Supporting Kids with Anxiety in a Positive Way

Anxiety is a common, and often overwhelming, emotion that can affect people of any age, including children. Anxiety can be difficult to manage, but it is important to remember that it can be more common than we think and treatable through using a whole child approach. As parents, it can be challenging to know how to best support our children when they are feeling overwhelmed or anxious. It is important to provide your child with the tools they need to help them cope with their anxiety in a healthy way.

Manage Your Own Emotions

As parents, we can’t help but hurt when our children hurt. If anxiety is disrupting your family, it can be overwhelming and bring up a lot of feelings for us as well. Without your own understanding of ways to regulate and soothe your overwhelming emotions it will be hard for you to stay calm, cool, and collected enough for you to help your anxious child manage their own emotions. There is no shame in getting your own outside support as a parent, and often, anxiety can be genetic, so seeing a therapist and having the outside perspective could be really helpful in identifying your triggers as a parent, and what would be most helpful for you as you support your child.

Use Co-Regulation to Bring Back the Calm

When kids are experiencing big emotions like overwhelm, worry, or fear, you’re not going to be able to reason with them verbally. They also need to help to get their emotions under control. When a child’s amygdala (emotional brain) is engaged, the pre-frontal cortex (thinking brain) goes offline. Helping your child manage emotions requires co-regulation, meaning a regulated parent offers calming reassurance, so that children can move through their emotions and get back to a more rational state of mind. Because of mirror neurons, a dysregulated parent cannot calm and soothe a dysregulated child. Only a calm and regulated parent can help to regulate a dysregulated child.  

 Help Your Child Recognize Their Feelings

 First and foremost, it is important for parents to be attuned to the emotions their child is having. Children may not always be able to articulate how they are feeling, so it helps if we as parents can reflect and validate their feelings by acknowledging them verbally and providing comfort. Resist the urge to teach or try to “fix it” in the moment.

“When a child is drowning, they only need a life preserver, and not a swim lesson.”

When a child is drowning, they only need a life preserver, and not a swim lesson. Showing your child that you understand what they are feeling and that their emotions are valid will help them feel supported and more comfortable expressing themselves. Children who have anxiety can have a hard time appropriately naming what they are feeling as they become so easily conditioned for fear. Helping them recognize sensations in their bodies and naming the feelings they are having can go a long way in them being able to manage anxiety in more helpful ways.

Provide Coping Strategies

 Once your child has expressed their feelings of anxiety, it’s time for you as a parent to provide them with coping strategies for managing their anxiety in a positive way. Depending on the age of your child, there are different methods that work better than others. For example, for younger kids who may not have the ability yet to verbalize how they feel or express themselves through writing, activities like coloring or drawing can help reduce stress levels while also providing an outlet for your child’s emotions. Older kids may benefit from journaling or talking about what they are feeling with trusted adults or friends. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can also be helpful in teaching kids how to recognize negative thoughts and reframe them in a more positive light. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques like visualization, breathing exercises and body scans can help children gain awareness of their body sensations, feelings and thoughts when they are experiencing anxiety.

Help Create Structure & Routines

 Creating structure and routines is key when helping kids manage anxiety levels because it gives them something consistent in which they can rely on when things get tough. Setting realistic expectations throughout the day will help keep your child organized and focused on tasks at hand which might ease some of their anxious feelings about completing projects or tasks on time. Scheduling regular breaks throughout the day will also help reduce stress levels by giving kids much needed breaks from any demanding activities they have going on at school or home life. Additionally, making sure your kid gets enough sleep each night is essential; lack of sleep can exacerbate anxious feelings because our bodies have less energy reserves when we don’t get adequate rest each night.

Conclusion

 Anxiety affects everyone differently and there isn’t one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to managing anxiety in children; however, parents play an integral role in helping children learn how to manage their anxiety in positive ways that work best for them individually. By recognizing your child’s emotions, providing coping strategies tailored towards their needs, setting boundaries around expectations while creating structure & routines throughout the day—parents can provide invaluable support during times of heightened stress & worry while also helping equip children with skills necessary for long-term success!

If your child’s anxiety is causing issues with functioning in a variety of settings, it may be time to call a therapist. Therapists can help you and your child process overwhelming emotions, learn positive copings strategies, and reframe overly critical and negative thinking to regain some control over their emotions.