The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast · Drew Linsalata

Anxious Parenting? Learning to do LESS with Joanna Hardis | EP 329

·39 min·2 clips

Joanna says parents should get better at saying, “It is okay for our kids to be feeling disappointed.”

Parenting anxiety gets named quickly. Drew says parenting can create a ton of anxiety, so if you're already anxious, being a parent often makes things worse. The conversation focuses on what happens when fear starts running the show. The fix is not more fixing. Instead, the episode asks parents to notice the extra suffering they add to already difficult moments by catastrophizing, taking on too much responsibility, and constantly jumping in. Joanna Hardist joins the conversation. Together they push back on the idea that a good parent should remove every uncomfortable feeling from a child's path, no matter the cost to the parent's own nervous system. That belief gets challenged. The episode frames doing less not as neglect but as restraint, especially when the alternative is feeding worry, control, and self-criticism. The pushback comes up plainly. Parents often feel that stepping back is irresponsible, because the protector-and-fixer identity can make a less-involved response feel like failing a duty or letting a kid fail. Drew and Joanna do not dodge that. They talk through why nagging, worrying, and blowing up over a child's stress do not actually fix the hard moment. Life is still hard. The episode keeps returning to the idea that frustration, uncertainty, and anxiety are baked into parenting, and the aim is to stop those feelings from becoming a second layer of suffering. Small changes matter. Drew closes by reconnecting the discussion to recovery logic: move away from reacting in fear and toward tiny actions that line up with what matters to you and what aligns with your values. The conversation stays practical and direct. This is about values. It lands as a steadying episode for parents who need permission to stop over-functioning and start trusting that less can sometimes be the cleaner move.

As heard by us

A steady, practical talk about keeping parental anxiety from making child struggles worse.

Episode 329 keeps its focus on parenting anxiety and lands on a plain but useful point: sometimes the best response is to do less. Drew Linsalata and guest Joanna Hardist look at how a parent's alarm can turn an ordinary child struggle into something heavier, and why fixing,…

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Why you'd press play

When parenting anxiety turns every wobble into a full-body alarm, this episode helps you do less without turning away.

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