About this episode

This episode discusses supportive strategies for parents of children with anxiety and OCD, featuring insights from psychotherapists Demetra Brege and Will Sessions.

What's one supportive sentence you can say to an anxious or OCD child that helps them feel both understood and capable? When children are caught in anxiety or OCD, parents often feel desperate to fix it, reassure them, or make the distress stop. But in this episode, psychotherapists Demetra Brege and Will Sessions explain why some of these very natural responses can accidentally keep anxiety going. Together, they introduce a simple but powerful idea from the SPACE parenting framework (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions): the "mac and cheese" response. A two-part statement that combines validation with confidence. We explore why anxiety works like a smoke alarm, how children look to parents to understand whether they are safe, and why parents do not cause their child's anxiety — even though their responses can make a meaningful difference over time. Demetra and Will explain the difference between validating distress and agreeing with danger, and why children need to hear both: "I know this feels hard" and "I believe you can handle it." We also discuss the SPACE approach developed by Eli Lebowitz and his book Breaking Free of Childhood Anxiety and OCD. This episode…

More episodes of Just One Thing for Parents with Dr Bettina Hohnen

• Episode 72 - A Long-Form Special: When Life Throws a Curveball: Parenting Through Trauma, Loss and Uncertainty with Dr Rebecca Chilvers and Dr David Trickey · June 12, 2026 · 58 min
• Episode 70 - Why Your Teen Pushes Back (And What to Do Instead) with Rachel Richards · May 11, 2026 · 26 min
• Episode 69 - Helping Your Child Through Big Emotions: Lessons from DBT with Helen Wilde · May 1, 2026 · 27 min

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