The Gen Z Anxiety Crisis: Therapist Jeannie Elbing Shares What Parents Miss

In this episode, Jeannie Elbing - The Gen Z Anxiety Therapist - discusses one of the biggest concerns parents face today: Why are teens so anxious?

Jeannie works with teens and young adults and shares what she sees every day in her practice:

• Why anxiety is rising faster than ever
• The impact of social media, comparison culture, and 24/7 visibility
• How sports pressure and academic expectations fuel stress
• Why self-esteem struggles are nearly universal today
• How parental modeling (good or bad) shapes a child’s emotional world
• When anxiety is “normal” vs. when it’s a clinical concern
• Warning signs parents should never ignore
• What to do - and NOT do - when your teen has a bad game, bad test, or bad day
• How to actually validate your child instead of accidentally dismissing them
• How to know when it’s time to seek professional help
• What to look for in a therapist for your teen

This conversation is packed with practical tools for parents who want to better understand and support their Gen Z kids.

If you’re a parent of a teen or preteen, this episode is a must-watch.

How to find Jeannie Elbing
IG https://www.instagram.com/genzanxietytherapist/

Dad to Dads Podcast on IG https://www.instagram.com/dadtodads

Transcript

Robert Poirier (00:00)
Jeannie Elbing, the Gen Z Anxiety Therapist. Welcome to the podcast.

Jeannie Elbing (00:04)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Robert Poirier (00:07)
Look, I really appreciate you coming on ⁓ and I feel so fortunate that I found you. I mean, it's definitely a subject that I have wanted to cover. It's something that a lot of parents have reached out about. And when I saw you and I started going through your page, I'm like, my gosh, this lady gets it and she seems like she's really good. And I want to, I want to talk to her about it. So thank you again for coming on.

Jeannie Elbing (00:29)
Thank you so much. So happy to be here.

Robert Poirier (00:30)
So

you work with teens, ⁓ specializing in helping them deal with anxiety. That obviously is correct, right?

Jeannie Elbing (00:39)
Yes, yes, definitely. Most of my clients fall between the ages of 13 and 24, is, know, Gen Z I think goes up to 28. But yeah, some younger, some older, but for the most part, that's who I work with. And mostly with, you know, anxiety issues. I do see kids with, you know, with some depression and, you know, adjustment issues in general, but anxiety's my specialization.

Robert Poirier (01:03)
Okay. So before we go into that, and I really want to go into that a lot deeper, but tell me about your background. Tell me about you.

Jeannie Elbing (01:10)
Yeah, well,

I'll start by saying I'm a mom of three, myself, with three kids. And I have been working in the mental health field for over 10 years. I have a degree, two master's degree in psychology and clinical social work, and worked with lots of different populations. It wasn't until 2020 when I started working part time at a children's hospital here in Orange County.

as a mental health therapist in the emergency department where I worked with so many kids and their families that would come in. And it really opened my eyes to one, the need for more therapists to serve this population because it's hugely underserved here, especially where I am in California, but I everywhere still. yeah, I just said. ⁓

to kind of go that way with my practice. yeah, working is just such a need. So ⁓ I love the work I do. Yeah, just educating the next.

Robert Poirier (02:16)
So I wanna know what

you're seeing. Like are you seeing just a tremendous, obviously you're seeing a big need for.

Jeannie Elbing (02:24)
Yeah, my gosh, yes. So much anxiety out there. think the latest statistic is one in four kids right now are struggling with an anxiety disorder, right? And so I see a lot of kids who have just normal anxiety that we all kind of experience and this hasn't developed into anything too huge yet. And so...

I see a lot of clients like that and then also to the more severe where it has been somewhat debilitating, you know, so there is definitely a range. ⁓ But, you know, a ⁓ lot of social anxiety, ⁓ generalized anxiety, yeah, again, depression, of just life transitions and things like that.

Robert Poirier (03:15)
do you feel that it's increasing versus the way it is now? Is it about the same? And we're just now really dealing with it. What is it?

