Recognition

Why Is My Child So Anxious or Depressed?

Name: Why Is My Child So Anxious or Depressed?
Uploaded: 2026-08-28
Duration: 5 min 15 s
Channel: Meredith Shuman
Description: A trauma-informed look at why kids become anxious or depressed and four practical steps parents can take to help them cope.

Why a child may be anxious or depressed — a mismatch between their environment and their coping skills — and four ways to build those skills.

By Meredith Shuman, MSW · Founder and Executive Director

Quick answer

A child is often anxious or depressed because there's a disconnect between the environment they're in and the coping mechanisms they currently have to deal with it. The fix is to increase those coping mechanisms, which can happen through the parent's own therapy, professional help for the kiddo, building positive community, and prayer.

Key takeaways

Anxiety or depression in kids often comes from a mismatch between their environment and the coping skills they currently have.
Parents going to their own therapy can change the environment for their kiddo, even if the parent isn't the direct cause of the problem.
Getting the kiddo their own professional help, such as sand tray therapy for younger children or talk and group therapy for older kids, can build coping mechanisms.
Helping a kiddo connect to a positive community, like an extracurricular activity, youth group, or hobby, can interrupt the mental loops that feed depression and anxiety.
Prayer is described as a primary way of connecting with God and entering into the healing process already underway for the kiddo and the parent.

Common questions

Why is my child so anxious or depressed?

It usually comes down to a disconnect between the environment the kiddo is in and the coping skills or coping mechanisms they currently have to handle that environment. When the environment and their ability to cope aren't congruent, that dissonance can lead to anxiety or depression, especially over the long term.

What can parents do to help an anxious or depressed child?

Four things help: the parent getting their own therapy, getting the kiddo their own professional help like sand tray or talk therapy, building the kiddo's positive community through activities or a youth group, and prayer.

What is sand tray therapy?

It's described as an amazing modality for therapists to connect with children in a way that goes beyond just sitting and having a conversation, which can be difficult for a little kiddo.

Full transcript

4 min read · 5 sections

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Why Is My Kid So Depressed or Anxious?

Why is my kid so depressed? Why is my kid so anxious? These are legit questions, and we’re going to deal with both sides of that: the why, and then some pointers about what to do about it.

Number one, why is my kid so depressed or so anxious? There could be a hundred reasons, but it all comes down to this: the environment that the kiddo is in and their coping skills and their coping mechanisms, and the ways that they translate what the world means around them, are not seeing eye to eye. They’re not congruent. They’re not connecting, okay? So there’s this dissonance or disconnect between what the environment is presenting and their abilities to cope, okay? That’s the why. That’s why any of us get depressed or anxious, especially over a long term.

And so now what do we do about it, right? Because that’s the key, okay? So if there’s this environment, but the kiddo doesn’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with the environment, then our way to address it is to increase the coping mechanisms, right? To increase their coping skills.

Getting Your Own Support as a Parent

One way we can do that is by us, as the parent, going to therapy by ourselves or with our partner or spouse. It is so important that we go and work out whatever issues that we may be facing, that we may be contributing to the situation, in ways that we can come alongside our kiddo. Absolutely vital. There’s so many things that we do automatically in parenting and in life that we may not even be realizing are contributing to the situation. There’s no shame here. You don’t know what you don’t know. But by going and getting our own level of professional help, this can absolutely transform the environment for the kiddo. That’s item number one.

Getting the Kiddo Their Own Professional Help

Item number two is: is the kiddo open to getting their own professional help? For children, there is this amazing modality called sand tray therapy. Google it. It’s just an amazing way for a therapist to connect with kids that’s way beyond just sitting and having a conversation, which can be difficult for a little kiddo.

For an older kid, there is talk therapy, there’s group therapy. If they’re willing to go, and if you can find the resources and access the actual therapy and therapeutic process, highly recommended. That can be a huge way that they can start to gain some of those coping mechanisms.

Some of us don’t understand what therapy is because we’ve never been. And therapy is not just venting out their problems or just getting to talk about their bad day. A good therapist is not only going to hear and validate, but they’re actually going to have things to work on and things that the patient or client then does in their actual life that helps to increase those coping mechanisms, okay?

Building Community

So then the next thing is to increase the kiddo’s community, right? Is there a way that they can get into a really positive extracurricular activity? Do you have a really solid church with a youth group? Is there some other hobby that they want to get into, or a sport, or something like that? Just getting into a community — they don’t have to unpack all of their issues with that community, but just being in a community can really take us out of some of those mental loops that take us into depression and anxiety. So that’s number three.

Prayer

And number four: absolutely we can pray for these kiddos. And you may be already doing that. I know that many times when we say, “Well, I really can’t do anything, all I can do is just pray,” and I mean, as a believer in Jesus, I just want to say prayer is number one. It’s actually not number four. It is literally connecting with the God of the universe. And when we’re doing that, we are calling upon God to do things. And it’s not like he doesn’t already know, but when we pray, we’re actually entering in with him in the healing process that he already wants to do for our kiddos and for ourselves.

So those are the four things that we can do when our kiddo is struggling. Stay tuned for more Trauma Talk, and remember that on this journey, trauma does not get the last word.