Why Reassurance Can Make Teen Anxiety Worse — and What to Do Instead

Reassurance seeking from kids or tweens or teens may sound something more like, do you think I studied enough for this test? Do think I'm gonna do okay? Does this dress look okay? Are you sure it looks okay?

And I think when it becomes more of a loop

Yes.

And it feels repetitive, you know, even if it's not the same question.

There's really an anxiety clearer component in there.

Welcome back to the Parenting Peer Podcast. I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen. And I'm Dr. Annalise Caron. And today, we're gonna talk about something that a lot of parents of teens and tweens run into, reassurance seeking. So this is when your teen or tween might ask you a question like, you know, is this okay?

Am I doing the right thing? But not once, over and over and over. And we're gonna really talk about what's going on kind of in the anxious brain. Mhmm. Why this happens?

How sometimes what we are doing to try to help them actually can backfire and reinforce anxiety and how to think about this and maybe what to try instead.

And when I think about reassurance seeking, I think of a story that I can share about myself that comes to mind because it's a time that I can think of where a little bit of reassurance seeking went into my life about, I don't know, ten or fifteen years ago, friends of ours got us tickets to the US Open. I've never been to a professional tennis match. This was very exciting for me. Super excited to go. We get there, wait in line.

It's all great. We get to the, what's it called? Stadium? CS. Thank you.

When the match is being played, it's the evening, and we go to our seats. And our seats were way up in the nosebleeds, like, way, way, way far away from the court. You could still be still at a great view. But and we're walking up and walking up, and I get and I'm doing fine. And I get to the top where we're going into our row, and I start to feel really dizzy, and I start to feel really scared, and my heart is racing.

And I'm holding on to the seats, and I finally get to my seat and sit down, and I just grab my husband's shirt. And I literally held my husband's shirt for the rest of the time we were there. I every time I looked towards the match, I felt like I was going to tumble out of my seat down onto the court. I pictured myself doing that, like, maybe landing in the middle of the match, and it would be a long way down. And every time I looked, I felt dizzy.

And so I just kept saying to myself, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna and so I was sort of repeating to that to myself. I was sort of holding on to my husband's shirt and trying to act cool, but I couldn't even look at the match. Oh, you missed it.

I missed the match. I don't know how long the match took. It felt like forever. And I stared away from the match at my husband's shirt or my friend sitting next to me. And I even said to him a couple times, like, I'm gonna get out of here without falling.

Right? Like, it like, I'm gonna get down the stairs, stop falling. Right? And this is so out of the blue for me. I'm someone who's, you know, skied, been on chairlifts.

I've climbed mountains. I've done a lot of things with heights. Never had this reaction before, but my I did a lot of things in there in that moment of anxiety, including seeking my husband's reassurance about something that I knew wasn't going to happen logically. I knew I wasn't going to somersault down the entire set of hundreds, what felt like thousands of stairs Yeah. Out of by the way, I've another thing that I've done is avoid all tennis matches since never been again.

Okay. This is yeah. We're working on this today. So we're gonna circle back to this story.

But but why did I I

highlighted that. Because I think we can all relate to it that, you know, when we feel scared or we feel uncertain that often we look to others for reassurance. You were asking your husband like, you know, I'm not gonna fall down these stairs, am I? Right? You were holding on to him for that sense of security.

You were looking at a friend. You were looking away from the scary thing. Right? I I can so relate to that. You know, unfortunately for my family, I love to travel, but I hate to fly.

And when I'm on planes, I know every sound, every movement, you know, I could fly that plane with my own mind, which I should never try. So but when there is something that's unfamiliar that happens on it, the first thing I do is I am scanning everywhere looking for a flight attendant because I want to see what they look like. And if they are just passing out drinks and throwing snacks to people, I I that completely reassures me

just looking for them. It's like, okay. If they're fine, then I'm fine, and we can move on here. And so that seeking that reassurance by sort of assessing what their face what the what the flight attendant's face looks like or me asking my husband for reassurance or even doing the things like holding his shirt and looking away and never going back to a tennis match. Those things are called safety behaviors.