Jeannie Elbing (03:23)
Yeah, no, I think it's definitely increasing. As you know, there's a lot that can contribute to that. think we all know now just with the social media, with the rise of all that, how the research shows us that it is actually, ⁓ it's not good for our kids at all, right? But at the same time, it's not going anywhere. So there's that whole piece of trying to figure out.

as a parent, know, how you're going to manage that piece. But that is definitely ⁓ causing an increase, right? And kids have 24-7 access to everything their friends are doing, what they're missing out on. ⁓ You know, it used to be that at school, know, would go to school, they would deal with the drama.

some of the struggles, maybe some bullying even, and then at the end of the day it was over and they could go home and they could decompress a little bit. could have a night, go to sleep, come back, face it again, right? But now that doesn't happen anymore. They come home and they can see everything. You can access what everyone's doing, where they're at, their locations. ⁓ The bullying online doesn't stop.

It is definitely concerning and think absolutely needs to be managed better but it's something I see a lot of kids come to me talking

Robert Poirier (04:47)
when I think about anxiety, think, you know, one thing I worry, not worry about, but I try to monitor is my kids with, being anxious about, or having anxiety over their grades or over sports. And so what I've done is what I've tried to do is look, do your best. You can only control what you can control and that's it. And so if you prepare yourself for it, that's great.

You know, and I talk to them about positive self-talk what, what else, what else are kids anxious about? Like, is it.

I would think maybe, you know, appearance, friends, but what else are you seeing?

Jeannie Elbing (05:22)
Have a nice

Well, just to kind of piggyback on what you were saying here with the sports and whatnot, that kind of reminds me, a good point I want to make here is, know, often you'll see parents making their entire kid's life or high school years or, you know, the teenage years about one thing. So whether that's one sport and they're, you know, in it 24-7, nothing wrong with travel teams or competition teams or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, but...

that when that is their everything. I have worked with many kids who are in competitive sports and something happens or it's not going great all of sudden. Maybe they're injured, you know, or they don't want to do it anymore, you know, and that has been our whole life for so long that it does. causes it. It's effects the kids, you know, pretty. It's pretty hard to kind of figure out who am I outside of say softball or you know.

dance or football, whatever, you know. So that is, that's something I see a lot of. And just like the, you know, they're super into it maybe through the high school years, but then they don't want to play for college. That's what kind of been the goal. The parents have pushed that we're going to play in college, you're to play for and get that scholarship. But like, they don't really want to do that. And I have a couple clients right now who are going to D1 schools playing sports, but like not their hearts not really in it. Right. And that's, that's crazy. I know, but

It's just something to consider. really trying to, from an early age, parents, they can try to not put all their eggs in one basket, right? And not talk only about one thing and diversify that. That's an important point.

Robert Poirier (07:08)
No,

that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I see that and I've seen my goodness. I've seen that when the kids were playing baseball when they were young and I still, there's a family I keep up with and they worked so hard on their son with baseball and, um, they still are. He's in high school. They still are extremely tough on him with baseball and wanting him to excel and you know,

Jeannie Elbing (07:16)
Yeah.

Robert Poirier (07:33)
telling me the colleges that are looking and when, when I see him and talk to him, like how's baseball going? It's all right. How do you like it? It's okay. He really, I think if he had the opportunity, he would leave it in a second, but he's doing it for his parents. I think, and we're going to go into that in a little bit. I want to, I want to know how we screw up, how we mess up his parents. And I know we, I have a, I have a feeling that we're a lot behind that. Um,

Jeannie Elbing (07:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (08:02)
were a lot of the reasons behind that, but we'll go into that a minute. like what I was, you know, but going back to it, is it, are some of the subjects or some of the reasons behind it? Is it body image? Is it sports? Is it school? Is it acceptability? What is it?

Jeannie Elbing (08:17)
Yeah,

I think just that keeping up, know keeping up with Everything all the trends the you know the aesthetics for the girls the the you know I think I speak more I think that's the teen girls are seeing that more right but it can also affect the guys too for sure It's just it's just like I said 24 7 access constantly, you know

feeling like someone else is better than you. ⁓ So limiting the kids' social media access, I think, is crucial. And so many parents are doing that. I think there's a place where you can let them have it. you're just, again, you're managing it, right, instead of the all or nothing, right? Because sometimes it's not really possible. ⁓

Robert Poirier (09:07)
Yeah,

that makes sense. What role does low self-esteem play in this?

Jeannie Elbing (09:12)
Okay, so.

low self-esteem.

phrase that sorry you want to like do you mean

Robert Poirier (09:20)
Well, I would think that behind a lot of the anxiety, the accepting yourself, you know, not worried about being cool, not worried about, okay, I'm 10 pounds overweight or I don't have blonde hair and blue eyes or whatever it may be, or I'm not the best at sports. Some of that I think, you know, is kind of low self-esteem at the root of that.

