“A child with anxiety needs two things: your presence and to come back to the present moment” Haifa Dad
If you’re reading this right now, then either you or someone you care about are struggling with a child or a teen having anxiety problems. Anxiety is a growing problem affecting children and teens. I have read many useful articles that give parents excellent tools and advices for coping with children with anxiety. However, my aim in this blog is to make you aware of the skills you should have in order to help in soothing your anxious child.
Now let’s see, what do you usually do when your child feels anxious? Do you usually react by reassuring him that everything will be okay? Or worse, you ignore his feelings and dismiss his worry? Do you feel helpless in such moments and would like to know how to respond?
Below are 7 skills you should master, that can help coping with your child’s anxiety:
- Regulating your own emotions: it just means that you work toward being calmer and less reactive. That makes you a better role model for your children, and help them build a brain and nervous system that can self-regulate.
- Responding to your child’s anxiety by acknowledging his feelings. From a neuroscience perspective, when we receive acknowledgment, we don’t only feel better, but we are more likely able to think clearly and focus on solutions.
- Empathizing: by using phrases as simple as “I understand your worry” or “I get anxious sometimes too”, you demonstrate that you understand your child’s worry. Your empathy will increase the chances that your child accepts your guidance
- Nonverbal communication: making eye contact with your child when talking about his worries, holding his hands, and speaking with a soft relaxing voice can help to soothe his emotions and will encourage him to speak openly with you.
- Finding the trigger of worry: you can learn to do this by teaching your child to be a “thought detective” to find the main thoughts that are triggering his worry, then take action into reframing them into positive ones. Feeling anxious is how we feel when we are unable to stop thoughts that cause us concern or worry coming into our minds. As these thoughts increase, so our anxiety builds.
- Recognizing the physical symptoms of your child’s anxiety by teaching him to do a “body scan” in order to detect any uncomfortable sensation that is annoying him. Next time he tells you about these symptoms, you will be able to tell if he’s feeling anxious or not. (sometimes it has nothing to do with anxiety, but with a pure physical illness)
- Teaching mindfulness. We often worry about the future and forget to pay attention to what is happening at the present moment, which makes us more anxious. By practicing being mindful, and coming back to the present moment, your child enhances his ability to focus and find solutions, … and peace!
To sum it up, there are mainly two essential parenting skills you should really enhance: communication skills and self-regulation. In the long run, when these skills are mastered, your whole relationship with your children will be transformed so they are happier, emotionally healthier, and more cooperative.
If you evaluate that your child’s anxiety is getting worse and is negatively affecting his life, then it is time that you to seek for a professional help to help him overcome it.Haifa Dada
Youth, Parent and Family Coach
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