Helping your anxious child

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Seven steps to help an anxious child

Step One: Know what anxiety is

The limbic system in the brain is where fear and anxiety are first registered. The amygdala, which is a small almond structure in the limbic system, registers anxiety or fear and alerts the body to danger. For example, if your burnt toast sets off the smoke detector, the amygdala will alert you to danger. Fortunately the prefrontal cortex, the 'upstairs brain,' helps us to rationally think about what has happened, realise it is only burnt toast, and quickly helps us regain our calm. What is Self-Regulation?

When the prefrontal cortex part of our upstairs brain does not rationally challenge the smoke smell, our brains are at risk of amygdala hijack where the continued heightened fear and anxiety leads to hormone secretions of adrenaline into the blood stream. This results in the fight or flight response.

The first place the fight or flight response is felt is in our body. We might experience shallow breathing and a build up of carbon dioxide causing symptoms of lightheadedness and the shakes. Other body symptoms might be a fast heart rate directing blood away from vital organs to the arms and legs for fight or flight. When blood is directed away from the stomach nausea or butterfly feelings may result. Further symptoms may be tears, sweating, and even a dry mouth.

Anxiety, worry and fear are normal emotions. But these emotions can at times be more intense or extensive in some children and may be a greater concern if they interfere with home and/or school life, and the things they like doing, such as playing with friends.

Common fears and worries in children can be; fear of the dark, speaking in front of the class, imagining possible disasters or accidents, checking they have done something several times (i.e. locking the door), fear of heights or closed spaces, difficulty making friends, worrying what others think of them, perfectionism, fear of dogs, and fear of getting into trouble at school.

With an understanding of where anxiety and fear originate and what it looks like in children, let's move on to step two.

Step Two: Thoughts affect feelings

When I talk to children about their feelings I ask them first 'What was the event?" It could be that they have to give a talk in front of the class. How do they feel about this? Are they scared or worried?

Knowing the event and the feelings are important, but what were they thinking? This is often the missing piece in the anxiety puzzle. If they are worried about giving a speech they might be thinking, "Everyone is going to laugh at me or think my speech is stupid."

For example:

Event: Giving a Speech. Thought: Everyone is going to think I'm stupid. Feeling: Worried and scared that they will get embarrassed.

Does this mean that if we they thought something different like, "I've practised a lot and I don't think bad things about other kids when they give a speech," that they might feel less worried? Yes. Research suggests that when we help our children identify their emotions around a worrying or fearful event, and help them to see how their thoughts affect their emotions, we are equipping them with tools to help manage their emotions.

Step Three: The Worry Rating Scale

One of my favourite tools to use with children around anxiety is the Worry Rating Scale. The scale shows the degrees or levels of anxiety using a rating of 0 (very relaxed) — 10 (extremely worried), taking into consideration the child's personal perception of how they rate their worry.

For example:

Event: Giving a speech in class. Thoughts: My classmates will think my speech is stupid. Feelings: Worried. Worry Rating: 7/10

Using the Worry Rating Scale you can explain that sometimes we only feel a little bit worried but at other times we feel really, really scared. Have your child use the worry scale to rate their degree of worry in a range of different situations including ones they will rate low, such as having a family movie night, and make up ones, such as flying to Mars.

Step Four: How we think and feel affects how we behave

A child's externalising behaviour is often the first cue we have that something is not going well for them. Crying, anger outbursts, hitting, running away, or refusing to do something, like going to school are all externalising observable behaviours. However, anxious children often internalise their feelings and may not display distinct symptoms. And sometimes observable behaviour, such as anger, may not seem like anxiety.

Using the strategy of finding the link between the Event, Thoughts and Feelings, can help your child see the trigger for their behaviour.

For example:

Event: Giving a speech in class. Thoughts: My classmates will think my speech is stupid. Feelings: Worried. Worry Rating: 7/10. Behaviour: Avoidance of planning the speech. Pretending to be sick and stay home.

Step Five: Helping your child think realistically

People who worry a lot or feel stressed tend to make two errors in their thinking. First they overestimate how likely it is that bad events will occur. Second, they assume the outcomes or consequences of those events will be catastrophic or unbearable.

For example:

Event: Mum is home late from work. Thoughts: She's been in a car accident. Feelings: Worried 8/10. Behaviour: Pacing up and down and/or teary.

Once you have identified the thoughts and rated the worry you can help your child look for evidence to support this worrying thought. Questions you can ask are: What has happened in the past? What do we know about this situation? What could be alternative explanations? What is most likely to happen? What else could have happened (i.e. she might be caught in traffic)?

Once you have worked through looking for evidence and challenging unrealistic thoughts help your child rate the worries again. Hopefully they will have come down the scale slightly, if not quite a bit.

Step Six: Fighting fear by facing fear

Learning about new ways of thinking is an important tool but it is not enough to change old ways of behaving. This is where exposure to the avoided situation is important but in a gentle step approach. For example when a child first learns to swim they do not avoid the water but they learn gradually. First with floaties, being supported by the teacher. Next they learn to put their head in the water and work towards independent swimming as they feel safe and comfortable. This is the premise of exposure. When your child feels safe with the step they are on (i.e. giving a speech in front of the family) and their worry rating has gone down to a lower rating, they may then be able to move onto the next step in the exposure steps (i.e. giving the speech to the teacher only).

Step Seven: "You've got this."

Finally one of the most important aspects of helping your child to manage their worries is to model security and confidence. When they are afraid and worried they need to see that you are not. When they panic, don't you. Instead, reassure them they will be okay, validate their feelings, help them to challenge and find evidence for their thoughts, help them to rate their worry, and then confidently assist them with how to manage the steps of exposure.

Helping your child to face their fear, and not avoid or accommodate it, is the goal. Once you've gone through the strategies for the presenting worry or fear demonstrate to them that you see them as confident, capable and able, providing them with the internal belief that 'they've 'got this.' 

Banner: Unsplash. Photographer, Annie Spratt