Jeannie Elbing (09:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I don't have a client who, ⁓ I don't see a client who doesn't have low self-esteem to some degree. You know, I think it can definitely vary, it's, I mean, it's everywhere. You know, the kids are just... ⁓

Robert Poirier (09:55)
I guess that's, yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (10:03)
Yeah, feeling, again, like just not good enough. What are we, they're comparing themselves to filtered perfection, know, everything online. ⁓ And yeah, it's really tough.

Robert Poirier (10:16)
why do I, I keep thinking like with you, you talking and me asking that about self-esteem and me thinking about other kids that have just such debilitating self-esteem with, mean, such ability dating anxiety with things. I look at their parents.

And I see it from them. And so I'm to go ahead and ask, ⁓ this was supposed to be later. I'm going go ahead and ask, how much are we to blame? How much are the parents to blame for this?

Jeannie Elbing (10:35)
Yeah.

So you know what, I'm gonna tell you that this is not your, it's not all on the parents. It's really not. I know that we wanna jump to that and I, and absolutely your parent, your modeling, if you're a very anxious parent, they're gonna pick up on some of that. You're for sure.

Robert Poirier (10:51)
Okay.

Jeannie Elbing (11:00)
modeling is huge, like what you're saying in the house, what they're picking up on. But, you know, think about you've got, say you've got an anxious mom or dad and three kids and one of your kids is very anxious, the other two are not. it doesn't, think genetics play a role, obviously, right? But, but this is not necessarily your fault, right? ⁓ The parents fault at all. ⁓ So I think there's, there's, there are things, there are things you can be doing now for sure. And kind of jumping back, I want to kind of

Robert Poirier (11:02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (11:30)
back to to talk to you about like the whole sports piece and kind of some of that that we're seeing ⁓ with with like how we're talking to our kids about it and how that how that affects you know impacts their self-esteem and their anxiety levels you know how your kids your kids really need to hear

you telling them about, over here you telling them about a mistake you made or how you messed up or how you're not perfect and you know, not these necessarily conversations in the car on the way back from the game, but just overheard, right, in the house. Like they need to hear about that time dad messed up or you know, everything's okay and it worked out, right? So telling those stories is important. I think oftentimes parents will forget to...

forget to mention those things and our kids really need to hear it. It makes a huge impact.

Robert Poirier (12:25)
What about the negative self-talk? I personally can't stand the head hanging low. part of that is,

back when I played tennis, my coach used to tell me like, you know, if you do that, the other, the opponent knows they're in your head and they're going to go after you. And so part of that is I don't want to show, I don't want them to show the other team or their opponent, but also I, I think it's a, you know, it's negative self-talk there going on as well. And probably, my gosh, I'm horrible. I can't believe I let this happen.

Jeannie Elbing (12:39)
Here, here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (12:56)
What, you know, I always tell them, look, you've got to say five things positive to combat the negative thought you just put in your head. Is that true? Or I don't know where I might've made that up, but is that true or not?

Jeannie Elbing (13:01)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I know that. No,

The positive self-talk is huge. You've got to, easier said than done. I think it's got to come from the parents and they have to be hearing it. I do hear stories of some of these kids on the drive home getting reprimanded for their performance. So I think...

For the most part, parents are trying to give that positive feedback and build their kid up. But I do worry because I think it still happens quite a bit where the parent is angry themselves at the outcome or disappointed and they can't hide it very well, right? And their kid sees that. So I think when you see the kid who throws the bat or is really upset or hanging their head down low, you've got to, I we do have to ask ourselves, how are we?

What is our talk? How are we talking to them about this at home and the drive home?

Robert Poirier (14:02)
Okay, So if one of my sons walks off the field and I'm like, hey, how's it going? He's like, that was my worst game I've ever played. How would you handle it from this?

Jeannie Elbing (14:02)
part of

So, you know what, I would just validate them, listen to, know, of just reflect back what they're saying, you feel like you played bad, you know, that was not, that wasn't your best, that's hard, you know, that stinks, you know, and just kind of reflect that back, validate. You wanna then help them to cope through that.

You know, ⁓ it's not trying to convince them, no wasn't, it was great. What are you talking about? You're crazy. You played awesome. Like, yeah, I mean, there's a place for that, but you you got to help them work through that, cope through that, difficult emotion that they're experiencing.

