Three Tools for Helping Your Anxious Child
/Does it seem like your child worries about everything, but you don’t know what makes your child anxious or how to help them with their worries?
Are you wondering how to help an anxious child when their worries get too big or start causing behavior problems?
If you are experiencing this with your kids, I want you to know that you are not alone. Anxiety is one of the most commonly diagnosed childhood mental health disorders, and many are feeling even more anxious given what is going on in the world right now. A lot of people, adults and children alike, are experiencing what is happening right now, this world-wide health crisis and the shut downs and changes it has caused, as a chronic stressor, as a trauma and a lot of us are having our fight-or-flight systems activated right now, which leads to an increase of anxiety and worries.
Although we are in a global pandemic right now, many parents I’ve spoken to are saying that their kids' stress seems to have gone way down since stopping school and they realized that school was a major source of anxiety for their kids. (My own kids for example both stopped biting their nails in the first few weeks of being home). But other kids are worried about their own and their loved ones’ health, are missing friends and relatives, and are coping with big changes that can cause anxiety.
So, whether your kids are having heightened anxiety or lower levels of worry right now, this may be a really great time to build in new self-regulation and self-care skills so that when school starts up again, your kids will have those tools in their toolbox.
My goal right now in this two part series (LINK TO PART 1) is to start recognizing anxiety as an possible underlying cause of behavioral problems (Learn more in part 1) and then support you in supporting your kids as they deal with these big feelings and worries.
It is important to remember that we all have moments of anxiety and a little bit of anxiety or worry is good, it keeps us safe, but too much gets in our way, and that’s when we need these tools. One of the reasons I am focusing a lot with my kids and working with these things in a preventative way is so that they have these tools in their toolbox if they come to a point in their lives that anxiety does spike.
If your kids are experiencing some anxieties, worries and stress, the strategies I am going to teach you can be really helpful.
Anxiety Tool: Your own education
There is a great book called “Anxiety Relief for Kids”, it is a really easy read. You can get in on Amazon and it basically teaches parents how to do CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) with their kids.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and Psychoeducation is one of the most effective ways to manage anxiety. So if you are an anxious person and you have never gone to seek therapy for it, then this book would probably be helpful for you. This book will teach you some strategies for everyday conversations with your family and so that it feels more natural to them.
Another book I want to share with you are psychoeducation books geared toward kids. One of these is my kids’ favorite book called “Wilma Jean the Worry Machine”. This book has an activity book which is geared towards school-based anxiety and both of my kids find it really helpful for them.
The other one that my 7 year-old likes is “When My Worries Get Too Big! A Relaxation Book for Children Who Live With Anxiety”. I love this book, it has been sweetly written and it has lots of great tips and tricks.
Another one I also like is a workbook called “What to Do When You WORRY Too Much”, which is for older kids who can do writing for themselves. But you can sit down and partner with your kids to do it too. This works well for some kids, but other kids like to do this sort of thing on their own. You know your kid best.
So for my anxious kiddo, she is sensitive to an adult agenda, and so if I tell her to read a book, she is less likely to read it. So I don’t push it with her. I just kind of leave it out. You can put them in their room or in your kid’s bookshelf and not even mention them. I find the more I push the more my anxious kid resists, so I really have to take a back seat with her
Anxiety Tool: Mindful Breathing
We know that mindfulness and meditation practices work because we are working on training our body to do the things that it needs to do to be relaxed, calm and turn-off our parasympathetic nervous system to get back into regulation and back into balance. That is what meditation and mindfulness practices do.
Most of the time, kids who are explosive, who are angry or irritable, if you tell them to do some breathing exercises, they are not going to do it. They may even get MORE mad (been there!!). What we want to do then is to invite them to work on those breathing techniques that are proven to calm you down in a fun way outside of the moment so that the calm breathing pattern is a habit for them that they can access during stressful times.
We basically want to help them build a habit that they can easily access in the moment when they are frustrated, that they do not even have to think about, that their body does automatically. Our brains are very efficient so if we practice something over and over and over and it becomes habitual, we will come back to it in the moments when we need it, when something triggers us.
I am going to share three exercises that are really fun that the kids will love. All three focus on breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth which is a powerful way to regulate your nervous system.
Bubble Bowl
Take a big bowl and put one or two pumps of dish soap, one or two drops of an essential oil that your kids like and then fill the bowl with water, maybe halfway full. You give your kids a straw and tell them to put the straw in the water and then have them breathe in their nose and out their mouth through the straw and it will blow bubbles. Kids love this, it’s super fun! Be sure to have them wait for the bubbles to pop while they watch. This is a great way for kids to practice dropping into the present moment;watching the bubbles pop is a mindfulness exercise.
Cotton Ball Race
Take Four or five cotton balls and lay them on the ground on your tummies facing your child. Have your child put the cotton balls in front of them and breathe in their nose and out through their mouth to blow the cotton balls over to you. It is really powerful if you are doing this back and forth because then you are co-regulating. Your brains and your systems are synchronized and harmonized and again that is something that they can come back to when they are upset.
Enjoying the “Pop”
This one takes a childhood favorite, blowing bubbles, and turns it into a mindfulness tool. Start with a bubble wand and again breathe in your nose and out your mouth to blow the bubbles in a controlled steady stream and then watch the bubbles float away until they pop. Make a deal with your kids that for every bubble they see the moment it pops, that's how many time you’ll blow bubbles for them to chase.
Remember, I want you to practice these three tools outside of the moment. Your kids do not need to know that they are mindfulness techniques that are going to help them be less anxious. Engaging in these breathing techniques will be soothing to their nervous systems and quite fun. And then during moments of heightened anxiety, they will have those in their system as habits to fall back on.
Anxiety Tool: Collaborative Problem Solving
The other tip I want to leave you with is problem solving with your kids. Problem solving is where you recognize that your child is having a hard time and you partner with your child to solve the problem. You get curious, you help them get clear on what the problem is and then you work together to come up with solutions.
I just wanted to make sure that you know that when your kid is having an explosion, a meltdown, is feeling really sad, is feeling clingy, when they are in that moment their brain is hijacked. When your kids are having one of those moments, when you are seeing these easy to miss signs of anxiety, irritability, when they are talking about worries and fears, when they are clingy, when they are sad, when they are angry and when they are having a hard time focusing, their brain is offline.
The part of the brain that they need to be good problem solvers and the part for the brain that they need to be able to talk and form good sentences and the part of the brain that they need to be able to access and talk about their feelings is all offline. Those are the things that they need to do to have a problem solving conversation. ( that is also why you tell them to use one of these strategies that I have talked about in the moment, they often say “no” or get mad, because they are in that fight-of-flight and really can’t process what you’re saying, this is why it’s important to practice them outside of the moment).
In that moment when that is happening is not the time to have a problem solving conversation. You can have those either way before that happens (so you are getting really curious in noticing the early warning signs that an anxiety is happening) or you need to wait until way after & have those conversations during a calm and connected moment. For more tips and support on solving problems with your kids, see these videos (Problem solving with your kids, Problem solving with your kids part 2).
Are you looking for a way to practice your kids to stop themselves when they get the impulse to hit, kick, throw, smash, etc.? Try these Self-Regulation fun games that they will love and help them hard-wire these skills into their brains.
Let me know if you have any questions! If you want to get more support, be sure to join my free Balanced Parenting Community on Facebook!
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