Anxiety part 2: 10 strategies that can help

What can parents do to help their young people to become better able to manage anxiety?   Strategies to support your young person follow: 

1. Allow children to experience the change in their mood/feelings from baseline to the peak of anxiety and then the descending of the anxious feelings back to baseline.  It’s great to provide reassurance and support but don’t act to remove the anxiety provoking experience unless it is unsafe not to do so.
2. Normalise the experience of anxiety for children.  Everyone experiences anxiety/worry. It often feels worse than the situation is.
3. Acknowledge the reality of the strength of the feelings.
4. Encourage and model talking about feelings.  Sometimes children have difficulty talking about their feelings because they don’t have the language to describe their feelings.  Parents can model this kind of talk by using labels for feelings. What are some of the labels we give to feelings?
5. Play games with these ‘feeling’ words, for example charades, where one family member acts out a named feeling while the rest of the family guesses which feeling they are acting out.  There are commercial games available which focus on the language of emotions and feelings.
6. Link feelings with the way we are thinking.  Behind every worried/anxious feeling is a thought.
7. Talk about where in the body anxiety or worry is felt.  At times our bodies may experience increased breathing rates, shallow breathing, urge to go to the toilet, feeling hot and/or sweaty, tears, aching stomach, trembling, blushing and others.  Start by talking about where you feel anxiety. Encourage your child to talk about their experience. Some children may find it easier to show you on a soft toy or doll. Naming these experiences and talking about them helps us as adults understand what is going on for the child and we can share the thought that the child isn’t alone in their experiences.
8. Using a scale.  Scaling helps people to put their thoughts into context.  You can use a 1 – 10 scale with 1 representing relaxed and 10 very worried.  Talk about a situation that your child may be worried about and encourage them to select a number that represents how worried they are.  A good question to follow up with is what we could do to help you feel just a little bit better. If your child says they are a 7 on the scale, then what is one thing that could make you be reading to move to a 6.  Brainstorm possible ideas.
9. Encourage and model realistic thinking with your child.  When your child is worried or anxious it is easy for them to jump to the worst-case scenario or to catastrophize the situation.  Help them to think through the reality. Even in very difficult situations solutions can be found and a way forward identified. Remind your child that their thinking is creating the feelings and that thinking can be used to manage the feelings and find solutions to the situations they are concerned about.  When appropriate model your own problem-solving process when faced with a challenge.
10. Praise your child’s management of what they perceive as difficult situations.  Keep the focus on what they can do rather than delving into the difficulties.