How to Help Your Child Overcome Anxiety
Some kids are emotionally sensitive and need extra TLC. They’re anxious about almost everything and going back to school after summer break is likely what’s stressing your child out!
While anxiety before school is normal, many parents fail to provide the unconditional love and support their child needs.
The way you respond to your child’s anxiety will make a big difference in how they learn to cope with anxious feelings.
Here are a couple of things you can do to help your child feel better:
Validate Their Feelings
When your child says they're worried about something, it can be tempting to say things like, “Oh, it’s not a big deal,” or “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.” Those types of responses send a message that your child’s feelings are wrong.
Instead, validate their feelings by saying things like, “It sounds like you’re feeling really nervous right now,” or “I’d be a little anxious too if I had to get up in front of a big crowd.”
Then, send a message that says you’re confident they can succeed despite the nerves. Say something like, “It’s tough to do scary things like this, but I am confident you can do it.”
Creating a Lovely Space between Your Child and What They’re Thinking
We can help our kids do this by developing their metacognition (thought-noticing) skills.
That way, when their minds wander to their worries and troubles they can notice they’re actually ‘lost in thought’ and not really experiencing the events they are thinking about.
It would help them to ‘unhook’ from their daydreaming and importantly, bring their minds back to the present moment.
Teach Them Deep Breathing
Deep breathing is an excellent way to calm down immediately. It’s a technique therapists often recommend because of how effective it is.
One quick and easy way to help them get their breathing under control is to "smell the pizza." Here's how to do it:
Imagine a slice of pizza:
You can also replace "pizza" with any other hot food, such as a cookie or soup.
Smell the pizza:
Take a deep breath through your nose to inhale the delicious scent.
Cool the pizza:
Pretend you're cooling the pizza by blowing out of your mouth slowly.
An alternative exercise is to teach them the "bubble blowing" technique. Tell them to pretend like they're blowing bubbles with a wand. Remind them of how softly they need to blow to get a nice big bubble. This will help them remember to slowly exhale.
Do these exercises together a few times to help them calm their body. Talk about how they can remind themselves to do it on their own when they're feeling anxious.
Understand that Their Anxiety is Real
An anxious child desperately wants a parent to understand that they feel anxious and apprehensive.
Even if you can’t comprehend the impact that a return to school has on their state of mind and physiology, recognize that their anxiety is real.
“Ah, I see you’re worried that you won’t know what to do when you go to school” is the type of response that an anxious child wants from a parent.
Validating your child’s feelings will help them feel safe and secure, putting them in a good position to make a return to school. “Mum/dad know that I’m feeling nervous” is very reassuring for a child.
These are a few tips and tricks you can use to ease your child’s mind whenever they are anxious.
“Mona’s Fairy Tale” and “Mona’s Journey”, “Mona and the Treasure Map” and “Mona’s Fairy Tale” and by Cindy and Mona are books about a spider monkey doll that makes her way from China to San Jose, Costa Rica.
She meets Cindy and Mike and together they and that is when Mona started going on amazing adventures. Mona tackles and deals with various challenges in beautiful ways.
The books teach children about love, friendship, kindness, and how to handle all kinds of challenges.
These books are available for purchase on Amazon.
