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Anxiety therapy for kids and teens ages 3 to 17, when worry is running the show, for your child and for you.
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You can tell three days before the test.
Not because they say anything. Because they go quiet. They stop eating much at dinner. They ask you, for the fourth time, whether you will be there for pickup.
There is a presentation Thursday. A tryout, a recital, a science fair, a test that somehow matters more than a test should. And your kid is already somewhere else, running it in their head.
To everyone else, your child looks fine. Capable. Maybe even ahead. You are the one who sees the 10pm version. The tears out of nowhere. The "I am going to fail." The stomachache that is real even though the doctor found nothing.
"She asks me the same question ten times and my answer never sticks."
"He was fine last year. I don't know what changed."
"The pediatrician says nothing's wrong. Something is wrong."
Maybe at your house it is quieter. The party they backed out of at the door. The hand that never goes up, even when they know the answer. The worry that circles back the second you have answered it.
You have been up late reading about this, wondering somewhere in there if you caused it. The pressure out here. Something you did. The worry they might have gotten from you.
And everyone has a take: she's just sensitive, he'll toughen up, all kids worry. Maybe. But you know the difference between a kid who worries and a kid who is being run by it.
Here is the part worth hearing first. You did not miss this. You noticed it. And noticing is what your child needed.
Your child is not giving you a hard time. Their body believes something is wrong.
Anxiety does not always look like worry. Sometimes it looks like defiance, the meltdown or the flat refusal. Sometimes it lives in the body, the stomachaches and sleepless nights a doctor cannot explain. Sometimes it looks like a straight-A kid who is quietly coming apart.
Underneath all of it, a nervous system is doing its job: sounding an alarm about something that feels too big to hold alone. The alarm is real even when the danger is not.
That distinction matters, because responding to misbehavior and responding to a nervous system in distress are not the same thing. An anxious child is not a broken child. They are a kid saying something they do not have words for yet. Our job is to work out what it is, and help you hear it too.
I'm Hannah Ly, LMFT, founder of Your Therapy Nook. Anxiety is the number one reason families find me. Not because it's simple, but because when you finally understand what's underneath it, the whole picture of your kid shifts.
I follow your child. No protocols, no worksheets. I track what they're offering through their play, their stories, what they reach for, and I reflect it back so they can connect with themselves. When a child feels seen, the behaviors that were managing the anxiety start to fade. Not because I trained them out. Because the child doesn't need them anymore.
It's not just me anymore. Every child and teen therapist here trained under me and I review every case weekly, so whoever your family is matched with, you're getting someone I'd trust with my own kids. I run every consultation myself, and you can request a specific therapist on the call.
A few months in, parents start noticing changes. Small at first, then harder to miss:
What we will not promise is a child who never worries. What we do see, over and over, is a parent who finally understands their kid, and a home that feels calmer. Not perfect. Calmer.
Book a Free 15-Min CallChild anxiety therapy helps a child work through the worry, avoidance, and physical symptoms that anxiety creates, by treating what is driving the anxiety rather than only managing the behavior it produces. At Your Therapy Nook, that means child-led play therapy for younger children, conversation and Brainspotting for teens, and parent coaching every four weeks so the therapy continues at home.
We provide anxiety therapy for children and teens ages 3 to 17 at our San Jose and Redwood City offices, serving families across San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, and the wider South Bay and Peninsula. Anxiety is the most common reason families come to us.
You tell us what has been happening and what you have already tried. We ask questions. By the end you will know whether this is the right fit, and which therapist makes sense for your family: Hannah, or one of our associate therapists, who she trained and clinically directs. No commitment.
Before your child ever walks in, we meet with you. We go through their history, name what we are working toward, and make sure we are aligned.
Fifty minutes. Child-led for younger kids, more collaborative for teens. We follow their lead and track what they bring into the room.
Every four weeks we meet without your child. We share what we are seeing, you tell us what is happening at home, and you leave with specific things to try.
It is rarely dramatic. One morning simply goes smoother. You notice it before you can fully explain it.
The panic before a test, a presentation, a recital, a tryout. Sleep that falls apart the night before. A kid who knows the material cold and freezes anyway. One of the most common reasons families here come in.
The kid who will not start unless it will be perfect, who melts down over one wrong answer, who has tied their worth to the grade.
Watching from the edge at recess. Freezing in group conversations. Coming home wrung out from performing "fine" all day. The room is a place to practice being seen before having to be seen in the world.
Frozen at the classroom door, the call from the office, the clinginess that is not manipulation but a kid who does not yet feel safe when you are away. Worth addressing when it is getting bigger, not smaller.
