Helping Children Overcome Fears and Anxiety

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Hello, friends. Today's podcast question says, "How can I help my young children with irrational fears or thoughts spiral out of control? My six-year-old fears tornadoes and volcanoes and cataclysmic natural disasters that she's never experienced. My nine-year-old fears the terrible illnesses her nurse auntie talked about at a family dinner."

Well, I think that many listeners can probably relate to this—to children having irrational fears, because many children struggle with anxiety. I even think about myself as a child. When I was in first grade, my teacher read us a book called Germs Make Me Sick, and it was just a book that was designed to help kids wash their hands and not cough on one another. However, the book freaked me out so much that I started washing my hands incessantly to the point that they were cracking and bleeding. And even to this day, I am an incessant hand washer.

And so what are we supposed to do when our children have these irrational fears, or they might even have rational fears but have just blown these things up out of proportion? How do we help them think and live biblically in such situations? That's the question we're going to dive down deep into today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast, where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I'm thrilled that you're joining me today for another episode.

Understanding the Biblical Framework: Body and Soul

Now, as we're thinking about addressing anxiety in our children, I think what we need to keep in mind from a biblical framework is that Scripture is clear that God has designed us as both physical and spiritual beings—that we are this intimate union of both body and soul. In the second chapter of Genesis, we see that God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, and then he breathed the breath of life, Adam's soul, into him.

So whenever we're seeking to help our children overcome a struggle, we want to help them according to this design that God has placed in them—that design for them as this intimate connection of both body and soul. So the first thing that I'm going to walk us through is how to address the problem of anxiety physically, and then the second thing I'm going to address is how to address it spiritually.

Addressing the Physical Root: Independence and Responsibility

When we think about addressing the physical, in the book The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt outlines how one of the many causes of anxiety in our children is the fact that they are not given proper opportunities to grow into independence and responsibility. And he shows in that book that when we infantilize our children, we are unintentionally sending them the message that every part of the world is dangerous and they need to be protected from it.

Now, we know from the biblical worldview that the world does contain dangers—that the world is fallen, that ground is cursed. However, creation is inherently good because God designed it. The fall has corrupted God's design, but it has not erased it. So while it's good for our children to have healthy fears, rational fears about the dangers in the world, it is not healthy for them to walk through life in this mode of fear and anxiety. However, when we don't help them grow into proper responsibility and independence, we are pushing this fear upon them, teaching them that they need to be protected from everything.

Now, God has designed our children with a need to take on responsibility and to contribute in meaningful ways both to family life and to society at large. This is made clear in the Bible when God gives Adam and Eve the command to have dominion over the earth, to fill it and subdue it—that God has designed us, he's created us as his representatives on the earth, and as his representatives, we exercise dominion over the rest of creation.

Developmentally Appropriate Independence

So this means that our children have this need to be growing in independence that is developmentally appropriate. Obviously, you are not going to send a two-year-old down the street a half a mile to collect the mail. That is not developmentally appropriate for a two-year-old. However, is that developmentally appropriate for a five-year-old with proper training? Absolutely.

So a physical way to address this root cause of anxiety is to give our children opportunities to grow into their God-given need for responsibility and independence. Now, there's not time on this podcast to outline at each stage how to go through developmentally appropriate stages of independence. However, we have released previous podcasts that have gone through the findings that are outlined in The Anxious Generation, and the third podcast in that series outlines developmentally appropriate ways to develop independence in our children. So I highly recommend you check out that episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast.

Let Grow Resources

Also, I highly recommend that you check out an organization called Let Grow. You can just go to letgrow.org and you can download their parent kit, and what their parent kit includes is a hundred different challenges—or it might even be more than a hundred—different challenges that your children can take on at different stages in their development to help them grow into their God-given need for responsibility and independence.

Now, Let Grow is not a Christian organization. It's a secular not-for-profit. However, I think that what they're doing in this parent kit aligns with God's design because it is helping us grow our children into this independence that they were designed for. And as our children take on new challenges and tasks, they realize that they have been designed, equipped to do this. And as they grow in understanding that they are equipped to take on life's challenges, their anxieties will naturally become less.

Now, a certain temperament of child may always have a natural disposition towards anxiety. Certain people are like that. I myself am like that. However, as we help our children grow in independence, that tendency is going to diminish. So that was addressing the physical aspect of the anxiety.

