Jennie Allen Warns of Anxiety ‘Pandemic’ and Offers Hope with New Children’s Book

Popular author and speaker Jennie Allen says a new kind of pandemic is spreading -- one marked by anxiety, not illness, and it's hitting young people the hardest. The author of Get Out of Your Head and the visionary behind the Gather25 conference, Allen recently released her first children's book -- What to Do With Your Whirly, Swirly Thoughts -- that addresses the subject of anxiety and mental health in easy-to-understand language for children. It's designed for young readers and illustrated by Nadia Gunawan.

The pandemic of anxiety, Allen said, has "taken over the world." 

"I was seeing that in my own kids. I was seeing that in my friends' kids and my nieces and nephews, and it broke my heart," Allen told Crosswalk Headlines. "But I have walked through it myself, where I have struggled with these thoughts and these fears."  

Allen's 2020 book Get Out of Your Head addressed the subject of anxiety for adults, explaining how to take every thought captive for Christ -- a reference to the verse in 2 Corinthians 10:5. What to Do With Your Whirly, Swirly Thoughts is the children's version of that popular book.

"When you think of a kid wrestling with suicidal ideation, wrestling with a tight chest -- and they don't know why -- wrestling with bullying at school, wrestling with all these different things that our kids are dealing with and never talking about it -- that breaks my heart, and so my heart was, 'I really want Get Out of Your Head to be in the form of a kid's book' so that parents can start these conversations with them way earlier. 

"I was 20-something when I realized for the very first time that I could control my thoughts," she said, referencing the verse from 2 Corinthians. "... So my hope is that this brings up the conversation way sooner, that kids aren't alone in their spiraling thoughts, and that parents will be able to enter into these conversations in a really simple, beautiful way."

Parents, too, can benefit from the book. 

"I talked to somebody earlier today who said, 'I was just crying reading it,'" she said. "I mean, I think it ministers to all of us, just to hear the simple truth that God has built our brains and that we can control our thoughts."

The book offers action steps for children, encouraging them to talk to God and others, express gratitude and exercise regularly.

Technology is helping drive the current anxiety crisis, Allen believes. 

"There's no doubt that the most dangerous thing for people is to be isolated," she said. "... And I think that isolation crisis is fed by technology, whether it's that we can get everything we need through Amazon or whether it's we're looking at Snapchat and all our friends are together at another house and didn't include us, or whether it's a kid who is secretly addicted to porn."

Allen's children, she said, did not get phones when their peers did. 

"Do not be afraid to say no to your kids. My kids were the last ones to have phones. They were the last ones to have social media. And my kids today are 25 to 16, and they thank me, and their lives are so much richer. … We were sometimes the only ones swimming upstream with this, and we just felt convicted. We were like, 'We're not giving you this toxic stuff.'"

Photo Credit: ©Tommy Nelson

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

Originally published May 02, 2025.