When your child begins having anxious thoughts, empower them with practical self-help strategies and coping skills so that they can take control of their anxiety and thrive socially and academically.
*Note – Suggestions in this article do not replace individualized professional intervention specific to your child’s needs. If you are concerned about your child’s anxiety or want more information regarding anxiety disorders, seek professional help from a licensed practitioner, such as a pediatrician, child psychologist or mental health practitioner who specializes in working with children. The term ‘anxiety’ is broadly used to describe a range of behaviors, including anxious behavior and clinically diagnosed anxiety. There are many components to anxiety, including genetics and external triggers. In this article, we discuss supporting a child through anxious behavior.
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Recognizing that anxious behavior exists and can begin in early childhood is critical.
- First, focus on your response to your child. The actions you take to support your child can have a lasting impact on how your child understands their anxiety.
- Then, teach your child the following self-help, coping strategies so that they know they can take control of their anxiety.
In-the-Moment Coping Skills
In-the-Moment Coping Skills
- Visualize ‘What does done look like?’
- Go outside and play
- Mindful/deep breathing
- Self-talk
- Fill a Worry Eater
- Break through a Worry Wall
- See the iceberg
Anxious behavior in children can be managed and when a child learns to recognize their triggers, know their symptoms and how to cope with them (first with your support, then independently), they are able to take control of their anxiety.
- Visualize ‘What does done look like?’ – Planning is an executive function that a young child often struggles with because of the many steps involved that can feel overwhelming. The concept of visualizing the steps to ‘done’ along the way can help a child feel more in control and assured of what is to come.
- This includes breaking down the steps to ‘done’ into manageable pieces: what does ‘done’ look like? → what steps need to be completed to get to ‘done’? → in what order do the steps need to be completed? → how long will it take to complete each task? → what materials are needed?
- Anxiety can also show up as ‘overplanning’ so be sure to monitor your child’s executive functioning skills as they mature.
- Go outside and play – Take a walk, go for a quick jog around the house, jump up and down – just find some fresh air to get re-centered. This quickly reminds your child that they can take control of their body. In general, building in plenty of unstructured free play and exercise (preferably outside) into your child’s day can help them recalibrate.
- Mindful/deep breathing – Remind your child that they can feel strong by taking a moment to reset if they suddenly feel panic-stricken.
- It is often difficult for a child to engage in deep, intentional breathing on their own, so it is important to teach them how to take deep breaths and practice with them daily. The routine repetition makes it easier for a child to know what to do when they find themselves in a dysregulated state.
- An easy way to practice is to breathe through the nose (“smell the flower”) and breathe out of the mouth (“blow out the candle”). Other simple breathing exercises: when your boat gets rocked, count backwards (“5-4-3-2-1”), practice Mindful Minutes and shape breathing.
- Self-talk – Encourage your child to acknowledge their anxious thought, then counter it. For example, your child could say to themself, “Fear, I know that’s you talking to me! I know I’m feeling really scared right now for that first day of school. It’s okay to be scared. I have a plan. I’m ready!”
- Fill a Worry Eater – Invite your child to write or draw their worries on a Post-it note (or you can help them) and place them in a box, bin or Worry Eater doll to put their worries away. This physical outlet can help your child feel relief at getting a worry out of their mind.
- Break through a Worry Wall – Make the concept of breaking through worries concrete for your child. Write/draw worries on a Post-it note and place it on a block. Build the blocks into a literal Worry Wall (or tower), and encourage your child to knock it down. You could also put the Post-It notes on a large piece of paper, and encourage your child to run through the piece of paper with their body as a physical representation of knocking down their worries.
- Note: This approach is built off a character within the Superflex curriculum named “Worry Wall” – a brick wall character who worries about all sorts of things, from the very small, to the highly unlikely to the completely out of their control. The concept reminds children that they can tell their worries to go away.
- See the iceberg – Empower your child to see all the wonderful things about themself that might not be on the surface.
- First, draw a picture of an iceberg, with only the tip coming out of the water. At the tip of the iceberg, invite your child to write/draw things about themself that they let people ‘see’.
- Then, on the underwater portion of the iceberg, invite your child to write/draw things about themself that only people who know them well might know about them, or things that they do not let people ‘see’, or things that they feel people do not truly know about them.
- This simple graphic is a great reminder to your child that under their anxious behavior are layers of emotions and experiences, that when recognized, they can cope with and take control of.
Stress is a normal and expectable part of life, and we need to help children learn to recover from it. As your child tries these coping strategies, help your child know how they best recover from stress and worrying in general, and be flexible on what that recovery is. (e.g., doodling, knitting, kicking a ball aimlessly, staring into thin air, etc.)
Many of the feelings that underlie anxiety are common and most children will experience anxiety at some point. However, if your child’s anxiety is interfering with their ability to get through the day or to handle routine functions, it is important to seek professional help.