Things To Say To Your Child With Anxiety
Knowing the right things to say to someone with anxiety can be difficult. When that someone is your child, finding the right words is an emotional task. Your words need to show empathy, compassion, and encouragement. Anxiety makes your child feel as if their world is spinning out of control. That is a scary feeling and they need your reassurance of safety. Give your child that by saying Im here and youre safe until they begin to feel the truth of your words.
You can help to empower your child by asking what they know about fear and inviting them to speak to it directly. Utilizing a phrase of I dont have to listen to you can help lessen the feeling of control that anxiety has on them. Acknowledge the uncomfortable feeling anxiety creates by asking them to name a calming strategy they would like to try. Help her come up with different techniques like deep breathing or long stretches that work to relax her when she feels anxious.
Asking questions is a great way to help your child face any feelings of anxiety. You can ask how big they think the worry is or what they would like you to know about it. Listen to what they share without interrupting or offering advice. When theyve finished talking, ask if the two of you can change the ending to what is causing them to be anxious. Let your child come up with a few silly suggestions and then offer a realistic one that will help to ease the anxiety next time.
You Are Not Alone I Feel Scared About That Too
Let your child know its completely normal to worry. Anxiety can feel lonely. A lot like a lone star high in the sky looking down at a bustling world on a starless night.
No one wants to feel alone and like they are the only ones suffering from these intrusive thoughts. .
Telling your child about your own age-appropriate times of anxiety helps them feel less alone. .
Try telling them what happened, how it made you feel , how you got through it and your super helpful calm down strategies.
How Big Is This Worry On A Scale Of 1 To 10
Putting quantifiable numbers to worry can help a child realize their worry isnt the end of the world.
They can realize that in the big picture this worry isnt that big of a deal. Or, maybe it is the biggest worry of all and youll need to employ some calm down strategies or problem-solving solutions.
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Common Fears For Toddlers
Children aged around two to three years are only just starting to learn how to cope with their strong feelings, such as anger. A common fear for a toddler is that they will be overwhelmed by powerful emotions.Toddlers have a limited understanding of size and may develop seemingly irrational fears, such as falling down the plughole or toilet.Suggestions for helping your toddler include:
- Encourage your child to talk about their fears and anxieties.
- Appreciate that fears like falling down the plughole feel genuine to the child, because young children dont yet understand about size and space.
- Dont force the child to confront their object of fear, because this may make things worse. Help them to get used to it slowly.
- Accept that you may have to help your child avoid the feared object for a while.
How To Deal With Anxiety In Children
If youre wondering how to help a child or a teenager with anxiety, there are a few things you can do as a parent or carer.
- Firstly, its important to talk to your child about their feelings. Reassure them and let them know that its okay to talk about anxiety or worries.
- Stick to normal daily routines to help provide some stability and reassurance for them.
- Teach your child to recognise signs of anxiety in themselves how anxiety makes their brain feel and their body feel.
- Encourage your child to manage their anxiety and ask for help when they need it. Work together to find solutions and coping techniques such as breathing exercises.
- Try not to become overprotective avoiding situations that you know will worry your child wont get rid of their anxiety and could stop them from doing things in the future.
- If you think your child has school-based anxiety, let their teacher know. They may know more about how to help a child with anxiety in the classroom.
If your childs anxiety seems to be long-lasting, severe and affects their day-to-day life, then its a good idea to get some help. Visiting the GP is a good place to start.
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Challenging Behaviour Can Often Be An Unmet Emotional Need
When dealing with challenging behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what could be underneath it. When a child acts in a negative way such as biting, crying or hitting, it is usually a cry for help. You may find that they are overly clingy and cry even if you leave the room.
Understanding what may be causing the anxiety is important, maybe there has been a recent change at home or at their nursery/school. It may be conflict within the home, friendship issues, struggle with routines, bereavement or even a new move. Try to think back to when the anxiety started as that can help you pinpoint what may have caused them to feel this way.
As adults, most of us can recall times in our own childhood, where we felt worried or anxious about something. These worries, no matter how irrational they seem to parents, can feel very real to a child. Listen to their concerns, reassure them and try not to dismiss their fear as no big deal.
Why Do You Feel Anxious
This is one of the most infuriating questions, ever. But everybody close to me has asked it at least once over the years. If I knew why I felt so anxious, then surely Id be able to find a bloody solution! Asking why only highlights how clueless I am. Still, I dont blame them. Its natural for humans to ask questions and try to determine what the problem is. We like to solve things.
