Parenting ANXIETY
Whenever I work with chronically anxious children and teens, I feel constant butterflies in my stomach, a bit of a light head and sometimes even panic rising up within me.
This transference of energy greatly informs my work as it helps me to remember that however I am feeling, they are feeling it too.
At this stage, I need to check in with what is happening in order to try and support them. How anxiety manifests can be hugely diverse from child to child and teen to teen so this can take some sensitive emotional detective work!
I have worked with children and their coping mechanisms through the extremes of anxiety, from selective mutism to uncontrollable hyperactivity.
From agrophobia and fear of animals, to a pathological attachment to a pet, person or object.
From children who turn to destructive anger as a coping mechanism to take control of their anxiety, or those who turn to perfectionism.
I have worked with children and teens who live with anxiety as a result of trauma (some conscious traumatic memory of some deeply unconscious trauma), with anxiety as a result of a bereavement or difficult transition, with anxiety as a genetic default and with anxiety as a result of low self-esteem, low attention tolerance or low frustration tolerance.
Any which way, anxiety is difficult to live with.
Developing coping strategies to deal with anxiety takes time, patience and often trial and error however the good news is that alongside therapy or counselling parents can help kids build frustration tolerance skills at home. With a little bit of guidance (and a lot of patience), you can teach your little one or adolescent how to cope when the going gets tough.
Try keeping a Worry Workbook
Children and adolescents often don’t feel they know how to discharge their worry the way that adults do. As adults we might often know we need to go for a run, do yoga, take some deep breaths or speak to a friend when we feel highly anxious, however outside of counselling, what might a child do day to day?
I find that keeping a journal where they can pour out their worries whenever they arise usually helps them. The journal can be in art form, writing, whatever works for your child and whatever feels good and helpful for them.
Having a place for all those worries to go, will stop them getting trapped inside and help children to let some of that intensity go.
You could even encourage your child to draw their dreams alongside their worries! Draw or write about the things they want to fill the space they make by letting those worries go.
Try a little body mapping
Children don’t often make the connections between their bodies and their emotions. I know, for example, that a sore stomach means I’m under stress. Given that knowledge, I can take a moment to figure out what I need to do to decrease my stress level. Children struggle to draw those conclusions without help.
I do this exercise in my sessions and most children really enjoy the exercise and find it helpful.
Ask your child to think about all the places on his body that feel sore or different when he’s feeling anxious. You might point out that your heart races when you’re stressed, and that makes your head feel dizzy. Doing this exercise with your child is important. Draw a body and colour all of those places in a colour they choose. Tell your child that when those places start to feel that colour, his body is signalling him to get help in a stressful moment.
Learn about triggers
All kids are different and no two will have the exact same triggers of stress, but there are a few common triggers to watch for:
transitions
negative peer interactions (or perceived negative interactions)
challenging academics (yes, even in playgroup—cutting with scissors can be very frustrating)
feeling misunderstood by adults or peers
lack of control
hunger
exhaustion
unexpected situations
You can help your child understand his specific triggers by keeping a trigger tracker. When you talk about a frustrating situation with your child, make a note of what happened just prior to the event, the time of day and what was happening when the panic began to set in.
Create a stress list
Ask your child to name all of the things that make her anxious at a time when she is really really worrying. Write down her list on a piece of paper while she vents her emotions. Provide empathy and understanding while you do this. Kids need to feel understood, and a simple, “Oh, that makes me feel so stressed too!” shows that you get it. Once the list is complete, ask your child if they want to tear it into tiny pieces (this provides a much needed physical release of emotion) and throw them in the air. Then collect the pieces together and throw them out for good.
Create a checklist
In times of high stress ir anxiety it can be difficult to think. Help your child to create a hardcopy checklist of the tried and tested methods that help them calm down, to refer to when they feel the anxiety coming on.
Stop Reassuring Your Child
Your child worries. You know there is nothing to worry about, so you say, “Trust me. There’s nothing to worry about.” Done and done, right? We all wish it were that simple. Your anxious child desperately wants to listen to you, but the brain won’t let it happen. During periods of anxiety, there is a rapid dump of chemicals and mental transitions executed in your body for survival. One by-product is that the prefrontal cortex — or more logical part of the brain — gets put on hold while the more automated emotional brain takes over. In other words, it is really hard for your child to think clearly, use logic or even remember how to complete basic tasks. What should you do instead of trying to rationalize the worry away?
• Freeze — pause and take some deep breaths with your child. Deep breathing can help reverse the nervous system response.
• Empathize — anxiety is scary. Your child wants to know that you understand that,
• Evaluate — once your child is calm, it’s time to figure out possible solutions.
• Let Go – Don’t take on the worry for yourself. Your child will feel it and it might make then feel more anxious! If you let it go, it is more likely they will be able to also.