Robert Poirier (14:51)
Yeah, that makes sense. Cause cause on the flip side, oh no, you did perfect. You did great. They know when they didn't, they, they know when they didn't.

Jeannie Elbing (14:56)
god, yeah. Yeah, I know.

Robert Poirier (14:59)
I think when you get a certain age, they know when they haven't done well. And I think I don't even want to say a certain age. I think they know, look, ⁓ I don't care about scores. I don't care about this and that I'll care about is effort.

Jeannie Elbing (15:06)
Thank

Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Poirier (15:12)
I

feel like if you give effort, if you've prepared well, if you give effort, you know, all your effort, good things will probably happen. Yeah. Some days you're going to have off games. mean, look, some days we just don't have a good day and that happens for whatever reason. It's trying to figure out like mentally, like what might've interfered with that before, but, um, you know, kind of got you, got you out of your zone or whatever you want to call it.

Jeannie Elbing (15:41)
I think the key is just not denying what they're feeling. And like you said, from a young age, even the second grader playing baseball knows when they had a bad game. They know that they didn't do their best. And so just kind of helping them work through, I didn't do the best that what I wanted to do, but I'm okay, so I can get through that and kind of getting through that emotion.

Robert Poirier (16:07)
Yeah, and this can be only we're talking about sports, but this can be a test. It can be anything, right?

Jeannie Elbing (16:10)
Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. No, and this is, yeah, translate into, again, there's no denying when your kids that doesn't do as well as they had hoped on something. And so I think just being there to kind of being there to support, right? Those supportive statements, ⁓ but not trying to discount what they're saying or just telling them to, yeah, don't worry about it or that's.

It's not possible for a lot of kids.

Robert Poirier (16:41)
Is there one gender that you see more pressure on causes anxiety? Or is it kind of

Jeannie Elbing (16:46)
⁓

I wish I had a statistic for that to tell you, but I really see it equally. I really see it with both males and females in my practice. And yeah, a lot of it's with sports, right? But also, yeah, just the pressures, the perfect wanting to get that 4.5 GPM.

Robert Poirier (17:08)
Yeah, with colleges.

Jeannie Elbing (17:10)
Crazy,

The schools and getting in and so yeah, I see a lot, know, currently in my practice, I've seen quite a few, ⁓ a lot of kids who just went away to school lot of anxiety about starting that new chapter right at college, but also some kids who aren't going away to school and have, you know,

missed out the past six months have been really a struggle for them with ⁓ the comparison game and what am I doing with my future and I'm not you know low self-esteem because they're not going they didn't get to wear like the college they didn't get a shout out about the college they're going to in high school their senior year they aren't they weren't wearing their college sweatshirts they weren't you know going to the their parents didn't have a party for them to ship them off to school and they're going to community college and so I've been seeing a lot of that lately and

anxiety that comes with that about future and ⁓ so that's I think we Should be careful, ⁓ you know how we assume how we're talking to especially like our seniors and the juniors and seniors about their future plans and just taking some of that pressure off because We like to like you were mentioned catching up with people you see like how sports how are things going? Well, you know how you know it can be

can be triggering for some kids too.

Robert Poirier (18:29)
Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. It makes sense. Some anxiety is okay though. Right. I mean, you don't, I mean, I would kind of worry if somebody had done, I mean, I think it's kind of healthy, right? A little bit.

Jeannie Elbing (18:34)
I don't how to...

It is right and that parents do sometimes struggle with kind of understanding like is this normal anxiety is this normal natural anxiety that we all experience as humans or is this ⁓ something to worry about and so there's kind of a few there's a few determinants there so one ⁓ you know is it you know are you seeing it across you know are you seeing it at you seeing it at home are you seeing it at school sports church wherever you know you

seeing this across multiple settings, right? Also the frequency and duration of it. it often? Is it every day or is just now and then? And then when it's happening, does it last a long time, right? And then, you know, is it impacting the big ones? Like, is it impacting their sleep and their eating? Those are probably the two most important things, you know, because when they're keeping them up at night or they're maybe not eating enough or sometimes overeating, right, that is problematic. So...

We want to kind of check in on those things. And so still sometimes parents, know, we hear anxiety is it's overused right now, I think a little bit, right? ⁓ Just because we do all experience it. It is anxiety, but it can be very normal and there's no, there can be no issues at all with just a little normal anxiety, right? It's actually can be good for.

