Managing Anxiety: A Healing Guide for Teens and Their Families

Break Free from the Pain Beneath the Panic

Managing Anxiety: A Healing Guide for Teens and Their Families
(Second Edition: Revised & Expanded)

Teen anxiety is rising—and many families feel lost about how to help.

This compassionate, trauma-informed guide helps teens and parents understand anxiety not as a weakness or disorder to be ashamed of, but as a protective response shaped by stress, unmet emotional needs, and past experiences.

Unlike traditional anxiety books that focus only on symptoms, Managing Anxiety goes deeper—addressing the emotional, relational, and nervous-system roots of anxiety while offering practical tools families can use together.

At the core of this book is MAP with Nati, a gentle, easy-to-use framework that teaches teens and parents how to slow down emotional reactions and respond with clarity and compassion:

• Mind – noticing what you’re feeling and where it lives in your body

• Awareness – understanding what triggered the feeling and what it connects to

• Practice – choosing small, supportive actions that help you feel safe and grounded

Inside this book, you’ll learn:

• Why anxiety shows up as panic, anger, shutdown, or avoidance

• How the nervous system responds to stress and emotional overwhelm

• How childhood experiences and identity development influence anxiety

• How to recognize triggers without self-blame

• How to use simple practices to calm the body in the moment

• How parents can support teens without controlling, fixing, or escalating

• How to talk openly about suicidal thoughts—and why ending one’s life is never the solution

Written in a warm, human, and accessible tone, this book bridges the gap between teens and adults—helping families move from fear and frustration to connection and healing.

This is not about fixing teens.
It’s about helping them feel safe enough to heal.