How to talk to your child about worry

By Tim Khuja · 8 min read

Last reviewed June 9, 2026

Your child says, in the car on the way home from school, very quietly: "My tummy feels weird again."

You know what they mean. You''ve been watching it for weeks — the slow build of something just under the surface. A friendship that''s shifted. A teacher who''s strict. A change at home they haven''t found words for yet.

This is the moment. The moment a worry shows itself, half on purpose, asking to be picked up.

What you say next matters. Not because you have to say something perfect — you don''t — but because the texture of these conversations, repeated over months and years, is what teaches a child whether worry is something they have to hide or something they can put down with help.

Here''s how to have them well.

What worry actually is (and why kids hate the word)

Worry is the mind rehearsing future threat. It''s a normal, healthy capacity — it''s how humans plan, prepare, and protect each other. In small doses it''s useful. In larger doses, it costs sleep, joy, and energy.

Children worry about things adults often miss: whether the bus will come, whether their friend is still their friend, whether the cat is sad, whether something they did three days ago made you stop loving them. Their worries are not silly. They''re developmentally appropriate threat-modeling on a brain that doesn''t yet know what''s safe to ignore.

When children resist the word "worry," it''s often because they''ve learned it means a long conversation, or it means an adult will get worried in return, or it means they''ll be told they shouldn''t feel that way. Our first job is to make the word safe to use.

The four moves of a good worry conversation

There''s a rhythm to conversations that actually help. Four moves, in order.

1. Notice without diagnosing

"I noticed you went quiet when we drove past school."

Not: "Are you worried about school again?"

The first opens a door. The second closes one — it tells the child you already have the answer, and now they''re being checked on. Children, especially anxious ones, will deny a feeling rather than confirm a parent''s pre-formed theory, because confirming feels like losing control of the narrative.

Notice the body, the moment, the change. Let them name the thing.

2. Validate the feeling before exploring the content

"That makes sense. School can feel like a lot."

Resist the urge to ask what specifically. First, make sure the feeling itself is welcome. An anxious child often spends enormous energy trying to figure out if it''s okay to be having the feeling at all. Once they know it is, the content comes out much more easily.

Validation isn''t agreement. You''re not saying "you''re right, school is terrible." You''re saying "the feeling you''re having is a real and reasonable feeling for a person to have."

3. Get curious, not fixative

"Tell me what it''s like when your tummy feels weird."

Curiosity sounds like: tell me more, what does it look like, when does it usually happen, what makes it bigger or smaller. You''re exploring the worry with them — not interrogating it, not solving it.

Fixative sounds like: have you tried, what if you, you should just, it''s not really that bad. Even when these come from love, they make the child feel that the worry is something to be managed away, not something to be understood. Worries that are managed away come back louder.

If you can stay curious for five real minutes, you''ll learn more than you would from twenty minutes of advice.

4. Externalise (this is the magic move)

Give the worry a shape, a name, a personality. "It sounds like your Worry has been pretty loud this week. What does your Worry usually try to tell you?"

This is called externalisation, and it''s one of the best-supported techniques in child cognitive-behavioural therapy (March & Mulle, 1998; Chorpita & Weisz, 2009). When a worry is you, it''s overwhelming. When the worry is a character that visits you, you can negotiate with it, ignore it, draw it, send it on holiday.

Some families call it the Worry Monster. Some call it the What-If voice. Some give it a small name like Norm. Whatever fits your child. Once it has a shape, it stops being them, and they can have a relationship with it instead of being eaten by it.

What to say (and what to skip)

A short cheat sheet for the moments you have ten seconds to choose your words.

Say: "I''m glad you told me." (Always. Every time. This is how telling becomes a habit.)

Say: "That sounds really hard. Tell me more." (Curiosity is care.)

Say: "Your worry is being loud right now. That doesn''t mean it''s telling the truth." (You''re separating the feeling from the fact.)

Say: "What would it look like to be brave-and-scared at the same time?" (Bravery isn''t the absence of fear. Naming that helps.)

Skip: "There''s nothing to worry about." (They know there is. You just lost credibility.)

Skip: "Don''t be silly." (You taught them their feeling is shameful. They won''t bring it back.)

Skip: "You''ll be fine." (Too fast. Sit with it longer.)

Skip: Long lectures about why the worry isn''t logical. (Logic doesn''t reach a worried nervous system. Co-regulation does.)

When to have these conversations

Not at bedtime, if you can help it. Bedtime worry conversations expand to fill the night.

The best times are:

• In the car (no eye contact takes the pressure off)
• On a walk (movement helps the words come)
• During a shared activity (drawing, baking, building Lego)
• In the bath
• Five minutes before dinner, when they''re tired but not yet wired

Make a small daily ritual — fifteen minutes after school, ten minutes before dinner — where you''re available and not on your phone. Worries that have a regular slot tend to stop crashing into bedtime.

Using stories to talk about worry sideways

Sometimes a child can''t talk about their worry directly. The feeling is too big, or they don''t have the words yet, or they''re afraid of what saying it out loud will do.

Stories give them a side door. A story about a small fox who is afraid of the woods lets a child think about their own fear without the cost of admitting it. A character in a personalised story facing their exact worry — and finding their exact way through — does both the emotional processing and the modeling at once.

This is why narrative therapy uses stories so heavily, and why bedtime stories that quietly mirror what a child is going through can shift things that no direct conversation has been able to touch. If you''re looking for a starting point, our stories for big feelings hub and help with child anxiety page are good places to begin.

What to do when the worry is about something real

Sometimes the worry is accurate. The friendship really has gone sideways. The grandparent really is sick. The move really is happening.

Don''t pretend it''s not real. Children can tell. What they need is:

• The truth, in age-appropriate amounts
• Confirmation that the feeling fits the situation ("It makes sense to feel sad. It is sad.")
• A picture of what comes next, even a small piece of it
• The repeated reminder that you''re in it with them

You don''t have to fix it. You have to be present in it.

When to look for more support

Worry crosses into something that needs more help when:

• It''s changing how they eat, sleep, or play, for more than a few weeks
• They''re avoiding school, friendships, or activities they used to love
• It''s producing physical symptoms (frequent stomachaches, headaches, body tension) without a medical cause
• They''re expressing hopelessness, or saying they don''t want to be here

If you''re seeing any of these, talk to your paediatrician. Childhood anxiety is among the most treatable mental-health concerns — early support makes an enormous difference, and asking for it is not a failure of parenting. It''s a sign you''re paying attention.

The thing to remember

Your child is not asking you to make the worry go away. They''re asking you to help them carry it for a little while.

When you do that well — even imperfectly, even on hard days, even when you only have three minutes in the car — you''re teaching them the most important lesson of an anxious childhood: this feeling is real, and you don''t have to be alone in it.

That lesson, repeated, becomes the inner voice they carry their whole life.

Continue reading

• How to help a child name their big feelings
• Why won''t my child sleep alone? Bedtime anxiety explained
• Stories about anger for kids 3–7