In Part 1, I wrote about something I have learned through years of working with anxiety and OCD:

Avoiding every hard thing does not build confidence.

But parenting adds another layer. For parents raising anxious children, knowing when to step in and when to let a child work through discomfort can be one of the hardest parts.

Because when the person experiencing discomfort is your child, avoidance can look an awful lot like love.

Your child is disappointed. You want to make them feel better.
Your child is nervous about something. You want to remove the thing making them nervous.
Your child is struggling with a teacher, a friend, a sport, a school assignment. You want to fix it.

Of course you do. We are wired to protect our children.
And sometimes, we should.

But I think modern parenting has created a difficult question for many of us:

How do we know when we are protecting our children, and when we are accidentally protecting them from the experiences that would teach them they can cope?

I have spent much of my career helping children and adolescents who struggle with anxiety and OCD. That work has shaped how I think about parenting anxious children, particularly the difference between distress and actual harm.

And one of the most important lessons I have learned is that feeling distressed and being harmed are not the same thing.

Anxiety is uncomfortable. Disappointment is uncomfortable. Frustration is uncomfortable. Boredom is uncomfortable. Failure is uncomfortable. Being left out is uncomfortable. Having someone disagree with you is uncomfortable. Trying something and not being immediately good at it is uncomfortable.

None of those feelings, by themselves, are evidence that something has gone wrong.

In fact, appropriate support for anxious children often includes a seemingly paradoxical goal: helping them feel understood while also helping them move toward what they fear.

The message is not:
You're fine. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Nor is it:
You're scared, so you don't have to do it.

It is:
I believe you that this feels hard. And I believe you can take the next step.

That distinction is powerful.

The Canadian Paediatric Society similarly advises parents to acknowledge and validate children's fears while using gentle, firm encouragement to help them face rather than reinforce avoidance.

Think about a child learning to walk.

Imagine removing every possibility of falling. You could carry them. You could hold their hand forever. You could cushion every surface. You could stop them every time they became unsteady.

They might fall less.
But they would also have fewer opportunities to learn how to balance.

Psychological resilience in children works similarly.

Children do not develop frustration tolerance because we repeatedly prevent frustration. They develop it by becoming frustrated and discovering: I can survive this feeling.

They do not develop confidence by succeeding at everything. They develop it by having experiences in which success is uncertain and realizing: I can keep going.

They do not learn how to recover from disappointment if someone immediately changes the outcome. They learn it by experiencing: This wasn't what I wanted. I'm sad. And eventually, I will feel something else.

And they don't learn that they can manage anxiety if anxiety always becomes the signal that the situation needs to disappear.

This may be one of the most important distinctions in parenting.

Rescue says: You can't handle this. I'll make it go away.

Support says: I can see this is hard. I'm here while you learn how to handle it.

One removes the challenge. The other helps the child build capacity.
One teaches immediate relief. The other creates evidence.

This doesn't mean abandoning children to struggle alone. In fact, it is almost the opposite.

The sweet spot is neither: “I'll do it for you.”
Nor is it: “Figure it out yourself.”

It is: “I won't do this for you. But I won't leave you alone while you learn how to do it.”

I think this is where the analogy of scaffolding becomes so useful.

You provide enough support for the child to do something that is just beyond what they could currently manage independently. Then, as their capacity grows, you gradually step back.

Not because you care less.

Because you believe they can do more.

I want to be very clear about this.

I am not advocating for “toughening children up.” I don't believe children need unnecessary adversity to become resilient. Life will provide enough challenges without us manufacturing them.

And I am not suggesting that parents should push children into experiences that genuinely exceed their capacity.

Overwhelm does not automatically create resilience.

A child who is panicked, unsupported and completely unable to cope is not necessarily learning, I can do hard things.

They may simply be learning: No one helps me when things are hard.

The goal is not maximum discomfort.
The goal is what I would call manageable difficulty.

Enough challenge to create new learning. Enough support to prevent overwhelm.

And eventually, enough space for the child to discover: Wait. I did that.

That is the sweet spot.

This is where parenting becomes particularly complicated.
Sometimes parental anxiety becomes part of the equation too.

Sometimes we are not responding only to our child's distress. We are responding to what their distress brings up in us.

Our child cries because they weren't invited to something. We feel devastated.
Our child is anxious about school. We feel anxious.
Our child is disappointed. We want to fix it—not only because we want to help them, but because we want the discomfort to stop inside ourselves.

And that is profoundly human.

But sometimes the best parenting decision requires us to tolerate our own discomfort long enough to allow our child to develop theirs.

This is particularly difficult when you know you could fix the problem.

You could call the teacher. You could email the coach. You could intervene with the other parent. You could negotiate the rule. You could finish the assignment.

You could make the difficult feeling disappear.

But an important question is: Who needs to become more capable here?
Me? Or my child?

Sometimes the answer is us.

And sometimes, the most supportive thing we can do is allow our child to have an experience that we desperately wish we could take away.

This is the part I think deserves nuance.

I would never give parents a blanket instruction to “let them struggle.”

The better question is: What does this particular child need in this particular moment?

Here is a framework I find useful:

The goal is not to ask: Can they handle this?

Because sometimes the answer is: Not yet.

The better question is: What support would help them handle one small part of this?

That is how capacity grows.

Imagine two children:

The first is repeatedly rescued from difficulty.
The second is supported through difficulty.
Both may be deeply loved. Both may have caring parents.

But over time, they may collect very different evidence about themselves.

The first child may unconsciously learn: When things get hard, someone will step in.
The second may learn: When things get hard, I can get help.

That is an enormous difference.

The goal is not for children to believe: I never need anyone
That isn't resilience.
Human beings need each other.

The goal is for children to believe:
I can do difficult things.
I can ask for help when I need it.
I can recover when things don't go my way.
And I am not alone while I learn.

Parent-focused interventions for childhood anxiety show that what parents do can matter, particularly around patterns such as family accommodation and avoidance. Research suggests parent interventions can reduce child anxiety, while behavioural components are common to intervention approaches that show benefit—though the research base remains complex and continues to develop.