5 WAYS TO HELP A CHILD WITH ANXIETY // How to Help Your Child with Their Emotions

What's going on? Welcome back to my channel. We have talked a lot of things anxiety over the many, several videos that are posted here, we have talked about how to help a teenager with anxiety. But I want to talk today about how to help a child with anxiety. I'm talking specifically about the elementary school age kids and everything I'm going to talk to you about. Obviously you have to kind of tweak based on their age. A kindergartner is going to understand things differently than a sixth grader. We know that. So make sure it's age appropriate. But in general, here's a lot of the things that I see when it comes to working with adults and helping them work with their kids who struggle with anxiety or anxious symptoms. And when I work with little kids, kindergarteners ish to 6th graders that elementary school age, when I'm working with a kid who struggles with anxiety or anxiety symptoms. Now, one of the first things I want to point out is that kids are little humans. They have emotions, they talk, they feel things, they experience the world based on where they're at in life. So as adults, we're more mature, we have life experience, but kids are still experiencing life and they're feeling things. And a lot of times when they're struggling with an emotion as adults, we just want them to stop crying or stop screaming or calm down or it hurts us as adults to see them hurting. And we just want to make it better. But we don't often get really intentional about figuring out what's going on with that child, what they're experiencing, how they're feeling, what they're struggling maybe to say because again, they're experiencing the world and they're feeling so many things, they're just probably not going to be able to articulate something because they don't have the vocabulary or the life experience. So kids are experiencing the world at a really high rate. They're seeing a lot of the same things we are. The TV with their friends at school, it's obviously just tailored down to their age. But they're still experiencing things and feeling things and living life and learning about life. And it's important to recognize they just might not be able to articulate what's going on in the as an adult would be because we just have a ton of life experience behind us. One of the big things that I always tell my parents or adults who are working with kids is that these are big feelings in a little body. And whether it's sadness or anger or fear or frustration or anxiety or stress, Any of the above. We struggle as adults sometimes with our emotions. Think about the last time that you were running late for work and somebody cut you off and you maybe flipped them off or you got super angry at the person on the road. We have feelings, and we can go from super happy to super upset really quickly as adults, knowing how to manage our own feelings, or in general, just having more life experience. So if you think about those same feelings, anger, sadness, frustration, anxiety, all of the feelings, if you think about those wrapped up into a tiny little body, we forget that a lot of times as adults. So that's one of the biggest things that I always remind parents is that these are big feelings in a little body. And a lot of times what they're experiencing can sometimes be overwhelming. So it's important for us as adults to know how to help a child through that feeling. Give them ways to manage and cope with, but also just hear them out and give them the verbiage to help them explain what they're experiencing and what they're feeling. Because they might be feeling it, and they might just not have any idea of what's actually going on or be able to tell you what's bothering them. So just remember, all of these things are big feelings in a little body. Now, depending on your child's age, or if you're a parent or a guardian or teenager, if you're working with a child, depending on their age, they might be able to come to you and say, I'm feeling really anxious or I'm feeling really stressed, or I'm freaking out about this test, or there just might be signs of maybe some nervous or anxious behavior or feelings that might not be that blatant, like nail biting, hair pulling, nervous behaviors that maybe have come out of nowhere or that you've seen get worse over time, or they might be asking a lot of what if questions, or before bed, they're asking you a bunch of stuff. They're just behaving differently. Or they might actually be articulating what they're thinking. So it can depend on the child's age, what they even know about their own feelings. Schools nowadays have a lot of social, emotional, learning where they're giving them a lot of vocabulary to be able to explain how they're feeling, which I think is really great. So depending on what your child knows, their maturity level, their social emotional abilities, how old they are, all of those things is going to determine how they're able to explain to you as the adult what they're experiencing. But a lot of times as adults, if we're really paying attention and we're tuned in, we can see these behaviors or changes in their behaviors coming long before they even maybe know that they're stressed out. Just like as adults, we might start to fidget, or our behavior might start to shift, or we might start to bite our nails before we even know, hey, I'm really stressed out about this thing