As someone who has a 7-year-old niece and plans to have children of her own the authors distress about the conditions of her own and her children's future sanity is one I can understand. I respected that the author brought importance to the distinction between anxiety disorders and feelings of anxiousness. There is a difference between having a debilitating anxiety disorder and feeling anxious. Anxious feelings shouldn't be taught to be avoided but rather, how to be lived with. The authors quote stating, “The worse that the numbers get about our kids’ mental health—the more anxiety, depression, and suicide increase—the more fearful parents become. The more fearful parents become, the more they continue to do the things that are inadvertently contributing to these problems" truly encapsulated the loop I see with so many of my own clients. It was incredibly to read about how childhood anxiety disorders such as phobias can follow you into adulthood.
Reading more extensively about Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) was riveting. A lot of the behaviors the author expressed are learned behaviors and I took time to reflect on my own childhood and ways my parents accommodated me with my anxiety and wonder how that would have looked differently if the SPACE program was implemented. However, I wonder how researchers would respond with using SPACE with unmotivated parents - which unfortunately I see more of than unmotivated children. I also can see SPACE being implemented with parents of neurodiverse children. I suspect it would have to be a much slower process. Almost all of my clients remind me of Owen and his turkey loaf.