How To Help A Child Manage Anxiety?
Symptoms of anxiety are very common among children and adolescents. Between 10 and 20% of school-age children have signs of any type of anxiety at some point in this stage.
Along with anxiety, children today experience episodes of stress from an early age. With the following tips you will be able to help your children to effectively combat these two conditions that can affect them throughout their lives if measures are not taken in time.
Tips to help your children manage anxiety
Currently anxiety is not a condition reserved for adults. The environment surrounds our children with too much information that sometimes they cannot process and ends up overwhelming them in many ways. Take these observations into account to guide your children in situations that represent stress or anxiety in their lives.
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Motivate your children to face their fears and not run away from them
Even as adults, we have trouble dealing with our fears, but this avoidance causes the anxiety to persist. If we can help children and adolescents learn to face their fears, we will see that anxiety diminishes and disappears in its own time. Biologically, our body systems do not remain anxious for periods of time greater than 40 minutes.
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Show them it’s okay to “be imperfect”
As parents we want children to be successful in all their activities, but sometimes we forget that children need to be children. You have to find the healthy line between motivating them to make an effort in everything they do and pushing them excessively to do what we want. Accept and support your children when they make mistakes or when things don’t go as expected.
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Focus on the positives
In many cases, children with anxiety and stress can become engrossed in negative thoughts and become unsympathetic self-critical. Set an example for them to focus on the positive aspects of situations so that they learn to do so in every moment of their life.
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Plan relaxing activities
Both children and adults, we need time to relax and do stimulating activities that are done just for fun. Invite your child every day to practice a sport, play, paint, go for a walk or any activity that is not competitive but purely recreational.
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Encourage self-care and optimistic thoughts
Children do what you do, so if you avoid situations that trigger anxiety, they will too, and if you deal with them, the effect will be the same. Think about your emotional well-being and that of your child before reacting to situations; remember that you are a role model for them.
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Reward courageous behaviors
If your children face their fears with courage, reward them and encourage them with words of affection, a hug or with a small tangible detail such as a sticker or a candy that they like. If you recognize that your child has done a good deed, he will commit to it more often.
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Establish healthy routines for them and for you
In the daily routine, the time to go to bed and to get up must be very clear and must be observed even on weekends. Also set up a little ritual before going to bed so they have time to make a healthy transition between the activities they did during the day and the time to sleep.
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Give them enough confidence to express their anxiety
If your child tells you that he is worried or scared about something, don’t ignore his words. This does not help your children and, on the contrary, it will make them think that you do not care about their feelings and emotions and that you do not understand. Ask them what is bothering them and have a conversation in which you give them the confidence to control their fears.
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Help them solve the problem
Once you have validated the expression of anxiety, help him understand that everything has a solution, but do not solve his problems for him, just support him on the way to find them for himself. They will soon learn to do it, even when you are not there to point out what is best.