at work or with this relationship. So it can manifest in all kinds of ways. But just pay attention to any changes in your child's behavior or anything that you've noticed is getting worse, or if they're asking a lot of worry questions or what if. Or they all of a sudden have a ton of extra energy and you feel like they just have all this energy they can't get. There's a lot of little signs that we can be keyed into that might give us an indication that something might be a little off with our child, or they might be experiencing something, or maybe they're experiencing something at school and they're not telling us and they're holding it all in because they don't know how to articulate it or whatever the case may be. But it's just a reminder. Pay attention to your child's behaviors, their patterns, their habits, and all of that stuff. And if anything seems. Seems a little off, you can always address it with them and try to figure out what's happening. So there's a few things I do in my office with my little kiddos, and I love working with little kids because they really get into this and it can be a lot of fun, which is also easier for me to then have the parents do at home because it's pretty exciting for them. So one of the things that I try to do with my little kids is give them an alter ego. And I don't mean that in a bad way, and I don't want you to take that in a bad way. But if they were feeling like the strongest, most best self they could be, who would they be? Give it a name or how would they act? How would they stand? We do a lot of, like, standing and role playing and things like that. But I kind of have them experience, if they weren't so nervous or shy or they wanted to raise their hand in class, what that other person, their alter ego, and I don't use those words, but what that person in them would look like or do, they would be like, raise their hand and, you know, be really happy to give the answer and not so afraid to make a mistake or whatever. The issue might be that we're working on, but I try to have them practice if they felt really good, if they felt really strong and good about themselves, how they would behave, what they would say, how they would think, words they would use. We role play and practice. That way then parents can go home and practice with their kids, and then they can go and put this stuff into play at school. This also works really good when we talk about kiddos and their friends, and they can kind of like stand really tall and they can say, that hurt my feelings. And they can just be assertive, not aggressive, but just assertive in explaining to somebody else how they're feeling or if they're hurting their feelings or whatever's going on. So try to have them role play the best part of themselves and just experience what it's like with me to feel really strong so that they can then go practice that at school, at home, and things like that. And it can be really helpful and really empowering. And kiddos tend to love it because they get to practice play and use their imagination, which they're generally pretty good at. We want to tap into their strengths as kids to build on all of these skills. One of the other things that I do with kids, depending on their academic level or their abilities, is I give them a worry journal. And usually it's colorful or maybe it's their favorite color, but it's kind of kid friendly, obviously. And I tell them, write in this before you go to bed. Get all of your worries out onto paper. Set a timer if you can, or if I can, get the parents involved to set a timer and write down all of the things you're worried about. And then you close that book so that you can go to bed and your worries are gonna stay on that paper. Using things like that get them feeling empowered and get them getting these thoughts that they might not even know they're having out onto paper. And they're just journaling and kind of dumping all of these thoughts in there, and they're closing it, and then they're feeling better before they go to bed. So you have to be careful. You don't want them dwelling and spiraling out of control. If they're journaling and then they're talking to you about all the things they're worried about. It's a very systematic kind of process. We set a timer and we say write down all of your worries, everything you want to get out, so that they stay in this book so that you can go to sleep tonight. It's very intentional it's not so that it opens up this huge can of worms before bed. It's intentional so that they can kind of close the book on the day and leave all those worries on the page. And that can be really helpful if your kid can write or if you want to write for them, if you're really engaged in your child and doing these kinds of things. But a worry journal can absolutely be really helpful with kids who worry a lot or struggle with anxiety. Another big thing, like I kind of mentioned before when I explained that these are big feelings in a little body and a lot of kids sometimes can't even articulate what's going on. Helping them understand what's going on can be helpful in them being able to explain to you if they're having a hard time. So one thing that we do is I give them the language, the verbiage to be able to explain what is happening. We've used things like thermometers where if they're running really hot, that means certain things to that child. They're shaky, they're sweaty, or they're worrying