Can you imagine a world where your child views anxiety not as a debilitating foe, but as a manageable part of life? That's exactly what I aim to achieve in this episode of the Special Parent Podcast. Drawing from personal experiences and expert insights, we're going to demystify anxiety, normalizing it while empowering you and your children to face it head-on. In this episode, I'm sharing practical strategies and heartwarming stories, including my own son's panic attack at a festival, illustrating the importance of resilience and strategic planning in real-life situations. This conversation is a treasure trove of advice for parents who are eager to support their children through anxious moments without sheltering them from life's inevitable stressors.
Join us as we explore the powerful impact of building confidence in children to face their fears. Dr. Iverson shares how to validate emotions without letting them rule decisions, using tools like role-playing and strategic approaches to foster logical and thoughtful responses. She emphasizes celebrating small victories and the value of empathy, offering insights on how to reframe thoughts to manage anxiety better. This episode is a must-listen for parents who aspire to raise resilient, confident children, equipped with the life skills they need to navigate anxiety successfully. Prepare to walk away with actionable tips and a renewed sense of hope for managing childhood anxiety.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Special Parent
Podcast.
I'm Dr Deanna Iverson.
Do you or your child everexperience anxiety?
I know that there havedefinitely been times in my life
where I do and as a counselor,I feel it's really important
that for our children to learnto tackle anxiety, we have to
partner along with them alongthis road.
(00:21):
I do have a specific episode onmedical anxiety, which was
episode number five.
It's called turning fear intofortitude at the doctor's office
.
The tips given there arerelevant here too, but they are
a little different because itspecifically relates to doctor's
appointments.
So go to specialparentorg andcheck that episode out,
(00:42):
especially for doctor'sappointments and medical
appointments.
I tagged in some physicians andadvice from them that I had too
.
So helping children withanxiety is actually going to be
a four-part episode.
This is part number one.
I love this quote from LisaDeMoore and she said we must
normalize distress as a part oflife.
We make sure to allow ourselvesand our children to understand
(01:05):
that it is essential to feeldistress.
It is essential to help us grow, learn, guide us and give us
feedback.
You should have times where youfeel sad, anxious and stressed.
That is the right response forsome situations, so I think we
should talk about normalizinganxiety, because anxiety is a
(01:29):
normal thing that happens toeverybody.
It's just how it feels to.
Everyone may not be the same,so let's empower ourselves
through it.
Let's learn to empower ourchildren through it.
Psychology Today had some greatadvice.
Anxiety is like a monster thatdoes not sleep.
It's always hungry and nevergives up.
We can unknowingly feed themonster of anxiety, and that's
(01:54):
the key thing is we don't wantto accidentally be feeding
anxiety, because that createsanxiety to be worse.
When kids are anxious, it'snatural to want to help them
feel better, but trying toprotect kids from the things
that upset them, you canactually make anxiety worse.
The best way to help kidsovercome anxiety is to teach
(02:16):
them to deal with anxiety as itcomes up.
With practice, they will learnto be less anxious, again with
practice.
What does that mean?
That means that the firstseveral times you try to help
them push through and you trysome of these strategies,
they're going to push back realhard because anxiety is in the
driver's seat.
Fear is driving their brain atthat moment.
(02:39):
So we have to take them out oftheir middle brain.
We have to help them learn toput themselves in the driver's
seat of that prefrontal cortexand that system that's going to
think through rather than reactto situations.
All right, so as you can see,I've pulled some resources, so
let's jump in here.
The goal is management ofanxiety, not elimination.
(03:01):
Step number one there is torealize we're not trying to
pretend that anxiety goes away.
What we're learning is how weget through anxiety.
The best way to help a childlearn to overcome anxiety or
fear is to help them learn tofunction even when they are
anxious.
So they might be anxiousbecause there's a test that's
(03:24):
normal.
How do we function through thatanxiety?
They might be anxious becauseit's a new experience that's
normal.
How do we function through thatnew experience?
Don't remove the stressor ortrigger.
