Help Your Anxious Child Thrive: A Parent’s Guide to the SPACE Program

I recently participated in an amazing training called Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE). This program, developed by Dr. Eli Lebowitz at the Yale Child Study Center, is evidence-based and unique in that it focuses not on the child but on you, the parent.

If your child, teen, or even young adult is struggling with anxiety, you’re not alone. And the good news is: you can be part of the solution. Here’s how SPACE can help you guide your child toward resilience and independence, without needing them to attend therapy themselves.

What Is the SPACE Program?

Many parents of anxious children find themselves caught in a cycle of accommodation—avoiding anxiety triggers, offering constant reassurance, or stepping in to shield their child from discomfort. While well-intentioned, these actions can inadvertently reinforce anxiety over time.

SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) flips the script by helping parents shift from accommodation to supportive, strategic responses. The program empowers you to respond in ways that gently challenge your child, teaching them to face anxiety head-on with growing confidence.

How SPACE Works: Empowering Parents to Reduce Anxiety

SPACE doesn’t require direct involvement from your child. Instead, you’ll work with a trained SPACE provider to learn how your responses—your language, your actions, your consistency-can influence your child’s ability to cope with anxiety.

You’ll learn how to:

• Replace unhelpful, accommodating behaviors with calm, supportive ones
• Encourage your child to face rather than avoid anxiety-provoking situations
• Understand what fuels your child’s fears and how to respond effectively
• Foster resilience while creating a more peaceful home environment

What Parents Gain from SPACE

By participating in SPACE, you’ll walk away with:

• Greater confidence in your ability to parent an anxious child
• Evidence-based strategies to reduce your child’s anxiety over time
• Tools to stop reinforcing anxiety through over-accommodation
• Skills to support long-term emotional regulation and coping in your child

Who Can Benefit from SPACE?

SPACE is effective for families with children, teens, and even young adults experiencing:

• Separation anxiety
• Social anxiety
• Specific phobias or fears
• Panic disorder or agoraphobia
• Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
• Selective mutism
• Sleep-related anxiety (such as fear of sleeping alone)
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Chronic, non-diagnosed worry or fear

Even if your child hasn’t been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, SPACE can provide invaluable tools to help manage everyday worries before they escalate.

Is SPACE Right for Your Family?

If your child’s anxiety is interfering with their ability to thrive—whether it’s fear of school, social situations, sleep, or simply a constant undercurrent of worry—SPACE offers a research-backed, compassionate approach to help them grow. Most importantly, it puts the power to make change directly into your hands as a parent.

You don’t need to wait for your child to be ready for therapy. You can start making a difference now—with SPACE. Call us today at 713-364-9317 to set up a consultation with one of our SPACE-trained clinicians.

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