Highlight why worrying is sometimes good and teach your child to be a thought detective
Remember, anxiety is tough enough without a child believing that Something is wrong with me. Many kids even develop anxiety about having anxiety. Teach your kids that worrying does, in fact, have a purpose.
Worry is a protection mechanism. Worry rings an alarm in our system and helps us survive danger. Teach your kids that worry is perfectly normal, it can help protect us, and everyone experiences it from time to time. Sometimes our system sets off false alarms, but this type of worry (anxiety) can be put in check with some simple techniques.
Remember, worry is the brain’s way of protecting us from danger. To make sure we’re really paying attention, the mind often exaggerates the object of the worry (e.g., mistaking a stick for a snake). You may have heard that teaching your children to think more positively could calm their worries. But the best remedy for distorted thinking is not positive thinking; it’s accurate thinking. You want to take them out of fantastical catastrophic thinking and ground them in reality with empathy and sensitivity:
• Catch your thoughts: Catch one of the worried thoughts like “That strange dog is going to attack me.”
• Collect evidence: Next, collect evidence to support or negate this thought. Teach your child not to make judgments about what to worry about based only on feelings. Feelings are not facts. (Supporting evidence: “That dog bit me when I was 2” Negating evidence: “My friend Katie’s dog has never bitten me, so not all dogs bite.”)
• Challenge your thoughts: The best (and most entertaining) way to do this is to teach your children to have a debate within themselves.
Avoid Avoiding Everything that Causes Anxiety
Do your children want to avoid social events, dogs, school, planes or basically any situation that causes anxiety? As a parent, do you help them do so? Of course! This is natural. The flight part of the flight-fight-freeze response urges your children to escape the threatening situation. Unfortunately, in the long run, avoidance makes anxiety worse.
So what’s the alternative? Try a method we call laddering. Kids who are able to manage their worry break it down into manageable chunks. Laddering uses this chunking concept and gradual exposure to reach a goal.
Let’s say your child is afraid of sitting on the swings in the park. Instead of avoiding this activity, create mini-goals to get closer to the bigger goal (e.g., go to the edge of the park, then walk into the park, go to the swings, and, finally, get on a swing). You can use each step until the exposure becomes too easy; that’s when you know it’s time to move to the next rung on the ladder.
Mindfulness
Sit or lie down with your child and ask them to choose two colours. One colour for relaxed feelings and one for stressful feelings.
Ask them to breathe in the relaxed colour and out the stressful colour.
Do this with them for a while, then start to direct that breathing into their busy minds, their ears, their eyes, their cheeks, their necks… and so on until you reach their feet where you will complete the exercise.
If the children struggle with this, if the colours change, if they feel they are dong it wrong, simply remind them that everything is ok, and whatever comes to mind is right. Just to keep breathing.
Dance it out
This doesn’t work for everyone, but for a lot of us, movement, getting out of our heads and encouraging some feel good hormones flooding around our bodies really works for stress (not for high level anxiety or panic attacks, but for lower kevels of stress)! Put on some feel good and high-energy music and dance it out with your child! Be silly, do crazy moves, and have fun.
Play calming music
Alternatively play some very calming music. Put it on in the background or if your child plays an instrument (well, not one that they are struggling to learn), encourage them to play. Music has an intrinsically calming effect on the nervous system and helps us to flow with our natural rhythms and allow worry to fall to the wayside.
Tapping
The Emotional Freedom Technique is by far the best technique I have ever discovered in the fight against anxiety. This one takes a little more practice and you often need to learn from a practitioner however there are plenty videos online to support you! I use this technique in my session therefore I will post one of my own for anxiety soon too.
Read
Reading about anxiety often helps children, even if unconsciously, come to a realisation that they are not alone with their worries, and that they are safe even if they don't feel like they are. Here are some books I recommend (scroll through to find the books on anxiety)...
Practice Self-Compassion
Watching your child suffer from anxiety can be painful, frustrating, and confusing. There is not one parent that hasn’t wondered at one time or another if they are the cause of their child’s anxiety. Here’s the thing, research shows that anxiety is often the result of multiple factors (i.e., genes, brain physiology, temperament, environmental factors, past traumatic events, etc.). Please keep in mind, you did not cause your child’s anxiety, but you can help them overcome it.
Toward the goal of a healthier life for the whole family, practice self-compassion. Remember, you’re not alone, and you’re not to blame. It’s time to let go of debilitating self-criticism and forgive yourself. Love yourself.
Here are some more resources to support you...
The Calming Technique
This was filmed for younger children. I adapt this technique to teach in sessions for older children and teens to include visualisations and focus words such as breathing in CALM, STRENGTH or visualising the good air flowing in (perhaps with a colour) and bad air flowing out (with another colour).
Meditation and mindfulness
Peace Out is a very popular online mediation series for children
Relaxing music to promote inner calm
I often ask my teens to make a 'keep calm' playlist for them to turn to in times of high anxiety! This playlist will be a source of support for when they are feeling anxious, or to play before they know they are entering into a stressful situation.