud?» I asked him. «Yes, of you,» my son said and laughed out loud at his joke. «Me too,» I replied. I thought I had every reason to be.

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