If a teenager types “anxiety” into social media today, they may encounter a licensed psychologist before they encounter a friend. That is a remarkable cultural shift. Mental health language that once lived primarily in counseling offices and psychology textbooks is now available in sixty second videos, captions, comment sections, and algorithmically generated feeds. In some ways, that accessibility can be a gift, especially for a young person who has never heard anyone put language around what they are experiencing. But the speed with which kids can acquire psychological vocabulary creates a new parenting challenge: knowing the word for something is not the same as receiving help for it.

There is a kind of child adults tend to love being around. They are agreeable, flexible, easygoing, and usually willing to move with whatever the family is doing. They nod when you give directions, rarely stir up much conflict, and when the family is deciding what to eat, they are often the child who says, “I don’t care. Whatever everybody wants.” If you have ever parented a child with very strong opinions about nearly everything, this kind of temperament can feel like winning the lottery. But sometimes quiet agreement is not peace, and sometimes the child who appears easiest on the outside is carrying much more on the inside than anyone realizes.

There are few parenting phrases easier to say and less likely to work than “Just calm down.” I have said it. Usually with the confidence of a man who believes the volume of his voice may somehow help another person's nervous system become peaceful. “Take a breath and relax. You're fine.” Then, to my surprise, the anxious child does not become fine. Sometimes they become noticeably less fine, which is humbling when your parenting strategy was built entirely around the assumption that being told to relax is relaxing.