That's what psychologists call safety behaviors because in the moment they make us feel more comfortable, I felt more comfortable looking away from the tennis match that was so far down below. You feel more comfortable when you see the flight flight attendant is acting acting normal. Right? But the tricky thing about safety behaviors, these things that we do when we feel anxious, is that they actually inadvertently can teach us or teach our brains that we can't handle a situation without doing them, you know, that we won't be okay unless we do that thing. And I think that that's kind of the differentiation here between, you know, we all do this to some degree or extent, right, look for

things that make us feel safe or move closer to people or ask for, you know, help or support. And so we're not we don't wanna overpathologize that,

you

know, a certain amount of safety behaviors, you know, is probably to be expected and may even be at times kind of, you know, feel like healthy coping, but that it can increase over time. And I would even argue, right, like that your experience of that leading to avoidance of all future tennis matches. We see our teens and tweens, right, avoiding things, not doing things, feeling like they're unable to do things unless they have a friend with them, a sibling, someone who's gonna reassure them or help them through it. When it's impacting their their functioning or their well-being or their sense of self, or it's becoming so repetitive that it's hurting relationships because reassurance seeking can be very frustrating and and annoying

to The person who has to provide the reassurance. I am confident that my husband didn't adore me holding on to his shirt through the whole match or even staring at him. It may have interfered with his ability to enjoy the tennis match. Right. It might have been a little bit irritating.

But let's bring this sort of ground this in some parent centered examples that you might have experienced. So reassurance seeking from kids or tweens or teens Mhmm. May sound something more like, do you think I studied enough for this test? Do think I'm gonna do okay? Does this dress look okay?

Are you sure it looks okay? Do you think it's, you know, okay for the you know, it's gonna be as good as everybody else's? You know? Questions like that. Did did I offend you?

Are you sure I didn't offend you? Mhmm. Do you think I offended her? Mhmm. Right.

And and I think, you know, we delineate, right, the healthy asking is kind of one time, a few times getting just trying to get some information. When it becomes more of a loop

Yes.

And it feels repetitive, you know, even if it's not the same question. You know, is there anything on my face? Do I look okay? Is this outfit alright? Right?

But it's so there may

be different questions, but it's very repetitive. There's really an anxiety clear component in there because you're right. We don't wanna say we do think, you know, seeking help or asking questions can really be a sign of health. So we're not at all saying if your if your child or teen asks you a question that that's a problem or seeks reassurance about something. Because if it's not driven by anxiety, they're probably helped by that and then move on.

The way that it becomes more reassurance seeking that's problematic is when it's more repetitive, when the question's asked over and over again, or if it seems to help for a little while, but then they need that reassurance again.

And you know, this can feel very demanding at times that being the person who provides this level of reassurance, It can feel very frustrating. You know, sometimes parents experience this as their teen or tween is kind of being defiant or difficult because they're kind of demanding answers or demanding that a parent do something or take care of something or respond in a certain way over and over. And so this can be, you know, incredibly challenging within a family.

And I think that's why it's really important to keep in mind if you're experiencing that or if you're noticing that your child or teen's attempts to seek reassurance from you to ask a question over and over again is sort of bothering you know, becoming too demanding or coming too difficult or maybe even annoying to you to remind yourself that this really may be coming from an underlying anxiety and not just that they're not listening to you or not respecting what you say because it can be very frustrating. So holding that in mind is really important. And I also think it's important to understand the why. The why that the your teen or tween is coming and doing this is because, you know, reassurance seeking or seeking reassurance from someone is kind of like a sugar rush. Right?

Like, it feels really good in the moment, and then it sort of drops off. And so when when your teen or tween comes and asks you the question, like, did I study enough? Did I do well enough in this test? Do you think I'm gonna be okay? It feels better when you your child or teen feels better when you say, yeah.