When your friend is struggling with anxiety, dont use comments like these. Here are five ways you can actually help them:
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How To Help An Anxious Child
If a child is experiencing anxiety, there are things that parents and carers can do to help.
First and foremost, it’s important to talk to your child about their anxiety or worries. Reassure them and show them you understand how they feel.
If your child is old enough, it may help to explain what anxiety is and the physical effects it has on our bodies. It may be helpful to describe anxiety as being like a wave that builds up and then ebbs away again.
As well as talking to your child about their worries and anxiety, it’s important to help them find solutions.
For example, if your child is worried about going to a sleepover, it is natural to want to tell them not to go. However, this could mean your child feels that their anxiety will stop them from doing things.
It’s better to recognise their anxiety and suggest solutions to help them, so they can go to the sleepover with a plan in place.
Helping A Child Who Is Afraid Of The Dark
As with other fears, it is important to handle a childs fear of the dark with sympathy and understanding. Do not ridicule or dismiss your childs feelings, or become frustrated and angry. The first step in helping your child to overcome their irrational fear is to accept their feelings as real and respond to them sensitively.Suggestions include:
- Ask them to tell you about their fears and what exactly makes them afraid.
- Show your child that you understand their fears, but that you dont necessarily share them.
- Reassure them that they are safe explain there are no such things as monsters.
- Dont try to reassure your child by checking in the cupboard or under the bed as this may suggest to the child that you believe monsters could be there.
- If your child is afraid of the dark because of the possibility of intruders, it may help to show them the security measures around the house, such as locks. However, never lock a deadlock while people are inside the house, as it may block escape in a fire or other emergency.
- Ask your child for suggestions on what would make them feel more secure. Offer suggestions yourself. Perhaps they would feel better if they took a special toy or comforter to bed.
- Find out if their fear of the dark comes from other worries. For example, some children may be afraid of their parents separating or dying, and this anxiety gets worse when they are alone in the dark. Talk to your child honestly about such issues.
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School Anxiety What Its Not
If I could write this across the sky, I would:
Anyone who is tempted to tutt, judge, or suggest a toughening up of parents or children, dont. Hush and hold it in. The assumptions on which youve built your high ground are leading you astray. Its likely, anyway, that parents dealing with school anxiety have already tried the tough love thing, even if only out of desperation. Its understandable that they would. Theyd try anything parents are pretty amazing like that.
They are great parents, with great kids. If only being tougher was all it took they all would have done it yesterday and wed be talking about something easier, like how to catch a unicorn or something.
This Feeling Will Pass
Like everything else, start teaching your kiddo mindfulness, and within that, they will learn that everything passes, bad feelings .
This too shall pass is one of my absolute favorite phrases to calm an anxious child.
When your kiddo is caught up, replaying that movie reel of bad thoughts, they sometimes feel that the movie will never end. Instead of trying to force them to stuff the worry away, remind your kiddo that relief is coming.
Kids can take a deep breath and know that the feeling will pass.
This leads nicely to our next pointbreathing is so important
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A Child Therapists Favorite Resources For Calming Anxiety In Children
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Inside: Kid tested strategies used by child therapists for calming anxiety, including ideas to calm down, books to read and videos that can help
Its happening again. Your daughter is frustrated and stomping away down to her room, slamming the door and in general has her cranky pants on. You say calm down, but she yells back I dont know how to do that!!!
We tend to tell our kids to calm down without ever giving them explicit directions on how to deal with stress and anxiety. Heres a collection of the best tools and tips Ive found to teach children how to calm down and relax.
Try To Keep The Anticipatory Period Short
When were afraid of something, the hardest time is really before we do it. So another rule of thumb for parents is to really try to eliminate or reduce the anticipatory period. If a child is nervous about going to a doctors appointment, you dont want to launch into a discussion about it two hours before you go thats likely to get your child more keyed up. So just try to shorten that period to a minimum.
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Phrases To Calm An Anxious Child
It happens to every child in one form or another anxiety. As parents, we would like to shield our children from lifes anxious moments, but navigating anxiety is an essential life skill that will serve them in the years to come. In the heat of the moment, try these simple phrases to help your children identify, accept, and work through their anxious moments.
1. Can you draw it?
Drawing, painting or doodling about an anxiety provides kids with an outlet for their feelings when they cant use their words.
