In this episode, Colleen is joined by Amanda Lamb (Pine River Institute) for a deep, thoughtful conversation about anxiety, emotional regulation, and resilience through a developmental lens.

Rather than treating anxiety as something to eliminate or “fix,” this conversation reframes anxiety as a capacity that develops over time, shaped by relationships, expectations, culture, and lived experience. Using clear developmental analogies, the discussion explores how children and adolescents learn to manage anxiety, and why so many young people (and adults) are struggling right now.

The episode also offers practical, compassionate guidance for parents, educators, and professionals supporting anxious youth, with a strong emphasis on attunement, co-regulation, and building distress tolerance instead of avoidance.

Important Messages

Considering anxiety on a developmental framework: Much like motor skills, anxiety regulation develops in stages; these stages are both sequential and flexible, and regression under stress is normal. Many young people haven’t “failed” to regulate anxiety, they may simply not have learned the skill yet.

Early development begins with adults and transitional objects: Infants rely entirely on caregivers to regulate distress, while toddlers begin managing anxiety with external supports like stuffies, blankets, and soothers.

School-age children and adolescence begin to self-regulate: School introduces opportunities to build distress tolerance and social regulation without caregivers or transitional objects. Increased screen time and reduced in-person interaction interfere with this process, and many adolescents lack consistent co-regulating relationships outside their families.

Supporting anxious teens: We need to rethink age-based expectations (age is “just a number;” support should be based on developmental capacity, not chronological age). We need to see a young person accurately, not through grades, age, or expectations.

We can build capacity through responsibility: Chores are a powerful, evidence-based tool for building resilience that introduce manageable, tolerable discomfort; repetition builds confidence and distress tolerance.