Robert Poirier (19:58)
So are there, mean, you kind of went into it, but are there like, I don't know if you want to say warning signs or, ⁓ things that parents really need to like really need to look out for, think like, you know, totally withdrawing from school friends. ⁓ I don't know overeating, under eating or are there warning signs that parents need to look at, look for, and then what are the next steps and

Jeannie Elbing (20:05)
Yeah. Yeah. Warning.

Yeah.

Robert Poirier (20:28)
Now this is going to kind of be loaded. ⁓ Like when should a parent be concerned? When should a parent worry and what are the next steps?

Jeannie Elbing (20:36)
when parents are kind of not sure, you know, what is this anxiety or not? One thing, one example that I like to give of what an anxiety, what somebody who truly has a disorder that is clinically diagnosed anxiety.

What that feels like is, a lot of parents can relate to this, is I want you to imagine for a second that you are with your kid. You're parent, you're with your kid at a really busy amusement park. there's people everywhere and lights flashing and it's just kind of really, really busy and you lose sight of your kid, your little kid, and they're gone and you can't find them anywhere and you're just wandering around looking for them.

freaking out like so this feeling inside you right it's the worst feeling in the world where's your kid and then you see them and you breathe a sigh of relief and we're good now everything you know you're safe you feel instant relief right so that feeling that you had when you were searching for your kid that's like absolute it's just panic it's your heart is racing you're feeling flushed you're

literally sick, physically feeling sick, right? That is what it feels like when somebody has an anxiety disorder. It doesn't turn off. It's like you never found your kid, right? So walking around with that feeling all day for some kids going to school with that level of anxiety in their body. And it ⁓ is very different from the everyday anxiety that we all right? So I think there's a difference there. That being said, you

Robert Poirier (22:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (22:10)
don't have to have that level high, severe level of anxiety to start working on it and to getting help and you know, even you know, I see a lot of kids who really have minimal anxiety but it's through distance therapy because their parents are, I like it would be good for them to have a neutral party to talk to and to kind of learn some coping skills in advance. So I think it's never too early to just teach them those things

can you ask that last question?

Robert Poirier (22:36)
just

when should when should you seek help for your for your child? And then how like, what do you look for? Like, like in a therapist, like, what should you look for? I mean, of course, they should look for you, right?

Jeannie Elbing (22:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, right, okay. So,

when you ask when what's normal, what like, do know if it's something more serious? And so some of the big red flags, as I mentioned, like when it starts interfering with school and friendships, ⁓ when they're not wanting to go to school, maybe they're withdrawing from your

their friends when you notice like they're not really hanging out making plans. When they have constant physical complaints like maybe they're talking about their stomach aches more frequently or headaches. So when it's getting in the way of their everyday functioning, it's also going to be for some it's much more obvious. ⁓ It's a repetitive asking, needing reassurance, needing

⁓ their mom or dad to text them to check in to reassure on all those accommodations parents are providing for their kids. Like that's that's that can be a little bit more obvious because this is this is definitely anxiety here, right? So those are some of the signs. But yes, some can be more subtle for sure. You you're involved parent. It's just so important to kind of have your ears open to be listening to be paying attention because some of those signs are more subtle and.

Robert Poirier (23:46)
Yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (24:01)
Early intervention is so important. It's so much easier when it's on the, when you haven't let this build up for years, right? Right? I always say, you know, some parents, it's kind of more of a negative statement, but you know, kids with anxiety tend to become adults with anxiety. It doesn't just, a lot of parents, oh, it's just a phase. They're going to grow out of it. And unfortunately, if you don't do anything about it, they won't, you know, and the problems become bigger. So.

Robert Poirier (24:10)
Yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (24:30)
Not always, you know, I'm generalizing here, but I think it's important to realize like, let's do something about this now. What can we do? So, you know, in terms of finding a therapist, you know, I don't think anytime's too early. Like I said, I think there can be a lot of benefits and good if you can get in with somebody when things are more and more mild side, you're not seeing too much. But how to do that?

you know, for one, would say reaching out to the school counselor, trying to start there first, because oftentimes they are going to have a list of some providers. I know our school here has a network they use that they'll link you over to. Now, that can be challenging as well. Anybody who's looked for a therapist who takes their insurance, you know, it's called, there's actually a term called like a ghost network. That's what the insurance will send you with.

there's all these names on there, like maybe they've retired. They're not practicing. They're full. They're not taking anybody. They don't take your insurance anymore. They just don't answer your phone calls. It's like you get nowhere with it. And that can be incredibly frustrating for parents.

