Why we should stop saying 'don't worry' to kids so often

Saying “don’t worry” too often tells a child that feeling scared is a bad thing. Worry is actually useful: it is the brain’s signal to be careful. Instead of dismissing the feeling, teach children what to do with it, because coping skills, not the absence of fear, are what carry them through life.

“Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first,” wrote Matthew Jacobson. Believing in a child sometimes means letting them face the world: you cannot safeguard them from every situation, and always removing their everyday fears and worries does them no favour.

The phrase “don’t worry” causes trouble in two different ways, and both are worth a look.

Problem one: “don’t worry” as instant wish-granting

Giving in to a tantrum once in a while is fine; doing it routinely is not. When your child wants something they saw at a friend’s place, or under peer pressure, weigh whether it is justified before you buy it. A child who gets used to the luxury keeps coming back with bigger demands, stops valuing things, and learns to take you for granted. Tantrums themselves are a normal part of growing; the skill is knowing when to say no, kindly and firmly, the way positive parenting says no.

Problem two: “don’t worry” as fear-removal

If you always step in and make hard things easier, your child never practises facing fear at all. All children have fears, and occasional anxiety is normal: the CDC estimates about 7% of children aged 3 to 17 have an anxiety disorder, one 2019 research report found 10% of children aged 2 to 5 show signs of one, and differences in stress response have been detected in babies as young as six weeks.

So the goal is not to keep children away from anxiety. It is to teach them to handle it well.

What does “don’t worry” actually teach?

When we say “don’t worry,” we are telling a child they should not feel scared, that feeling scared is a bad thing. It is not. Worry is the brain’s way of saying be careful, tread lightly, watch out. A child who learns to hear that signal, name it and act on it is building coping skills; a child who learns to suppress it is building the habits of toxic positivity, where hard feelings go underground instead of getting handled.

Parents shape this more than they realise. Golda Ginsburg, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut, notes that while anxiety carries an inherited risk, overprotective parents, or parents who model their own fears, increase their child’s risk of anxiety.

There is even a name for one of the mechanisms. Research sponsored by England’s National Institute for Health Research examined “flash-forward” thinking in adolescents, vividly imagining future catastrophes, and found it uniquely associated with generalised anxiety and depression. Dismissing a worry does not stop the imagining; talking through it does.

What to do instead

• Acknowledge the feeling first. “You’re worried about the test. That makes sense.” Being heard shrinks a worry faster than being contradicted; this is active listening doing its quiet work.
• Treat worry as information. Ask what the worry is trying to protect them from, then plan together: what could we do about that?
• Let them attempt the hard thing. Confidence comes from surviving the worry and doing it anyway, not from the worry being removed.
• Watch your own modelling. Children learn how scary the world is by watching your face. Narrate your own coping out loud sometimes: “I’m nervous about my presentation, so I’m practising it once more.”
• Teach calming tools like slow breathing and mindfulness, so the body has something to do while the mind sorts itself out.

“Don’t worry” asks a child to stop feeling. “Tell me about it” teaches them what to do with the feeling. Only one of those works twice.

Worry that persists, spreads or interferes with school and friendships deserves professional attention; caring for your child’s emotional health includes knowing when to bring in help.

Dr. V.S. Gayathri is a Certified Dyslexia Therapist, an Orton-Gillingham trained literacy specialist, and the founder of Flourishing Kids. She has delivered over 4,000 hours of one-to-one reading and spelling intervention, helping children across multiple countries build stronger literacy skills. Anxiety and learning struggles often feed each other; get in touch for a free 15-minute conversation.