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Three things I learned while working with parents who are high in anxiety

September 17, 2021
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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I am part of a team of psychologists at the University of Sussex whose work focuses on parental mental health, who also happens to be a mum.

It's understandable how hard it can be to navigate the pressures of children, relationships, work, life, everything. Because of that, it is important it is for every parent to get good information and support if they need or want it. Our clinic focuses on parents who experience anxiety, and below are the three key things I have learned by working with these parents.

Parents with anxiety are "super-parents"

From our work with parents who experience anxiety, we know that many of them go to huge efforts to do what is best for their children, and they do this while dealing with their own anxiety.

Think of Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards in high heels. One mother explained to us that anxious parents are "super-parents" for the work they put into managing their anxiety while juggling the demands of parenthood.

Our children's worries do not have to be ours

When you are feeling anxious, your child's worries can be overwhelming. You may want to step in and fix things for them, so they don't have the same experiences you did. School is a common example of where we can transplant the feelings we have about our experiences onto our children. But just because your child is worried about something, it doesn't mean you have to be too.

If you can step back a little from their worries, you will be better able to help them cope with them. This is not always easy, and don't beat yourself up if you find yourself sharing their fears.

It is OK to nudge your child out of their comfort zone

When children become worried about something, they can start to avoid it. By gently helping your child move out of their comfort zone, you will help them build their confidence. Do this gently and in gradual steps. For example, if your child is frightened of getting on a bus, you can start by just going to the bus stop.

Then, next time, they might be willing to have a look through the door or put a foot onboard. Whenever they try something, give them lots of cuddles and rewards and be prepared for some attempts not to go so well. If it's too hard for them, it's fine to take a break and leave it for another time.

If you are feeling very anxious, this process can feel overwhelming, and that is entirely OK.

If you don't think that you can manage to do this, you might think about asking someone else to help – either by coming along with your or taking your child out on your behalf.

If you are interested in joining our current project to trial an 8-session online course, you can find more information here.

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.