When children learn to overcome, the anxiety or fear decreases
over time.
Functioning through anxiety isa life skill that will empower
(03:46):
them as they grow as adults.
It's that fight, flight orfreeze response.
If they're afraid of thehaircut place, maybe it's
sensory.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That can create anxietysituations for our children.
That's normal, and some peopledon't like flavors, textures.
(04:06):
It's just with especially withour autistic kids, it's a
heightened sense of that.
Even so, it's normal.
But that doesn't mean that itcan't get better, so we can help
them power and improve throughit.
So an example my older son wewere and this was years and
years ago as a family we went tothe Italian festival.
Oh my gosh, we were.
And this was years and yearsago.
As a family, we went to theItalian festival.
Oh my gosh, we were so excited.
(04:28):
Right, lovely, great food,great music.
It was wonderful.
We arrive at the Italianfestival and, as you can imagine
, it's loud, there's a lot ofpeople.
It's a festival.
It's not real organized.
There's people moving all over,there's booths, it's a lot of
stimulation.
And we get our tickets and wewalk in and as soon as we kind
(04:53):
of hit the crowd and everything,my son starts freaking out and
he starts panicking.
And he had to get away.
He had to get away and I saidOK, let's move over here.
I didn had to get away, he hadto get away, and I said okay,
let's, let's move over here.
I didn't leave the festival, butwhat I did was I walked between
two booths or vendors.
(05:13):
They had like a I don't knowwhat you would really call it,
but it had an enclosed area, andso I walked him behind it.
So we were behind the booth andthere was a sheet in a sense
that was enclosing the booth andfor him that took away.
(05:35):
The people Still hear thenoises.
But they were now buffered alittle bit by this and I did
have the vendors stick theirhead around and go hey, you
can't go back there.
And I simply said I'm sorry, myson is having a panic attack, I
just need a minute.
And the person was kind oh okay, they kind of kept their eye on
(05:56):
us because they're like whatare you doing behind the booth?
They kind of kept their eye onus but they weren't judgmental,
they were really understandingand I think if we give people an
opportunity to be understanding, they really will be.
And my son calmed down.
I said, okay, we're going tojust, this is what we're going
to do.
And we created a game plan.
We had a plan and we walkedthrough it.
Now did he enjoy the whole restof the festival like it was fine
?
No, we were able to enjoy thefestival in a different way.
(06:20):
We had to take breaks.
There were times he had toleave an area because it was a
sensory overload of sound orvoice or just general noise.
We had to shorten our day alittle bit, but he worked
through that experience, ratherthan rescuing him from it
completely and everybody leaving.
We worked through it.
(06:41):
We created a plan, we tookbreaks when we needed to, we
re-evaluated our plan.
Was it exhausting?
Of course it was, but was itbecause that's what my son
needed and it taught himsomething so strong and valuable
?
Absolutely, we cannot alwaysavoid anxiety creating
situations.
I was at Phoenix Children'sHospital the other day and they
(07:01):
had a fire alarm go off.
Now, it was just a drill, but Iwas thinking to myself, oh,
this is not going to be good.
Well, my son went ahead andtook his little earbuds, plugged
them in his ears and put musicon his phone and he was okay.
We're walking down the stairsand there was a mom and her son
(07:23):
and her son is just having thehardest time in there, actually
in the stairwell, because it wasquieter than not in the
stairwell, which I was kind ofsurprised, but it was, and
that's why we took the stairwelland he was just really having a
really hard time.
But she was working with himthrough it.
You're going to be okay.
I could hear her telling himyou're going to be okay, you're
going to get through this Plugyours.
And she was singing to himalmost and that was calming to
(07:50):
him and I noticed she was kindof rubbing and for some kids you
can, for some kids it's asqueeze.
She was getting him through itand that was so.
I was just so proud of her andas I walked by I was like good
job, mom.
Just kind of under my breath alittle bit, because we all need
that little bit of encouragement.
All right, so dive into theanxiety rather than run away
from it.
Well, it's kind of what I wastalking to Find some strategies.
