Anxiety and Kids

2026-03-04

These are two different topics but I dont have a lot of time so I am going to smoosh them into one blog post.

About two days ago I had a very bad case of anxiety, I was dreading this trip we were going to take, I felt like my job was struggling and there was little hope of making a successful company, and I was worried about my family. And this feeling stuck with me for the whole day, I couldn’t really shake it. I have had days like this in the past, and I did what I normally do. I talked to Sneha about it and tried to go about my day as normally as possible. And eventually I felt better towards the afternoon and on the next day I felt even better.

And then today I had a small wave of anxiety, for maybe 20 minutes I felt the same sensation but it was gone after only a short while and I went back to being on this lovely vacation.

And neither of these instances are rational and I dont know if there is a lot I am going to do about either aside from talk to my therapist about them. Just my brain being my brain, but also I feel I have tool to mitigate these feelings and they dont cripple me completely which is nice.

And this second thing is more silly, but we are on this vacation with our youngest and it feels like he is actively trying to kill himself. He is 1.5 years old, walks with a drunken stagger, and seems determined to off himself.

After we landed we went to some food trucks and I put him down, after a while he tries to run into the street.

Earlier today we go to the beach and he is having fun and then tried to eat a fist full of sand.

And finally we were sitting somewhere, maybe it was the airport I am not sure, but he got into the habit of standing on a small chair and jumping like a belly flop into my arms. And he has full trust in me, if I dont catch him he is going to land face first into the ground, but every time I am trying my best to catch him which just gives him more confidence that I am not going to drop him.

I do wonder sometimes if I need to be harder on my kids, let them put their hands on the stove so they learn it is hot, etc. And sometimes they do hurt themselves (less extremely than the stove example) but I can see how a kid would learn very quickly if you take away all of the guard rails. But is that better? Is that what I want?

I definitely dont want a kid with all of the guard rails, they. have to fail sometimes, but I also don’t want a kid with no guard rails, they have probably run into the street already.

-Gary