ANXIETY & kids, a deeper look

Anxiety: What It Is and What It Isn’t

Hey parents and teachers, what’s up? It’s me, Seth Perler from SethPerler.com.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about anxiety, but in a slightly different way. I think that, as a culture, we often get confused about what anxiety actually is. In this video, I want to help differentiate between what anxiety is and what it isn’t, especially in the kinds of conversations you may be having with your spouse, other teachers, or other adults who work with kids.

My name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach based in Boulder, Colorado. I help struggling students navigate this thing called education.

We hear a lot about students with anxiety these days, and it’s a really important topic. When someone truly has anxiety, it can be debilitating. It can hold them back in life.

As parents and educators, we’re trying to help children grow up and have fantastic lives. So if there’s something potentially debilitating that we can help them navigate—in this case, anxiety—then we want to do everything we can to support them.

One of the first things I want to mention is that I have personally struggled with legitimate anxiety. I’ll talk more about that in a minute, but the reason I bring it up is because when I went through that period of my life, something became very apparent to me.

There were many people I talked to who had never experienced real anxiety themselves. Because of that, it was difficult for them to understand what I was going through.

I remember people saying things like:

“Just don’t worry about it.”

“Why are you letting it bother you?”

“Why is your mind going there?”

So I want to start by saying this: if you’ve never experienced severe anxiety, it’s important to understand that it’s not something a person can simply turn on and off like a light switch.

Think back to a time when you had strep throat, the flu, a terrible cold, a migraine, or severe back pain. Imagine someone saying to you, “Just turn off your headache,” or “Just stop having the flu.”

That’s what it’s like when someone is struggling with anxiety. You can’t simply turn it off.

Now, I want to differentiate between anxiety and anxious feelings.

Everyone experiences anxiety at times.

That may sound contradictory because I just said some people haven’t experienced anxiety in the way I’m describing. But everyone has experienced anxious moments.

For example, imagine someone almost hits your car. They honk, you slam on the brakes, and for a moment you’re startled.

Your body just experienced anxiety.

Your nervous system perceived a threat and reacted accordingly.

Or imagine a dog suddenly starts barking aggressively at you. You didn’t see it coming, and your nervous system immediately responds.

In situations like these, your nervous system says, “This might be dangerous.”

Then, once the threat passes and you realize you’re safe, your nervous system regulates itself again.

That’s normal.

What I’m referring to as “true anxiety”—for lack of a better term—is something different. I’m talking about anxiety attacks, panic attacks, or chronic anxiety.

When someone experiences this kind of anxiety, they feel as though they are under threat even when there is no immediate danger. Their nervous system is acting as though they are unsafe.

They’re moving in and out of fight, flight, or freeze mode. Their adrenal glands are releasing adrenaline. Their heart rate increases. They are having a genuine physical experience.

So I want to make a distinction.

There is normal anxiety, where something genuinely alarming happens and your nervous system responds appropriately before regulating again.

Then there is chronic anxiety, panic attacks, and anxiety disorders, where the nervous system remains activated and doesn’t easily return to a regulated state.

As parents, teachers, and adults who work with children, it’s important to be aware of this distinction.

Whether you’ve experienced anxiety yourself or not, we need to ask:

Is the child we’re working with dealing with occasional anxiety, or are they struggling with significant anxiety, panic attacks, or an anxiety disorder?

That distinction matters.

One challenge is that anxiety isn’t always visible.

This is why attunement is so important.

The more we learn to attune, co-regulate, and notice what’s happening in another person’s nervous system, the better equipped we’ll be to help.

When we become skilled at recognizing what’s happening beneath the surface, we’re able to support children much more effectively.

On one hand, we can use our own regulated nervous system to help co-regulate theirs.

As adults, we can remain emotionally grounded and communicate safety—not necessarily through words, but through our presence.

Our nervous system can communicate:

“You’re safe.”

“I’m here for you.”

“We’re going to get through this.”

On the other hand, when we become more attuned, we’re better able to reflect what we’re noticing.

We might say:

“Hey, I notice you seem a little tense.”

“Are you feeling anxious right now?”

Then we can help the child explore what’s happening.

What’s going on in their body?

What thoughts are they having?

What’s the story they’re telling themselves?

How can we help them move through it?

The important thing to remember is that people do not have to stay stuck in chronic anxiety.

Now, I’m not saying it’s easy.

For me, it took about three years to recover from panic attacks and an anxiety disorder.

After being in a coma for ten days, I came out of that experience without understanding what anxiety or panic attacks were. Then I started having panic attacks related to the trauma of that experience.

It took a long time to retrain both my thoughts and my nervous system.

I had to teach myself that I was safe.

I had to teach my nervous system that it didn’t need to remain on high alert all the time.

When we’re living with chronic anxiety, we’re constantly scanning for danger. It’s like standing in a guard tower, always looking for threats.

We don’t need to live that way.

But my nervous system didn’t know that.

It was stuck in a guarded state.

That’s what panic felt like for me. It felt as though I was constantly waiting for something bad to happen.

One final thing I’d like to mention is that many people experiencing true anxiety don’t even realize that’s what’s happening.

Sometimes anxiety becomes so normalized that a person assumes everyone feels that way.

They adapt to it.

But we don’t have to live in a constant state of anxiety, and it certainly isn’t healthy for us.

So I just wanted to shed a little light on that.

Again, my name is Seth Perler. I’m an executive function coach based in Boulder, Colorado, and I help students navigate this thing called education.

Anxiety is a very real issue. It’s something many students experience, and it can significantly interfere with their ability to execute, learn, and ultimately do the things they want to do in life.

That’s why we need to take it seriously and provide meaningful support when we see it.

Take care, and I’ll see you next Sunday.