(08:13):
When we help children avoidanxiety, we actually reinforce
anxiety.
We say you're right, that wassomething to be afraid of,
aren't you glad you got away?
So what we want to do is achild starts to feel, let's say,
uncomfortable and they start tocry and the parent whists them
away.
That's not what we want to do.
Is a child starts to feel,let's say, uncomfortable and
they start to cry and the parentwhisks them away.
That's not what we want to do.
So in fact, it was a great one.
(08:33):
It talked about how it was.
Like, lady, you're embarrassedbecause you're in a situation
and your child is having a freakout moment and it is
embarrassing.
So sometimes we whisk them awaybecause we don't know what else
to do.
We have a little bit ofembarrassment, panicking
happening in our brain and so wedo that.
So it's like okay if we canstay engaged.
(08:56):
This experience is teachingchildren that running away from
uncomfortable things is a way tocope with uncomfortable things
and it's not a healthy way tocope with them.
So we want to teach them tobreak this cycle.
We want to teach our childrenthat it's critical to overcome
anxiety by sitting throughanxiety.
So, like I said, my son I tookhim behind an area but I didn't
(09:19):
remove him from the festival.
We created a plan.
So when you have a child that'sanxious, do your best not to
whisk them away, whether that'sfor yourself or for them, and
stick through it and just talkthem through it.
Find something that'scomforting.
Maybe it's they need a blankiethat you can care with them.
Maybe it's a certain toy.
Maybe it's they need to chew ongums or some kids, it's a
(09:42):
sensory issue with their mouth.
Maybe that pressure therapy youcan learn to pull on joints
just gently, like this for somekids is very calming and
relaxing.
I had an OT teach me that withmy son and it made an amazing
difference in our ability to gethim to stay calm.
Let them know things are goingto be okay, let them know their
(10:05):
anxiety is normal and let themknow that the anxiety will come,
the anxiety will go.
But this is a situation where,even though you're having that
anxiety and it's okay you canalso reduce that anxiety and
that it's even better for you toreduce the anxiety.
In the situation that you're in,your fears may not go away.
(10:28):
So, for example, I'm anxiouswhat if I fail the test?
Okay, well, you could fail it,but let's talk about ways to
prevent that and we talk aboutways to prevent failing.
Now, will those ways preventthe anxiety?
Maybe not, but we need to behonest with them.
(10:52):
You might fail the test, youmight be uncomfortable, your
friend might talk behind yourback, somebody might give you a
dirty look, somebody might laughat you sneezing during a
presentation.
Those things happen.
If we learn to bounce with themrather than shrink into them,
we are going to be stronger.
So we have to learn to face ourfears.
Your confidence in yours you'rethe parent your confidence in
(11:14):
their ability, the child'sability, to overcome and face
their fears and function throughtheir fears is the key to them
developing their ownself-confidence in their ability
for the future.
So showing confidence in yourchild and showing them ways to
get through it will build thatconfidence in them, because
you're telling them I know yougot this All right.
(11:38):
A key part too this will be ourlast point is having empathy
without having agreement.
As parents, we can validate andrespect our children's feelings
without empowering theiremotions.
Our emotions should not be ourdecision makers.
That should not be the basis bywhich we decide on our fight,
(12:00):
flight or freeze or which wemake any other decisions in our
life Our social decisions, ourfamily decisions, any other
decisions in our life our socialdecisions, our family decisions
, our work decisions should notbe emotion-based.
That's when we make decisionswe regret, and we have to teach
our children that we must becareful not to belittle their
fears.
So we don't want to say youdon't need to be afraid of that
(12:20):
or that's not something youshould be afraid of.
What we can say is I understandthat you're afraid of that.
Not everyone feels the same wayyou do, so let's see if we can
help reduce your fear and getyou to be more comfortable, and
that's a different thing thansaying hey, don't dismiss, don't
worry.
It's saying no, I get you, butlet's figure out a way for you
(12:42):
to be stronger rather than youto sit in fear.
So here's an example.