Maybe the school has been calling. Maybe your kid was fine last year. Avoidance is almost always anxiety, not defiance, and the longer it runs the harder it is to interrupt. Earlier is better.
The bedtime checks, the worst-case questions, the reassurance that never quite lands. Reassurance often makes it worse. In parent coaching we work on staying present without feeding the loop.
None of this means something is fundamentally wrong with your child. It means the load has gotten heavier than what they can carry alone right now.
Children do not process anxiety the way adults do. Asking an anxious seven-year-old to talk about their feelings often does not work, not because they will not, but because they cannot yet. The language is not there.
Play is their language. Your child leads: they choose what to do, what to pick up, what story to tell. While they play, their therapist tracks the themes that keep appearing, how they handle something going wrong in the game, the moment they glance over to check that someone is still there.
We are not correcting or guiding. We are seeing what they offer and reflecting it back in a way that helps them connect with themselves.
We draw, play games, and talk. When it fits, we use Brainspotting, a body-based approach that works well for anxiety, overwhelm, and the stuck feeling that does not budge from talking alone.
We start by getting curious about who your teen is as a person, their world and what matters to them, before anything clinical. Therapy follows the relationship, not the other way around.
Anxiety does not stay in the therapy room. It comes home, to dinner, to bedtime, to the morning before school. How you respond in those moments matters at least as much as what happens in session. Not because you are doing it wrong, but because you are your child's closest nervous system reference point.
Every family here has a standing parent session every four weeks. We share what we are seeing in sessions, within what your child is comfortable sharing, ask how things are going at home, and give you guidance calibrated to your child right now. Not a parenting program. Not a report card.
That is biology, not blame. If you recognize yourself in some of what you are reading, if the worry travels between you and your child, parent coaching is a place to be honest about that.
Understanding your own nervous system is often the most direct route to changing the loop at home.
We see a particular version of this in the South Bay and on the Peninsula. Kids whose weeks are full before they have a say in them. Teens who have been told, in a hundred small ways, that the next test is the one that decides everything.
The pressure here is real and a therapy hour does not remove it. What changes is what your child does with it, and whether their sense of who they are is still tied to how they performed this week.
If it is big enough to worry you, it is big enough to bring here. Most families do not come in after a single bad week. They come when the pattern is clear enough that something needs to change. Anxiety that is affecting school, sleep, friendships, or the daily pace of your home is worth taking seriously, and you do not have to wait for a crisis.
Common signs of anxiety in children include stomachaches or headaches with no medical cause, trouble falling asleep, clinging at drop-off, refusing school, asking the same reassurance question repeatedly, meltdowns before transitions, perfectionism and harsh self-criticism, and avoiding activities they used to enjoy. In teens it often looks like withdrawal, procrastination, panic before tests, irritability, and exhaustion.
No. For younger children especially, therapy does not happen by talking about anxiety directly. It happens through play, through the relationship, and through the slow process of a child feeling safe enough to show someone what is going on inside. For teens who say they are fine, we spend the first stretch simply getting to know them as a person.
Anxiety is not a coping skills problem. It is a nervous system stuck in a pattern, usually for reasons the child cannot explain and a parent cannot reach from the outside. Therapy is not another tool for the list. It is a relationship with someone trained to understand what is driving the anxiety and help your child process it, rather than only manage it.
Often, yes. Answering the same worry repeatedly can teach an anxious brain that the worry deserved that much attention, which strengthens the loop rather than settling it. This does not mean you should withhold comfort. In parent coaching we work on how to stay warm and present with a worried child without feeding the cycle.
Yes. We work with teens ages 11 to 17 using conversation, creative work, and Brainspotting. A lot of teen anxiety here involves academic pressure, perfectionism, and the specific weight of growing up in Silicon Valley. Teen sessions have their own confidentiality: before every parent coaching meeting, we check with your teen about what they are comfortable sharing.
It depends on the child and what is driving the anxiety, and progress is not linear. Some families notice changes at home within a couple of months, and others need longer, particularly when anxiety has been building for years or is tied to a specific event. We review how things are going regularly so the plan matches what your child actually needs.
Sessions run $200 to $270, depending on the therapist your family sees, and every case includes parent coaching every four weeks at the same session rate. Your Therapy Nook is private pay and does not bill insurance, but we provide superbills you can submit for out-of-network reimbursement.
Both offices offer the same services: child therapy, teen therapy, and parent coaching every four weeks. The San Jose office is on Moorpark Ave in West San Jose. The Redwood City office serves Peninsula families from Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, and surrounding communities.
Tell us what has been happening. We will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit, and if we are not, we will point you toward someone who is.
Book a Free 15-Min Call
