The Kids' Anxiety Book I Recommend to Grown-Ups Too

I recommend a lot of books in this work, but there's one I find myself coming back to again and again — not just for kids, but for the parents sitting across from me too: What to Do When You Worry Too Much by Dawn Huebner.

Technically, it's written for children ages 6-12. It's part of a well-known series of interactive guides that use simple metaphors and playful illustrations to teach kids cognitive-behavioral tools for anxiety. One of the central ideas in the book compares worries to something you might not expect — a tomato vine (hence the picture on the cover) — the point being that worries have a way of growing bigger the more we pay attention to them. It's a simple, memorable image, and it sticks.

Here's why I think adults should read it too.

So much of what makes this book effective for kids is exactly what makes anxiety hard for adults: we intellectually understand our worries aren't always rational, but knowing that doesn't make them stop. We often want to stop anxiety, but the problem is, what we resist persists. What actually helps is acknowledging the worry and having concrete, step-by-step tools — notice the worry, name it, understand what it's doing in your body, and practice specific strategies to shift out of that anxious loop and calm your nervous system.

This book breaks all of that down in language so clear and approachable that it works just as well for the anxious adult brain as it does for the anxious kid brain. If you've ever felt like anxiety books written for adults get too abstract or too clinical, this one cuts straight to the practical.

The nervous system connection.

Anxiety isn't just a thought pattern — it's a nervous system state. Worry activates your body the same way any stressor does: elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, a mind that races ahead to worst-case scenarios. What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn't just address the thinking piece. It also touches on recognizing what worry feels like in your body and having a plan for resetting your system when it takes over — which is exactly the kind of regulation work I love to teach, just translated into language a child can understand.

If you're a parent trying to help an anxious child, or if you're an anxious adult who wants tools that are actually simple enough to use in the moment, this book is worth having on your shelf.

You can grab a copy here: What to Do When You Worry Too Much, 2nd Edition — and if anxiety, for you or your child, is something you'd like more support with, get in touch. Building a toolkit for regulating an anxious nervous system is work I love doing, for kids and grown-ups alike.