Addressing the Spiritual Root: Focusing on Truth

Now looking at addressing the spiritual aspect—when our children express fears, we can acknowledge their feelings. We can acknowledge that they're feeling scared or they're feeling nervous about something, and it is okay that they're feeling that way. However, we don't follow our feelings. We follow the truth. So what we're going to want to do is after we have said, "I'm so sorry you're feeling that way, that's not a fun way to be feeling," let's focus on what is true.

And the reason we need to do this is it's not enough just to address the fear. It's not enough just to rationally address a fear. If all of our fears were based in logic, most people would not be scared of things because we would just be able to talk ourselves out of it and be like, "Oh, clearly X, Y, and Z, so I'm going to be fine." It's not enough to just address it logically. We have to take off the fear and we also have to put on what is true. This is the New Testament pattern of putting off and putting on.

So we can't just address our children's fears logically. Now, addressing them logically can be a wise thing to do, but as we're trying to help them take off the fear, we have to put on what is true. So I think there's several truths that we can help our children focus on to calm them, to calm their spirit, to calm their soul as they are facing fears.

Understanding Rational vs. Irrational Fears

Because you know what? Some of our children's fears are irrational, like fearing volcanoes. If you do not live in an area where there are volcanoes, fearing volcanoes is an irrational fear. However, if you're fearing tornadoes and you live in tornado alley in the U.S., that might actually be a logical, rational-based fear. However, we know that we can trust God, that even if the worst happens, God will be faithful.

Grounding Children in God's Character

So I think the truths that we need to equip our children to put on are truths about God's character.

God is Infinite. God has no limits. We are limited in our ability to protect ourselves. We are limited in our ability to bring good out of the situations that we face. But God is not limited. God is infinite. This means that he can do the things that we cannot do. So while we are limited, God is not.

God is Omnipresent. He is everywhere. This means that God is always with us. We never have to fear God leaving us or forsaking us. He is always right here, present with us.

God is Wise. He always knows and does what is best. So even if we don't understand why something has happened or we don't like something that has happened, we can rest in the fact that God has allowed this circumstance to take place because he is wise. He always knows and does what is best.

God is Faithful. He always keeps his promises. And in His Word, God has promised that he will never leave us or forsake us. He's also promised that he will work all things together for our good through using all things to conform us more into the image of Jesus, His Son. So God's faithfulness, the fact that he always keeps his promises, means that we can trust in Him.

The Attributes of God Curriculum

So these and many other attributes of God should help bring us and our children great comfort and great peace. If you have never taken the children in your care through our Attributes of God curriculum here at Foundation Worldview, I highly recommend that you check out that curriculum. This format of looking at God's attributes and then what we should do based on those attributes is the exact format we take in that curriculum.

For the first 10 lessons, we look at God's incommunicable attributes—the attributes he alone possesses—and we group those attributes in groups of two. So we look at two attributes, and then we look at what is our response. How should we respond based on the fact that God possesses these two attributes?

Then in the second half of the curriculum, for the second, I think it's 12 or 13 lessons, we look at God's communicable attributes—the attributes that he graciously chooses to share with us. And we again couple those in groups of two and look at those attributes and then say, "Okay, based on these attributes, how should we respond?"

And so grounding our kids in a biblical understanding of who God is is the foundation that they spiritually need to be able to address the many different anxieties that they face, whether those anxieties are based on rational fears or irrational fears.

Summary: A Two-Part Approach

So again, just in summary, when we're thinking through helping our children face their anxieties, we first need to address the physical need—make sure that we are raising them according to God's design, helping them grow in their responsibility and independence. And we also need to address the spiritual need—understanding who God is so that they can rest in his character.

Take the Next Step

If you're looking for a practical, biblical way to help your children understand who God really is and find peace in His character, our Attributes of God curriculum is designed exactly for this purpose. This comprehensive resource takes children ages 4-9 through both God's incommunicable and communicable attributes, helping them build a foundation of truth they can stand on when fears threaten to overwhelm them. When your children truly understand that God is infinite, omnipresent, wise, and faithful, their anxieties will be met with the solid rock of biblical truth. Check out the Attributes of God curriculum today and equip your children with the spiritual tools they need to face their fears with confidence in God's unchanging character.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode. But if you have a question that you would like for me to address in a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that question by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God places in your care find yourselves, that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son.

I'll see you next time.