The Anxious Generation
Understanding Contemporary Anxiety Through a Relational Lens
By Cassidy Thind
Over the past decade or two, many clinicians have noticed something that feels different about the way anxiety shows up in children and adolescents. Increasingly, families describe young people who become overwhelmed by uncertainty, transitions, and social expectations in ways that seem more persistent than what we’ve seen in past generations. Yet, we have the most relational, compassionate, caring, and attuned parents today resulting in more secure bonds, and closer family relationships. Could there be a relationship between over-accommodating in parenting and anxiety? And, more importantly, how can we utilize these amazing, safe, secure, attached familial bonds in a way that promotes confidence and resilience?
These patterns are reflected in broader trends: rates of anxiety and internal distress among youth have risen significantly over recent years.
Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation offers a compelling lens for understanding this pattern by identifying broad shifts in how childhood has unfolded over the last 15–20 years. Haidt describes what he calls a “great rewiring of childhood”, a period in which the emotional and social landscapes of development have changed in ways that make anxiety more likely.
One of the book’s observations that resonates strongly with clinicians and practitioners is this:
“Children need opportunities to build confidence by coping with challenges, not just being protected from them.”
— The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt
This idea reflects a fundamental principle of human development. When children are shielded entirely from discomfort or uncertainty, they miss out on experiences that support emotion regulation, problem solving, and a sense of mastery; all of which are central to the development of ‘safe’ resilience.
From a clinical perspective, this helps explain why anxiety often looks more pervasive today: many of the developmental contexts that once provided safe challenges such as unstructured play, gradual separation experiences, and peer negotiation without adult intervention have diminished or reduced. At the same time, developmental demands around social evaluation, academic expectations, and emotional self‑regulation have increased. Parents often find themselves torn between these two spaces.
Where SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) Fits In
Even within this broader developmental context, how families respond to anxiety remains one of the most influential factors in how persistent and disabling anxiety becomes over time. This is where approaches like SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) can offer an evidence‑informed, relationally grounded path forward.
SPACE recognizes that anxiety is not simply an individual experience; it is embedded in patterns of interaction, expectations, and responses within the family. Parents naturally want to reduce their child’s distress; to reassure them, accommodate worries, and make challenging experiences easier. These responses come from care and compassion. However, when anxiety is driving behaviour, reassurance and accommodation can sometimes reduce opportunities for a child to practice tolerating discomfort and developing internal confidence, resulting in a snowball effect where anxiety can become paralyzing and debilitating.
For instance, repeatedly providing certainty or removing distressing situations can unintentionally reinforce the idea that distress must always be avoided or resolved immediately. Over time, this can make anxiety more persistent, as the child has fewer experiences of tolerating and working through discomfort.
SPACE helps parents respond in ways that preserve emotional connection while gently reducing accommodation. This often includes:
● Empathic acknowledgement of the child’s internal experience without over‑reassuring
● Consistency in expectations that allow safe opportunities for the child to face uncertainty
● Communication of confidence in the child’s capacity to manage discomfort rather than seeking outside certainty
These shifts provide a secure relational foundation from which the child can experience and tolerate fear, worry, and uncertainty without retreating immediately into avoidance. In SPACE treatment, we call this the acceptance, validation, and confidence recipe.
Putting It Together
Haidt’s perspective encourages us to understand today’s patterns of anxiety as emerging not from individual weakness but from a developmental environment that offers fewer opportunities to build emotional confidence through experience. He emphasizes that protection alone does not lead to confidence, but confidence grows from coping with challenges.
SPACE aligns with this developmental insight by supporting caregivers in responding to anxiety in ways that foster internal regulation and tolerance for uncertainty. Parents are not the cause of the broader shifts in childhood experience, nor are they expected to “fix” societal trends. What they can influence, however, is how anxiety is held and shaped within the context of close relationships.
Through steady, supportive, and appropriately challenging responses, parents can help children develop the relational and emotional tools needed to navigate uncertainty with growing confidence. Reach out to learn more about SPACE therapy: Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions through booking a free consultation with Cassidy.