2. I love you. You are safe.
Being told that you will be kept safe by the person you love the most is a powerful affirmation. Remember, anxiety makes your children feel as if their minds and bodies are in danger. Repeating they are safe can soothe the nervous system.
3. Lets pretend were blowing up a giant balloon. Well take a deep breath and blow it up to the count of 5.
If you tell a child to take a deep breath in the middle of a panic attack, chances are youll hear, I CANT! Instead, make it a game. Pretend to blow up a balloon, making funny noises in the process. Taking three deep breaths and blowing them out will actually reverse the stress response in the body and may even get you a few giggles in the process.
4. I will say something and I want you to say it exactly as I do: I can do this. Do this 10 times at variable volume.
5. Why do you think that is?
6. What will happen next?
7. We are an unstoppable team.
10. I cant wait until _____.
How To Help Your Child Manage Their Anxiety
Outside of moments when your child is feeling particularly anxious or panicky, there are things you can do over time to help them manage their anxiety and feel better.
A lot of these strategies are about helping your child to understand themselves and find out what works for them. The more confident they feel about helping themselves when things are hard, the more they will believe in their ability to cope helping to reduce feelings of panic.
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Anxiety Treatment At Home
If your child seems anxious but it’s not interfering with their everyday life, you might try helping at home first. Here are some tactics.
Help your child confront their fears. All parents instinctively want to protect and comfort their kids if your child screams hysterically whenever a dog walks by, for example, you might try to keep them far away from canines. However, “doing that may make things easier in the short run, but it reinforces their fear,” says Dr. Ginsburg. “Instead, they need to confront the fear and work on their skills to manage it.” You can help your child take small steps, like watching dogs from a distance and then petting a puppy on a leash. With each victory, celebrate your child’s bravery with a small reward, like ten extra minutes on the Xbox.
Find out what’s causing the anxiety. Before reassuring your child in anxious situations, find out specifically what they’re fretting about, says Dr. Chansky. Consider a child who’s anxious about starting school in a new city. “You may be tempted to say, ‘Don’t worry. No one is going to be mean to you at school,’ when in reality they were worried about finding their way around. Now you’ve given them something new to worry about.” To figure out his specific concern, ask, “What do you think is going to happen?” Then think of several things that the two of you can do ahead of time to help ease their fear.
It’s Normal For Children To Be Anxious From Time To Time But Are Their Worries Cause For Concern Learn More About The Causes Symptoms And Treatment Options For Anxiety Disorders In Toddlers And Children
All kids have fears, whether they’re scared of a dark bedroom, a new school year, or the neighbor’s dog. Most will simply complain about these worries and move on. But about 7 percent of children aged 3 to 17 have an anxiety disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , and these seemingly trivial things can be debilitating for them.
Indeed, for children with anxiety, worries generally get more intense over time instead of naturally fading away. “No matter how much you answer an anxious child’s questions or tell them things are fine, they can’t absorb your reassurances,” explains Tamar Chansky, Ph.D., author of Freeing Your Child From Anxiety. In severe cases, kids with anxiety may stop eating, sleeping, or going to school. At the very least, their instability can set them apart from their peersoften at an age when fitting in is crucial.
If you think your child has anxiety, read on to learn more about the causes, symptoms, and treatment options for the common disorder.
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Repeat This I Am Brave And I Can Do This
If your child isnt feeling very confident and is worrying about an upcoming sporting event, test or social gathering, pump them up. You can use any of these phrases from our list of 101 positive things to say to kids.
If you want a free PDF poster of this printable, grab it right here.
Try instilling a growth mindset into your child. Fill up their bucket with love, confidence, support, and empowerment.
How Can I Know If My Child Is Anxious In School
School performance is often a good barometer of childrens mental health. Anxiety can rob children of the ability to pay attention in school, and class engagement and participation may suffer as well as grades. So may the power to concentrate on homework or other tasks, or even to remember to do them. Teachers are usually good observers of childrens patterns and are quick to spot changes in concentration, participation, and performance.
Periodic conversations with teachers can elicit revealing information about childrens behavior that may otherwise be invisible to parents. In addition, parents who put everything else aside for a few minutes every day to have regular conversations with their children about whatever is on their mind and going on in their life are in a privileged position to hear directly when concerns arise. That might be the only way they learn about such experiences as bullying, which often escape notice by teachers and administrators but are a strong disincentive for going to school.
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