Do you wish you could control your child’s experience in the world and guarantee the outcome? Zoom out: that’s not on you. Sometimes it sounds trite to say God is sovereign, but not so here. Here it makes all the difference to a concerned parent. You are freed to steward your household without assuming the ultimate responsibility to fix, heal, rescue, change or comfort your child. That is your heavenly Father’s domain. And he’s a good dad.

Consider this familiar scene: an eight-year-old does not want to do his piano practice. He would rather play an Imagine Dragons song. Observing this lack of perseverance, his mum activates phase 1: zoom in. The child, sensing the watchful eyes, avoids making contact, loses focus, plays the wrong notes and freezes. His mum frowns. It’s worse than she thought. She spends the next two and half seconds picturing his future. Will he stick at anything? Will he give up on basketball? On school? On Jesus? It’s time for phase 2. She asks for eye contact, writes a step-by-step practice plan and requires that he play for her now as a demonstration of compliance. She gives a sincere lecture about the value of sticking at something (being sure to keep a warm, happy tone to veil her sense of utter helplessness). Her son becomes mute and unable to locate middle C.

In my defence he started it. Or did he? It is a classic chicken-and-egg scenario. In my medical practice I’ve seen a rise in the number of consultations where anxiety is not only an individual’s experience but a broader family dynamic. This has been extensively observed and studied in paediatric psychology. And yes, like all other anxiety-related stats, this is on the rise.

If you are a parent you will know the experience. Your child might express fear or reluctance. And you, moved with loving concern, zoom in to better monitor your child’s behaviour and mental state. The child senses this anxious attention and is now faced with two stressors. First, their original fear has now been legitimised by a another. Second, they now take on a new burden of placating their parent. Ironically, this well-intentioned moment leads to a spiralling of anxiety in both.

The parenting instinct is strong—fix, heal, rescue, change, comfort—and this instinct can be easily stirred when a child is anxious. What can we do? Anxiety is cognitive, physiological and spiritual. There are many things we can do. From a spiritual perspective, the following is a good start.

Zoom Out: God Is in Control

The first thing we can do is adopt a shift in perspective: zoom out from the intense anxious interplay. Do you see your child getting stuck and scared? Zoom out: yours aren’t the only eyes watching. Consider how the verbs of Psalm 139 show God’s view on the subject. Your child’s heavenly Father searches, knows, sees, perceives, discerns, is familiar and knows completely. Even before you could see your child as a speck on an ultrasound, God was watching, and he has been watching ever since (Ps 139:13–16).

Do you wish your child could be free from harm and that everything would turn out well for them? Zoom out: you are not the only one planning your child’s future. Consider God’s plans from Ephesians 1.

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