I think I think you studied plenty. You should feel great about that. And so then they feel calmed by you. But the thing is what what that inadvertently teaches them is that they need to get that reassurance to feel okay. So that works maybe for a few hours, maybe for half an hour, but then the thought comes back and, oh, how do I get rid of that thought?

I seek reassurance again. So though in the short term, it makes someone feel betty better and sort of alleviates their anxiety, in the long term, providing that reassurance over and over again actually makes their anxiety bigger because they kind of learn, I need to get reassurance to be okay. As opposed to learning, I can feel this uncertainty or this anxiety and handle it myself and move forward, you know, and do it anyway. And when people do that more, then they tend to lead need less reassurance over time. Mhmm.

So it it teaches our brain that what we need is the reassurance, and it also then doesn't provide the practice that all of us need in tolerating uncertainty and doing the thing anyway. Going to the class, taking the test, getting on the stage.

And then Right. And you never learn that you can handle that uncertainty, which is the point.

Yeah. And and a really hard lesson to learn because none of us like it. But the unfortunate truth for all of us is that many things, most most things, dare I say, are uncertain in life. We're not exactly sure how they're gonna turn out, and we wanna help encourage bravery and, you know, a sense of efficacy in our kids that even when things are uncertain that they can face them and move forward.

Yeah. And we can do that in a very validating way. So I think we should move over to so what can parents do? Right? Your your child is coming to you.

Your child is asking these questions. You're maybe feeling frustrated. It seems like they're remaining anxious about, you know, different things. I think I I I would start with you you can answer the question. It's not that we're saying don't ever provide reassurance.

But I would really after you answer the question once, maybe twice max, putting it back on them, what do you think? You've been in this situation before. You know, beginning to help them see that they can answer their own question Mhmm. Right, is helpful. And that's just a little bit of a move instead of it all, you know, kind of relying on a parent to provide that reassurance.

They can learn to, you know, provide some of that reassurance to themselves. Mhmm.

And if they struggle with that, sometimes I've had kids, you know, in my office during this discussion respond with like, but I can't think clearly, I can't remember in the moment, I'm too anxious, that sometimes a parent's saying, remember I answered that question for you earlier, or do you remember what I said yesterday when this came up? So trying to help them kind of connect to a memory of maybe another time. So while they may not then be answering that question themselves, they're thinking about, well, my mom said to me yesterday that, you know, just do your best and it'll work out fine, you know, or whatever it is. And then maybe they can start incorporating that into their own kind of self talk. Right.

Using that reminder of like, do you remember when I answered that question for you yesterday?

Yeah. And then I think there's also a role for parents to kind of just what you were just saying, Suzanne, highlight that there's always some uncertainty, not in a mean way. You can do that in a very validating and kind way. Well, no. You might fail.

You might not. That's not what we're saying.

We never know what's gonna happen. Life's wild.

Be careful when you leave. No. We're not saying that. But you could sort of gently highlight, like, you know what, honey? I wish I could tell you that you're gonna get a 100 on that test.

I can't. I can't promise you that, but I know that I've seen you study really hard, and I'm proud of you for that. And that's that's how it goes. We we never are quite sure, but I know you've you've really put the effort in.

And here's the thing about teens and tweens. Right? And I would say kids too, like, they're pretty wise to the world. And so while it can feel good momentarily for them and for us to say, I know you're gonna do great. Please don't do that.

Yeah. Because you don't know, and they don't know, and that's why they're asking you. And so sometimes being really honest about that, I think actually opens up some honest dialogue. It's hard to hear, but you saying to them like, gosh, I just don't know, but here's what I do know. Right?

Right. Helps expose them to some of that anxiety.

And it's really about them getting the message from you that you believe in them. That really helped them. That really helps them over time learn to believe in themselves and feel great regardless of if they do well on the test. It's a hard one, but that's what we wanna give. I'm, you know, I'm not sure about this specific one thing, but I know you've given it what you've got.

You know? Or Mhmm.

Yep. The other thing I like to recommend to parents is to name the anxiety and call it out. Mhmm. And and whatever you wanna call it, you know, can work different things for different teens and families. You know, when a a young person is asking a question over and over again, you know, you know what?

