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How to Help Your Child Manage Their Anxiety

Most often, we try to “solve” anxiety by reducing uncertainty and telling our kids that “everything will be okay;” Ironically, this tends to increase anxiety - because what helps anxiety the most is helping kids tap into their capability and coping ability.

Dr Becky Kennedy

Dr Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist

12 min read

girl talking to mom

Intro

Anxiety is a feeling of worry or fear that a person experiences through sensations, emotions, thoughts, and physical symptoms. Anxiety feels uneasy in the body, and anxiety in a child can manifest as hesitation, shyness, and tears or out-of-control behavior and tantrums. 

The Good Inside Anxiety Equation thinks about anxiety as uncertainty + our underestimation of our ability to cope. Most often, we try to “solve” anxiety by reducing uncertainty and telling our kids that “everything will be okay;” Ironically, this tends to increase anxiety - because what helps anxiety the most is helping kids tap into their capability and coping ability.  

Many kids start to show signs of anxiety, and when this happens, this doesn’t mean that a child will be anxious forever - in fact, while anxiety in kids can feel concerning, it’s normal for kids to experience anxious behavior on occasion, and there are ways to address it. Once parents know what types of interventions ease anxiety, parents can help kids in the moment and also guide them in establishing coping skills they can use throughout their lives. Helping kids starts with understanding anxiety - as it’s only once we understand that we can effectively intervene.

Common signs of anxiety in children

Anxious moments are common in childhood and signs of anxiety differ from child to child and situation to situation. Common anxiety symptoms in kids include hesitation, shyness, clinginess, tearfulness, protest during separation, tantrums, fears, and avoidance. No matter which symptoms of anxiety your child has, the core issue remains the same: a child is uncomfortable and fearful. And there are many things you can do to help your child manage through anxiety.

5 ways to help your child manage anxiety

For a full game-plan that tells you exactly how to get through anxious moments and reduce anxious outbursts, check out: Parenting Kids With Anxiety and Worry: What’s Really Going On and How to Help

Validate and empathize with your child’s feelings

This may sound counterintuitive, but the best thing to do when a kid is anxious is to let them know that it’s ok to be feeling anxious! This sounds counterintuitive because a parent’s natural instinct is to tell a child all the reasons why “everything will be ok” -and yet, all this does is leave a child feeling more alone in their anxiety and more confused about their feelings, which only increases discomfort and anxiety! Plus, when we try to convince a child out of their anxiety, a child believes that we are just as afraid of their discomfort as they are - which also makes fear increase. 

Instead of eliminating a child’s anxiety, we want to help them manage it. This involves being curious about what’s feeling uncomfortable or scary - the more open a parent is to hearing about fears, the less afraid a child will become. It’s important to remember that we can never fully remove uncertainty, and that children don’t need everything to be “ok” as much as they need to feel a connection with a parent when they are afraid. This means replacing words like, “Why are you so worried, it's fine!” with “It’s ok to feel this way. Tell me what’s on your mind, I’ll listen.” If this type of approach is new, practice a script for a moment of anxiety in advance - and feel confident that helping your child accept their emotions is the first step in learning how to manage anxiety.

Role play situations that make your child anxious

Role play allows a child to practice tolerating anxiety in advance - which will increase the likelihood that they’ll be able to tolerate anxiety when a real-life tricky moment comes. Role playing or “doing practice runs” helps a child approach the situation that brings anxiety, which brings on feelings of capability, as opposed to avoiding these situations, which brings on feelings of additional fear. Role play also allows a parent to have an active role in supporting a child through each step of an anxiety-producing situation. For example, if a child is anxious about attending a birthday party, you might set up a pretend birthday party with lots of chairs or studded animals and practice going through different scenarios.

Role play helps a parent understand what’s making their child feel anxious and allows a parent to use Emotional Vaccination, which is the process of connecting with a child before a big-feeling moment so that a child feels more prepared for that moment when it comes. Preparation helps kids feel more ready to confront a situation that makes them anxious, especially if during a role play, a child and parent practice coping skills together.

Practice deep breathing together to calm anxiety in the moment

Deep breathing is a proven anxiety-coping technique. During moments of anxiety, breathing becomes more rapid and more shallow, which increases anxiety; deep breathing slows the body down and helps kids and adults feel more grounded again. While “deep breathing” is sometimes hard to concretely understand, kids love the visual of Hot Cocoa Breathing, in which parents tell a child to imagine that they are breathing in the smell of hot cocoa and then breathing out their mouth very slowly so as not to blow off the (imaginary!) marshmallows on top of the hot cocoa! Practicing Hot Cocoa Breathing together, as opposed to “teaching” a child how to do it, helps a child feel less alone and more motivated to try it.

Spend quality time connecting and communicating with your child

Anxiety gets worse when kids feel alone and gets better when kids feel understood. When your child is anxious, it’s helpful to spend time with them and let them know that they can talk to you about their anxiety. Communication is essential for establishing a connection with an anxious child, and the more connected your child feels, the more resilience they will have to manage anxious feelings. 

When talking to your child about their anxiety, the I Know I Don’t Know strategy tends to help a child feel safer and more secure. With this strategy, you name what you know and what you don’t know - as quantifying both helps a child calm down. For example: “Here’s what I know and here’s what I don’t know: I know your teacher will be waiting for you and I know there will be many new kids in your class. I don’t know exactly how long I will stay before I say goodbye. I also know you can handle this and we’ll get through it together.”  

Another powerful strategy when talking to your child is Telling the Story of their worry and their anxiety. With Telling the Story, you simply walk through how a situation went, what happened next, and how your child was able to cope. You might say: “I took you to school, you were a little nervous to say goodbye, I knew you’d be safe, you played with friends, and I came back just like I said I would!” Telling the Story helps a parent connect with their child and show their child that they are resilient through anxious moments. Plus, Telling the Story strengthens your connection with your child - and this teaches a child that they can rely on a parent to learn how to regulate their emotions.

Demonstrate healthy ways to handle anxiety

One of the most powerful ways to help children manage anxiety is to model healthy ways of managing adult anxiety. Children are always watching their parents, so observing that parents have anxiety and that parents can cope with it shows a child that they, too, will be able to be resilient in tough moments. What’s important to know here is that it’s ok if you feel anxious - this isn’t a problem. When you’re anxious in front of your child, it’s important to label your feeling as your own, tell your kid it’s not their fault, and commit to building your own regulation skills so that you can show up as a sturdy leader who can help your child co-regulate in tough moments. Co-regulation is essential to developing emotional regulation skills that enable a child to manage their worries and anxiety effectively.

Manage your child’s anxiety with help from Good Inside

Anxiety is a common part of child development - after all, it makes sense that a child would feel worried as they learn about the world and try new things. And it makes sense that parents, too, feel anxious at times. By focusing on helping your child tolerate and build skills to manage anxiety, you’re setting the stage for resilience and capability.

Most parents don’t know how to manage their kid’s anxiety or build a child’s confidence simply because these things aren’t “natural” to know! Unlike in other jobs, parenting doesn’t come with training or a manual, so it’s no wonder parents feel overwhelmed. And at the same time, by learning a step-by-step game plan to manage anxiety and increase confidence, parents start to feel confident and hopeful - and more connected to their kid. 

Want to turn your knowledge into action and get a step-by-step plan? In our Kids Anxiety Course, you’ll learn everything you need to know so you can be the sturdy leader your child needs - and the sturdy leader we know is inside you! At Good Inside, we know that when parents have the resources and support they deserve, parenting becomes manageable - and even enjoyable and empowering.

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