SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions.

SPACE is an evidence-based, parent-based treatment developed for children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD, and related concerns. In most cases, parents or caregivers attend sessions while the child remains the focus of treatment.

Rather than requiring your child to change before progress can begin, SPACE focuses on changes you can make in your own responses to anxiety.

Parents learn to:

• Communicate both acceptance of their child’s distress and confidence in their ability to cope

• Recognize the ways anxiety or OCD has begun shaping family routines

• Reduce accommodations gradually and thoughtfully

• Respond differently to reassurance-seeking, avoidance, and anxious behavior

• Prepare for difficult reactions without becoming pulled into power struggles

• Work together more consistently as parents or caregivers

• Support greater confidence, flexibility, and independence

SPACE does not ask parents to become cold, dismissive, or less supportive. In fact, support is central to the approach.

The goal is to communicate two important messages at the same time:

“I understand that this is genuinely hard for you.”

“I believe you can handle difficult feelings.”

Children need both.

Family accommodation includes the changes parents and other family members make to help a child avoid or reduce anxiety.

These changes are incredibly common and usually begin with the best intentions.

Accommodation might look like:

• Answering the same worry-based question repeatedly

• Participating in rituals or helping something feel “just right”

• Speaking for a child who is afraid to interact with others

• Allowing a child to avoid school, activities, appointments, or social situations

• Changing family plans to prevent distress

• Sleeping beside a child who is afraid to sleep alone

• Checking locks, food, homework, health concerns, or safety on the child’s behalf

• Avoiding certain words, people, places, objects, or topics

• Completing tasks for a child because anxiety makes them feel overwhelming

• Providing certainty about questions that cannot truly be answered with certainty

Accommodations often bring immediate relief. Your child becomes calmer, and the family can move forward with the day.

The difficulty is that repeated accommodation can teach the anxious brain that the situation truly was dangerous or that the child could not have managed it without someone stepping in.

SPACE helps parents reduce these patterns gradually, not all at once. Julie works with families to choose a specific, realistic starting point, communicate the change supportively, anticipate the child’s response, and remain steady without withdrawing warmth or connection.

Parent-based treatment may be helpful when your child:

• Refuses to attend therapy or becomes distressed when therapy is mentioned

• Has difficulty speaking with unfamiliar adults

• Struggles with new people, new places, or transitions

• Has selective mutism or significant social anxiety

• Denies that anything is wrong or does not feel ready for help

• Is too young to participate meaningfully in traditional talk therapy

• Relies heavily on parents for reassurance, decision-making, or daily activities

• Avoids school, social activities, appointments, or age-appropriate independence

• Becomes highly distressed when limits are placed around anxiety or OCD

• Expects family members to participate in routines or rituals

• Has tried individual therapy but had difficulty engaging

• Cannot attend therapy consistently because of scheduling, transportation, location, or other family circumstances

• Is already seeing a therapist but would benefit from more structured parent involvement

You do not need to wait until your child agrees to treatment. You also do not have to convince, bribe, or force them into a therapist’s office before your family can receive support.

When parents change how they respond to anxiety, the entire system around the child begins to change.

This is far more common than many parents realize.

A child may refuse therapy because they feel embarrassed, afraid of being judged, uncomfortable with strangers, or worried that treatment will force them to face something before they are ready. Some children do not believe they need help. Others fear that a therapist will take away the routines, reassurance, or avoidance that currently help them feel safe.

A therapy refusal does not mean your child is unmotivated, defiant, or beyond help. Often, refusal is another way anxiety protects itself.

With SPACE, parents can begin treatment without requiring the child to participate in sessions. Julie can help you better understand your child’s anxiety, identify accommodation patterns, and make changes within your control.

The focus is not on secretly manipulating your child or forcing them to change. The focus is on helping you become less organized around anxiety while remaining loving, calm, and connected.

Sometimes, as children experience their parents responding differently and begin to recognize their own ability to cope, they become more open to participating in therapy later. But their willingness to attend does not have to be the starting point.

For children with social anxiety, separation anxiety, selective mutism, or a strong fear of unfamiliar situations, meeting a therapist may feel like the very thing they are least able to do.

Julie understands that a child who looks quiet, resistant, avoidant, or unresponsive may be working very hard to manage fear.

Depending on your child’s needs, support might begin entirely with the parents. If direct participation becomes appropriate later, it can be approached gradually and thoughtfully. A child may begin with a brief introduction, remain near a parent, communicate in a lower-pressure way, or simply learn more about what to expect before being asked to engage.

There is no need to treat discomfort with new people as misbehavior. At the same time, your family does not have to let anxiety make every decision.

The goal is to create a path forward that respects your child’s experience while building confidence rather than reinforcing avoidance.

Sometimes individual therapy is not practical or possible.

Your child may be unwilling to participate, or family schedules, transportation, distance, health concerns, caregiving responsibilities, or other circumstances may make regular child sessions difficult.

Parent-based work can still provide a meaningful treatment path.

Because you are present in your child’s daily life, you have opportunities that no therapist has. You see the difficult mornings, bedtime worries, repeated questions, rituals, avoidance, sibling conflict, and moments when anxiety begins to take over. With support, those everyday interactions can become opportunities to communicate confidence and help your child practice coping.

Julie can work with you to understand what is happening, choose manageable goals, prepare for challenges, and adjust the plan based on what you observe at home.

Your child does not need to be sitting in the therapy room for therapy to begin helping your child.