A child is terrified of someonelaughing at them during their
presentation at school.
First of all, they might beright, that might happen.
Their fear is normal andrational.
So what do we do about it?
Rather than allowing the fearto paralyze the child, we help
(13:02):
them process the situation andcome up with a game plan.
Everybody, children especially,are more empowered when they
have a plan, when they can thinkthrough rather than emotion
through.
Think through what they'regoing to do next, step by step
by step.
Maybe they're going to laugh itoff, maybe they're going to
ignore it.
Maybe they're going to shrug.
Maybe they're going to smile.
(13:23):
Maybe they're going to laugh itoff, maybe they're going to
ignore it.
Maybe they're going to shrug.
Maybe they're going to smile.
Maybe they're going to be niceback to the other person.
You know the old adage killthem with kindness.
Maybe they're going to have afriend ready to cheer them up in
the background.
Maybe they're going to prepwith their teacher.
There's so many ways that theycan overcome something like that
.
The details of that plan arebased on their developmental
level, so keep that in mind.
(13:44):
If their fear or their anxietyis because last time they were
at their friend's house, theirfriend stole their toy and they
don't want to go back becausethey're mad at their friend and
they're afraid their friend isgoing to steal the toy again,
excuse me, then that isdefinitely something that we
have to work them throughdevelopmentally and that's why
we want to practice with them.
You know we want to say, okay,I'm whole, I you're playing with
(14:06):
the toy, I'm going to be thefriend to walk over and take it.
How?
How are you going to respond tome?
So we have them practice androle play and that helps us get
over anxiety because we have agame plan, we know what to do
with it, so it becomes lessfearful.
So the key points we've talkedabout today listen and be
empathetic.
Help your children understandwhat their fear is actually
(14:28):
about.
Encourage them to face theirfears.
You're scared, that's okay, andI'm here to help you get
through it.
Remember, our feelings are notour facts.
Feelings come and go andfeelings are not the same for
every person in every situationand our feelings can change
based on how we handle asituation.
(14:48):
We grow stronger when we canlearn to push through our fears
and it's okay to say, hey, thisisn't something we should really
be afraid of.
This is something we shouldlearn to be stronger through.
This is where we're going tostop here for today and we'll
have again.
(15:08):
This is a several part episodeon anxiety helping your children
work through it, and we'regoing to pick apart different
parts of anxiety in differentsituations.
The keys here manage and walkthrough, normalize, be
empathetic, be strategic.
Walk through, normalize, beempathetic, be strategic, but
focus on triumphs.
Make sure to focus on thosewins.
I love to always say that thereare wins in every situation.
(15:31):
Focus on the wins.
So join us next week.
What we're going to discussnext week is how we can model,
distract the benefits ofdistraction and reframe our
thoughts.
A lot of anxiety is reframinghow we think.
Thank you so much.
Glad you could join us heretoday.
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Special Parent
Podcast.
I'm Dr Deanna Iverson.
Do you or your child everexperience anxiety?
I know that there havedefinitely been times in my life
where I do and as a counselor,I feel it's really important
that for our children to learnto tackle anxiety, we have to
partner along with them alongthis road.
(00:21):
I do have a specific episode onmedical anxiety, which was
episode number five.
It's called turning fear intofortitude at the doctor's office
.
The tips given there arerelevant here too, but they are
a little different because itspecifically relates to doctor's
appointments.
So go to specialparentorg andcheck that episode out,
(00:42):
especially for doctor'sappointments and medical
appointments.
I tagged in some physicians andadvice from them that I had too
.
So helping children withanxiety is actually going to be
a four-part episode.
This is part number one.
I love this quote from LisaDeMoore and she said we must
normalize distress as a part oflife.
We make sure to allow ourselvesand our children to understand
(01:05):
that it is essential to feeldistress.
It is essential to help us grow, learn, guide us and give us
feedback.
You should have times where youfeel sad, anxious and stressed.
That is the right response forsome situations, so I think we
should talk about normalizinganxiety, because anxiety is a
(01:29):
normal thing that happens toeverybody.