Robert Poirier (25:28)
Yeah.

I think the school that's a great resource to go through and with their counselors, they hopefully should be able to help. ⁓ you know, I, sometimes I hesitate with, with Google getting on there because then it's just, you know, does this therapist just buy a bunch of Google AdWords or whatever. And, know, and they get to jump up to the top and maybe they're, maybe they're not very good, you know? ⁓

Jeannie Elbing (25:56)
Hold on. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I was...

Robert Poirier (26:04)
maybe also

talking with other parents as well. I think the school probably is a, hopefully the school is a good place to, that they're kind of on top of things and can help with that.

Jeannie Elbing (26:15)
I would say a lot of kids are hesitant, right?

They imagine therapy to be where it's this much older person who cannot relate at all, who just nods and agrees, or just like, they just sit there on a couch and talk they just have a really bad idea of what is, what therapy actually looks like when, yeah, it's, and they don't want to go, right? And so it can be tough, a tough sell.

Robert Poirier (26:35)
Good point.

Jeannie Elbing (26:42)
So if you're looking for someone for your kid, when you're finding these names with these therapists, do they only work with kids and teens? I would say that's really pretty huge. You want to be aware of anyone who's saying that they work with kids, teens, couples, older adults, they see anxiety, anger issues, depression.

all the things, eating disorders. You just cannot specialize in everything. And if you're lots of different age ranges and diagnoses, it's hard to be really good at one, right? So the more niche down usually is the better. And that's, you're seeing more and more of that these days. I think if you go on these psychology today,

Most people, they're specializing in one or two areas, right? Instead of like, I see everyone and everything. That's not. ⁓

Robert Poirier (27:26)
Yeah.

So

tell me this, let's say I bring one of my kids in and I'm telling you they've got, we've talked before, I tell you overwhelmed with anxiety because of, let's use school, you know, because of school and their grades and I think they're doing well and they are doing well, but they just have a lot of anxiety, a lot of it's tied to, you know, we'll use examples you were talking earlier, getting into a good college.

you sit down with them, like, what do you do? Like, you don't have to go through everything, but just kind of give me an overview.

Jeannie Elbing (27:59)
Yeah,

well, if they're a kid in high school or younger, I always like to have the first meeting with the parent, least for soon as the first 15, 20 minutes. Definitely need to hear from the parent, right? A lot of you'd be surprised. A lot of parents think they just drop their kid off and sign paperwork and that's that. But the kids aren't, I can't.

Sometimes I can, but usually cannot rely that they're gonna tell me everything that's important, all these important things that I need to know about what's going on in the home, right? And the parent's perspective. So the parent involvement is very important. That being said, after that first initial meeting, I asked the parent like, okay, go in the lobby or just let them have their session. Like don't ask them too many questions about it. You can ask them a couple, but ⁓ just let them have, let them, let's, let's.

work together for four to six sessions, right? then after that, we'll have a feedback session together where I will bring you back in and we'll I'll have talked in advance with your child about like, is it okay to share this with mom, dad? Like this, and you get their approval and everything first and then we'll have this session together. And then if they need ongoing family therapy. ⁓

I will often refer them out to somebody else because it's important to maintain that relationship with the kid as my client, right? ⁓

Robert Poirier (29:31)
When you were

saying that, was thinking, you look at the kid, is it okay if I share this, how your parents have been putting so much pressure on you that they're creating all of this anxiety?

Jeannie Elbing (29:41)
Yeah, yes, I mean it's yeah it usually kids are like yeah, tell them anything, but there's some some will want to hold back on certain things, right? ⁓

Robert Poirier (29:51)
And, you know, and when you, when you did, when you said some of it's genetic, I get it. Like, I mean, two boys, so different with some things. was something not too long ago. And one's like, if it happens, it happens. And the other was like, yeah, but if it does,

Jeannie Elbing (30:04)
They're so difficult.

Robert Poirier (30:07)
that's probably where the parent component comes in there and modeling. Do they see you getting anxious or upset or worried about things that maybe you shouldn't, you know, do, you know, are you worried about looks? Are you worried about, you know, how other people might see you or how you perform and everything else. And I could see how for kids, they're going to absorb that.

Jeannie Elbing (30:23)
yeah.

