Who's regulating who? Understanding emotional co-regulation

When your child is anxious or dysregulated, do you find yourself feeling the same way? You're not failing as a parent. You're experiencing emotional co-regulation. Here's what's happening and how to break the cycle.

The anxiety feedback loop

This is something that keeps coming up in my sessions with parents and it is definitely something that I have found to be the case with my own children:

When our child is going through a particularly tough patch with anxiety or emotion regulation, it puts us in a bad place too. Of course it does. We care about our children, we want them to be ok, and it hurts us to see them hurting.

But more than that, we are humans, which means that our children's survival instinct is, as it should be, to signal us to help them when they are distressed. And our brains are hardwired to respond to their distress.

Why your anxiety makes their anxiety worse

Here's the challenge though: in those moments when our child is distressed, or anxious, or dysregulated, if we ourselves are also feeling like this, what we are actually doing is signalling back to them that:

• Something unsafe is happening

• Something isn't right

And this can in turn reinforce their feelings and basically make them feel worse.

If you picture it as a feedback loop, what is happening is that their emotions are "down regulating" ours, which is then looping right back round to theirs, and then back to us.

Breaking the anxiety cycle

What we want to try and do is say "no thanks" to their emotions, and instead project our calm, non-emergency-like feelings towards them instead.

Is it easy? Absolutely not.

But it's worth putting really conscious effort into staying a calm presence, rather than dashing to relieve them.

I found that this immediately helped my daughter through a tricky patch.

How to stay calm when your child is anxious

If we stop seeing their feelings as something they need to be rescued from, then we can project our calm instead, and show them that they will be ok.

Give it a try by using phrases like:

• "I see that you are finding this difficult. I am here and I know you will be ok."

• "It's ok for you to feel this way."

• "We have time for you to feel this way and let it out."

• "I'm here with you."

And see how your calm presence regulates them.

Learning to be the calm in their storm

If you're finding it difficult to stay calm when your child is anxious, you're not alone. This is one of the skills we work on together in parent-led anxiety support.

Book a free discovery call to discuss strategies for managing your own emotions whilst supporting your anxious child, or join my mailing list for ongoing tips and support.

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About the Author

Katrina Batey is a trained SPACE anxiety treatment provider, mental health coach, and parent to a daughter who had selective mutism. She supports families across the UK and internationally to help anxious children build confidence and resilience. Learn more about Katrina.