Is Anxiety Your Child’s Emotional Legacy? Breaking the Intergenerational Cycle

By Dr. Bandara Bandaranayake, PhD

As a psychotherapist, I often see parents who come to me with a heavy heart, seeking help for their children. They describe adolescents struggling with paralyzing panic attacks, self-harming tendencies, or academic burnout. However, as we peel back the layers of these family dynamics, a hidden truth often emerges: the anxiety the child is carrying is not theirs alone.

In many cases, it is a “family heirloom”—an intergenerational transmission of anxiety passed down from parent to child, often completely unknowingly.

The Hidden Transmission of Anxiety

In my recent publication, Feeding Anxiety to Your Kids: Exploring Parental Anxiety and Its Intergenerational Transmission, I dive deep into the often-overlooked phenomenon of how our internal emotional state shapes our children’s psychological blueprints.

Anxiety is not just “in the genes.” It is transmitted through the atmosphere of the home, the hypervigilance in our voices, and the overprotective boundaries we set in an attempt to keep our children safe. While these behaviors come from a place of love, they can unintentionally teach a child that the world is a fundamentally dangerous place.

The Vulnerable Windows: When Children Absorb the Most

Children are like emotional sponges, but there are specific “critical stages” where they are most vulnerable to absorbing parental distress:

• Pregnancy: The neurobiological environment begins in the womb.

• Early Childhood: When foundational “attachment styles” are formed.

• Adolescence: A time of rapid brain development where parental catastrophic thinking can trigger severe emotional dysregulation.

My research integrates evolutionary psychology and neurobiology to show that when parents struggle with undiagnosed or unacknowledged anxiety, it manifests as emotional unavailability or inconsistent parenting. This “feeds” the anxiety of the next generation.

The Science of Hope: Breaking the Cycle

The most important message of my work is one of optimism. While the transmission of anxiety is powerful, the human mind’s power to rewire itself is even greater.

Breaking the cycle requires deliberate action. By utilizing strategies from clinical hypnotherapy and psychodynamics, parents can learn to regulate their own nervous systems. When a parent heals, the entire family dynamic shifts. You have the innate mind power to transform “inherited” fear into “cultivated” resilience.

“Whether you are a parent navigating personal challenges or a professional supporting families, this book is a call to action to nurture emotionally secure and resilient families for generations to come.”