They've been watching us since, you know, they were three years old, younger, just watching what, you know, we're doing and what we think about the world, what we say, how we talk about ourselves, everything. They are watching and that's, you know, a big part of their forming their own opinions too. It's like, this is what I've been watching my whole life, right? That's social learning theory and that is very true and in kids...

sometimes have to do some work unlearning some of these things that they've watched, Or witnessed, ⁓ modeled for them. and I think the best thing a parent can do is, if you are anxious, you're an anxious parent, which I am, I'm not scared to admit that. think you gotta do the work you've got to, you have to understand how you influence your kids and.

⁓ With what the way that you talk about your own anxiety and do them a huge favor by getting your own help managing that figuring out how to respond respond to treat your own right, but also like respond to your kids in a way that it's gonna be helpful But it takes a little bit of work and we're all so busy. So that's hard. I know but it's important work

Robert Poirier (31:47)
Yeah.

So if you're going and we'll talk about ways we can help, but if you're going to top three to five ways you see where parents screw up or parents cause anxiety.

What would those be? Like the most common.

Jeannie Elbing (32:00)
So

One is just controlling your own worries in front of them, Because for instance, if a kid, say you're on the drive home from school and your kid tells you something that happened and it's very upsetting to them, like.

someone said something to me or left me out and the parent responds, my gosh, like, are you kidding me? Why did she do that? Or what, you know, just this big response? And so all of sudden, like their little worry that they have, their anxiety becomes like grownup size worry because mom's upset about it too. So it must be, it must be really a big deal, So we have to really control our...

Robert Poirier (32:24)
Right.

Jeannie Elbing (32:42)
reactions and and again this just comes with it's it's hard it doesn't just come naturally you've got to do some work to like learn okay when they tell me about this i'm going to respond like neutral kind of like we talked about neutrally you know neutral response or just validating like god that sounds like that was hard yeah like don't give get too much power don't you know don't feed into it because that just makes that problem and that worries so much bigger in their little minds

Robert Poirier (33:10)
That makes sense. What else do parents, what else do parents need to understand?

Jeannie Elbing (33:16)
I would just say the biggest shift is from like trying to fix their problem to just supporting them, Just kind of being with them, sitting with them through it is so helpful.

instead of again just trying to jump in we were so quick to want to fix our kids and make them feel better fast you want to teach them that they can handle this without mom or dad

Robert Poirier (33:41)
So really it's kind of building them up and don't be a helicopter parent. Don't go in and fight all their battles, maybe equip them, but, ⁓ don't go in and solve everything.

Jeannie Elbing (33:49)
Good man.

Be there for them.

Yeah, be there for them. Be that like steady presence that's there to support them, to listen to them, to hear them out. They know they can come to you. But jumping into to just fix, fix for them is, that is not doing them any favors for when they get older. This is a lot, know, with elementary, middle school and then going into high school, it's that much harder to do things on your own. So really trying to start

having them face these fears sooner and be that safe, steady presence next to them. But we've got to learn to cope through.

Robert Poirier (34:26)
Yeah, and anxiety is not going anywhere. It's not. mean, obviously, from what you've said, it's increasing. And I think with social media, social media is not going anywhere. It's only increasing. You know, the comparisons, the competitiveness, all of that. mean, kids are going to be kids. ⁓ And it only amplifies it more on social media with how at times they can be cruel and everything else. But ⁓

I think getting a handle on this, like you were saying, recognizing the symptoms, understanding is this something I should be concerned about or is this normal, and then seeking proper help.

Jeannie Elbing (35:01)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I would say as a parent too, you you can do so much like therapy, I think is ideal. Obviously, I think it's going to be great for a kid. But there are things you can do before that. It's not always accessible for everyone. ⁓ I would, you know, get a book ⁓ or listen to some, you know, podcasts or, know, about cognitive behavioral therapy. That's CBT. You know, there's so many great CBT books out there, resources.

where that is, pretty much like, it depends on who you ask, but the gold standard for treating anxiety. It's research backed. ⁓ It really is proven to reduce anxiety. ⁓ And it's understanding how your negative automatic thoughts that you have ⁓ impact how you feel and your behavior. And once we understand that and we can...