about something. Depending on what that kid is experiencing, that temperature rising can give us an indication of how they're feeling, like in their body and in their mind. Or we've done things like having them explain if their engine, their mind and their body is their engine is running really fast or really slow today. If they're feeling really sad and really slow or lazy, that means their engine is running really slow. If they're running really fast, it means they're hyper or they're maybe anxious or feeling stressed or things like that. So giving them kid friendly language as far as a thermometer or how their engine is running can help them explain in their words to help you understand what they're experiencing. Other things like colors, you can associate colors with feelings. Blue is usually I'm feeling sad. Red is usually I'm feeling angry. And then you can put all these colors to feelings. And if they don't know how to express, explain to you how they're feeling. They can point to a color or they can tell you, I'm feeling really yellow today, or I'm feeling really blue or really green or really red or whatever it means. You just obviously have to know what feeling coordinates with what color for that child and then writing it down so that every day doesn't mean a different color for a different feeling. That way it stays pretty consistent. But just giving them the language so that they can start to accept, explain how they feel in a way that makes sense to them, while we also help them understand what is happening within them. And a couple last things are obviously things like monitoring screen time, video games, TV and things like that. Screens can be incredibly stimulating. We know as adults, we're supposed to put our phones away about a half an hour hour before bed. And because the blue light and all of the stimulation from the screen can impact our sleep. So as kids, it impacts them the same way and even more because their brains are still growing and developing. So not only monitoring what they're watching, making sure they're not watching things that are gonna scare them or people on YouTube who are using certain words or maybe too mature for that child to be watching. My son loves YouTube, and I'm always watching what he's watching to make sure that it's appropriate and it's okay and that he's not learning things he shouldn't be learning. But just the screen in general can have a big impact on the stimulation that they're experiencing. So monitoring the content but also the time on the screen is a big thing that we know impacts a child's mood, hyperactivity, attention span, and all of that. So just something to be aware of. And then the last, probably most important piece of advice that I have for anybody who's looking to know how to help a child with anxiety is to listen to them. We often want to a make a child's pain go away and just hug them and distract them and try to give them ice cream or whatever it is to make them feel better, because it hurts us to see they're hurting or if they're stressed. But that doesn't help them process through and learn how to experience those feelings that aren't going away. They're going to continue experiencing them as they get older, but it also minimizes what is going on in the moment. So we don't want to just blow over what is happening, and we don't want them to feel like their feelings don't matter. So as adults, it's our job to help them understand, let them know it's okay to learn how to express. Express their feelings and give them the language or the verbiage or like colors or their engine running fast or slow, or those skills to help them explain what's going on, but just not minimizing just because they're kids. Like I keep saying, these are big feelings in a little body. They're experiencing a lot. They're experiencing the world at a really fast pace, and they're experiencing a lot on a daily basis when it comes to their friends or school or family or what they see on TV or all of this things, they're experiencing the world, they're learning about the world. And we need to not minimize their experience or their feelings. And we need to let them know that it is okay to feel things, feel a range of things, and it's okay to express those things. The big thing is what they do about how they're feeling. And that's a whole other conversation. But what I always say is you can feel, feel mad, you can feel stressed, you can't have a tantrum, you can't hit your mom or throw a pencil at school. That's the stuff that's going to get you in trouble. Just like as adults, I can get mad that you cut me off, but it's not okay for me to try to run you off the road. So I can be mad, but it's what I do with that anger that really matters. So as a kid, we don't want to minimize their feelings. We want them to be able to, to express and understand what they're feeling. But then we want to take it a step further and give them those outlets so they're not just having a tantrum or throwing things or being aggressive or whatever the problematic behavior might be, that they're learning how to express their emotions and having an outlet for them in an appropriate manner so that they don't get in trouble. They're big feelings in a little body. Don't minimize them. They're experiencing a lot. And it's really important to, to teach our kids that it's okay to feel things and that we are going to listen to them and that their feelings matter.