It it doesn't sound like you're asking me that question. This sounds like the anxiety is asking me that question. And I think calling that out not only helps your teen to increase the awareness about it, but then I also think it supports you in any of these interventions you try. So if you say to them, you know, if you're wanting to kind of answer the question once and then hand it back to them, if you're saying, you know what, I think that's the anxiety getting in here and asking me this question, and so I've answered it once, and I'm not going to answer it again because I want to help you and not help the anxiety. Right.

It all ties in. So if you call the anxiety out, you you can use some of these strategies more effectively so that they may feel less like you're trying to be difficult. You're blocking them from reassurance. You're withholding it from them. Because the truth is following these steps is not withholding anything from them.

It's withholding from the anxiety.

Right. Right. And it's really placing you on the same team with your child or teen kind of against the anxiety when you make that differentiation. So that's a really helpful point. I I also think it's important to pay attention and notice the wins.

Because typically, if a child or teen is experiencing this kind of anxiety and has this urge to ask for reassurance all of the time, or or frequently, not all of the time, there are going to be times that they face things and handle some uncertainty themselves. And if you can without seeking reassurance, if you can notice that, hey. I noticed you did that really hard thing or that that might be something that I could imagine would make me nervous. Like, you should really feel good about, you know, how you walk into that room with new people or how you, you know, I don't know, what went to school even though you didn't know if, you know, whatever you were having.

Friend was gonna be there.

Right. Right. And so noticing times that they have, had a little bit of that, you know, bravery or just willingness to accept some uncertainty and do it anyway, that can go a long way for them to learn about themselves that they're a person that can do that.

And it feels so good. It feels so good when someone notices something positive about you. Yeah.

It just is. Yeah. A 100%. I I think that brings us, Suzanne, to our what now?

Yeah. Right? I think it does.

And I, you know, I kinda think it's just this idea that reassurance is short term comfort but long term fuel for anxiety. Right? So we answer it once, and then we return the question to them. What do they think? And really validate them and believe in their ability to see the answer to their question.

Mhmm. I I think that's a great mantra for parents to keep in mind, and we would also encourage that if you're finding this really challenging, if you try some of these strategies and it just seems like there's a lot of conflict, your teen or tween's anxiety is maintaining, to seek out extra help and support because this isn't always easy to manage.

And and sometimes we need help from other providers. Channel health providers or your pediatrician or, just to get some guidance. Yep. Because it is it is very burnout inducing if the feedback you're giving someone feels as though it's not being received. And it's really not that your child or teen isn't receiving it, it's that the anxiety is taking over.

Yeah. And sometimes when that's too loud We've gotta

get help turning the volume down.

Yep. Yeah. I hope we hope that everyone enjoyed this conversation and found it helpful. If you did, we would love for you to share this with another parent. Or after you finish listening today, rate and review the podcast.

When you do that, it really helps us become more searchable and gets this information out to parents and teens, and that is really our goal is to be able to share useful information in very quick snippets so that it's manageable within your day.

And one other thing I might say is you could even share that if you have a teen that you think might be experiencing some anxiety and maybe is engaging in reassurance seeking and maybe you've maybe gotten frustrated with them. You can even share this with your child or teen and say, hey. I listened to this, and it made a lot of sense. And you know what? I'm sorry.

I think I think I might have gotten frustrated, you know, with you about something that was really being driven by anxiety. So just another thing to think about sharing this. Your your teen or tween or child might, enjoy learning about it as well. I love that. As always, if you have any feedback for us, don't hesitate to send us an email at hello@theparentingpair.com or DM us on Instagram at the parenting pair.

Ask once, move on, and have a great week. And now a quick word from our lawyers. The Parenting Pair Podcast is designed for informational and educational purposes only. Do not rely on the information presented in this podcast as a substitute or replacement for professional psychological or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have concerns about you or a family member's well-being, please contact a licensed mental health professional or physician.