Anxiety in kids and teens is one of the conversations parents are most desperate to have and least sure how to start. That is why the advice Ava Phillippe has shared about growing up anxious keeps circulating. The daughter of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe has spoken openly about her own experience, and her mother has done the same, giving families a rare window into two generations working through the same struggle.
Ava has grown up in public view and now uses her platform to talk about mental health.
She has said she once considered a very different career path.
“Something you might not know about me is that I actually really wanted to be a therapist for a long time and work with kids and all their big feelings and challenges,” Ava said in a World Mental Health Day video on Instagram. She credited “some amazing mental health professionals and therapists that truly changed my life” from her own childhood.
What Ava Phillippe Has Said About Anxiety
In a 2023 Instagram Q&A, Ava told followers she had struggled with anxiety her entire life.
“I’ve dealt with anxiety for as long as I can remember, and it was especially intense for me as a kid & teenager,” she wrote.
She acknowledged there is no universal fix but offered guidance rooted in what worked for her.
“Don’t invalidate your feelings,” she wrote. “You have every right to feel however you do, even if it seems weird to others, & being hard on yourself won’t help you feel better or find a solution.”
She also pointed to grounding techniques. Take deep breaths, “a few more than you think you need,” and use your five senses to stay in the moment.
“Note 1-3 things you can smell, touch, hear, etc… in the moment,” she wrote. “& remember, this feeling will pass, even if you have to ride it out for awhile.”
Ava has also spoken about a personal “bad habit” of picking at her skin, saying it is tempting but has become easier to manage as she has gotten older.
Ava partnered with the Kids Mental Health Foundation on the Take Five campaign, which asks adults to spend at least five minutes checking in with the children in their lives.
“We should all take time to check in on those most important to us, and how they’re feeling, especially though, the people who are a little earlier on in their journey,” she said.
Her message centers on normalizing the conversation. “It’s important to put these things out in the open and to talk about the way you feel, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it feels stupid or silly, to make time for the way you feel, because it’s important.”
Witherspoon commented under the post, “Beautifully said,” with a smiley face.
Reese Witherspoon’s Own Mental Health Story
Witherspoon has spoken candidly about anxiety, depression and panic attacks. She told Harper’s Bazaar in 2025 that her grandmother Dorothea Draper, a Vanderbilt University graduate who left teaching after starting a family, struggled with depression, and her mother warned her the risk could be genetic.
Witherspoon experienced depression as a teenager and again after Ava’s birth in 1999. “It was really bad,” she said. “In the first six months, I was simultaneously happy and depressed. I just cried all the time, I was up all night, I was exhausted.”
On an episode of the Las Culturistas podcast, she described performance-driven anxiety, saying she used to have “bad panic attacks, like crying.” She tried meditation and the medication Ativan, which made her feel “like a zombie,” before finding a hypnotist who works in neurolinguistic programming, or NLP.
“She helped me realize that I was going to get the same result, but I could get rid of all the anxiety in the middle,” Witherspoon said.
Her message to a younger generation echoes her daughter’s. “You’re not alone, and you can calm yourself down. There’s tools to calm yourself down.”