You can explain that, you get a really good understanding of this as a parent and you can talk to your kids more about that because that's huge to help them understand like everything I think just because I think it doesn't make it true doesn't mean it's true. It's so simple but it's so important for them to understand that. ⁓

Robert Poirier (36:17)
Yeah, that's

good. you know, with you talking earlier about the enabling aspect of the parents, that's something I haven't thought about.

you know, know somebody who's, who's, uh, daughter shortly after going to school, daughter didn't want to go, didn't feel good, didn't want to go again. Daughter was fine. Didn't want to go the next day. And she continued to keep her out and you know, she knew what it was. Her daughter, it was a one friend group that wasn't, it wasn't friends with her really anymore. Um,

And she's at the age where everybody's going through their middle school, everybody's going through changes. And I don't know where she is with all that, but I can only imagine the pressures and everything else. And think that is something at times with some parents wanting to enable their kids and ⁓ thinking they're doing the best thing where really they're not.

Jeannie Elbing (37:11)
Yeah, it's hard. School is so tough for so many kids and yeah, it's easy to want to protect them from it, right? But they have to learn to ⁓ face these fears and with help, right? I know a lot of parents are surprised to understand that school, yes, it's stressful, but the most stressful time for school and the school day, the most stressful time is...

lunchtime and for the young new kids recess. And those are surprising because you would think like it's the hard with the hard classes. That's the tough part, right? No, it's actually this unstructured time in their day where their teacher isn't telling them to do something and they can't just sit there and like fake it. You know, they have to go out into the lunchroom and they have to find, they have to like navigate all the dynamics between these kids and these friendships and you can't sit with me and I

it's like lunchtime is the most stressful time of day for so many kids I've worked with I've had clients gosh I had a client tell me she would every day she would she would go to the library and she would make ⁓

copies of a paper that she didn't need the copies. would just pretend like she had a bunch of copies to make and was doing work and she would literally do that every day because she could not bear, she could not imagine like walking into the lunch room. I had kids tell me they go into the car like lay down the back of the car in the parking lot because they're not allowed to leave but they can like put the seat back and just hang out back there.

Robert Poirier (38:42)
It's heartbreaking.

Jeannie Elbing (38:53)
So really, it's tough. So with that, in therapy too, and at home, as parents, you can talk to your kids, who is a safe friend? Is there somebody, help them to kind of navigate, have a plan going into these hard situations? It's kind of a conversation, I don't think, that comes up too often, right? How are you gonna navigate lunchtime? But help them by talking through it. If your kid's really anxious and having a hard time, come up with a plan.

Robert Poirier (39:11)
Yeah.

Jeannie Elbing (39:22)
Talk to the school, there's some alternatives to it if they're really struggling, but that can be honestly a reason kids do not want to go to school. They cannot bear that time that's unstructured, so.

Robert Poirier (39:34)
that makes sense. I know we need to wrap up but look, what did we miss?

Jeannie Elbing (39:38)
You know, he's talked about a lot, you know.

Robert Poirier (39:40)
I know

we hit a very high level and we talked about a lot of different things, but was there anything that we missed

Jeannie Elbing (39:46)
the sooner, the better that you address the anxiety, like don't just write it off and think that it's just going to go away. I mean, yeah, it could be a phase, right? But if you notice any of those signs, if you, you kind of notice that they're not coming out of it very pretty quickly and it's sticking with them, like,

You wanna get them some help for them. ⁓ So sooner the better, right? Yeah.

Robert Poirier (40:13)
Yeah,

that makes sense. makes sense. How, Jeannie, how can people find you?

Jeannie Elbing (40:16)
You can find me on Instagram. My handle is Gen Z Anxiety Therapist and I post there pretty regularly just mental health tips and education for kids and parents of Gen Zers specifically. But I also, my website is just jeanniealvin.com and I have a practice here in Newport. I seek clients virtually in California. So yeah, you find me there.

Robert Poirier (40:39)
Okay. Great. And I will make sure to include links as well. So people know how to reach out and also follow you on Instagram as well. Jeannie thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the time and, ⁓ you know, the work you're doing, and this is definitely a subject that I wanted to cover. I, know, again, thank you for taking time out your day. Okay. yeah. Hey, and thank you all for listening to the dad to dad's podcast. You can find us on Spotify or apple.

Jeannie Elbing (40:48)
Thank you.

So happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Robert Poirier (41:08)
as well as most other formats. You can also find us on Instagram and YouTube. Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes and feel free to leave a comment. Look, I love reading your comments. I ⁓ read every one of them. I appreciate most of the feedback and I especially especially enjoy the recommendations for subjects as well. So look, thank you all again and we will talk to you next time.