It's just how it feels to.
Everyone may not be the same,so let's empower ourselves
through it.
Let's learn to empower ourchildren through it.
Psychology Today had some greatadvice.
Anxiety is like a monster thatdoes not sleep.
It's always hungry and nevergives up.
We can unknowingly feed themonster of anxiety, and that's
(01:54):
the key thing is we don't wantto accidentally be feeding
anxiety, because that createsanxiety to be worse.
When kids are anxious, it'snatural to want to help them
feel better, but trying toprotect kids from the things
that upset them, you canactually make anxiety worse.
The best way to help kidsovercome anxiety is to teach
(02:16):
them to deal with anxiety as itcomes up.
With practice, they will learnto be less anxious, again with
practice.
What does that mean?
That means that the firstseveral times you try to help
them push through and you trysome of these strategies,
they're going to push back realhard because anxiety is in the
driver's seat.
Fear is driving their brain atthat moment.
(02:39):
So we have to take them out oftheir middle brain.
We have to help them learn toput themselves in the driver's
seat of that prefrontal cortexand that system that's going to
think through rather than reactto situations.
All right, so as you can see,I've pulled some resources, so
let's jump in here.
The goal is management ofanxiety, not elimination.
(03:01):
Step number one there is torealize we're not trying to
pretend that anxiety goes away.
What we're learning is how weget through anxiety.
The best way to help a childlearn to overcome anxiety or
fear is to help them learn tofunction even when they are
anxious.
So they might be anxiousbecause there's a test that's
(03:24):
normal.
How do we function through thatanxiety?
They might be anxious becauseit's a new experience that's
normal.
How do we function through thatnew experience?
Don't remove the stressor ortrigger.
When children learn to overcome, the anxiety or fear decreases
over time.
Functioning through anxiety isa life skill that will empower
(03:46):
them as they grow as adults.
It's that fight, flight orfreeze response.
If they're afraid of thehaircut place, maybe it's
sensory.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That can create anxietysituations for our children.
That's normal, and some peopledon't like flavors, textures.
(04:06):
It's just with especially withour autistic kids, it's a
heightened sense of that.
Even so, it's normal.
But that doesn't mean that itcan't get better, so we can help
them power and improve throughit.
So an example my older son wewere and this was years and
years ago as a family we went tothe Italian festival.
Oh my gosh, we were.
And this was years and yearsago.
As a family, we went to theItalian festival.
Oh my gosh, we were so excited.
(04:28):
Right, lovely, great food,great music.
It was wonderful.
We arrive at the Italianfestival and, as you can imagine
, it's loud, there's a lot ofpeople.
It's a festival.
It's not real organized.
There's people moving all over,there's booths, it's a lot of
stimulation.
And we get our tickets and wewalk in and as soon as we kind
(04:53):
of hit the crowd and everything,my son starts freaking out and
he starts panicking.
And he had to get away.
He had to get away and I saidOK, let's move over here.
I didn had to get away, he hadto get away, and I said okay,
let's, let's move over here.
I didn't leave the festival, butwhat I did was I walked between
two booths or vendors.
(05:13):
They had like a I don't knowwhat you would really call it,
but it had an enclosed area, andso I walked him behind it.
So we were behind the booth andthere was a sheet in a sense
that was enclosing the booth andfor him that took away.
(05:35):
The people Still hear thenoises.
But they were now buffered alittle bit by this and I did
have the vendors stick theirhead around and go hey, you
can't go back there.
And I simply said I'm sorry, myson is having a panic attack, I
just need a minute.
And the person was kind oh okay, they kind of kept their eye on
(05:56):
us because they're like whatare you doing behind the booth?
They kind of kept their eye onus but they weren't judgmental,
they were really understandingand I think if we give people an
opportunity to be understanding, they really will be.
And my son calmed down.
I said, okay, we're going tojust, this is what we're going
to do.
And we created a game plan.
We had a plan and we walkedthrough it.
Now did he enjoy the whole restof the festival like it was fine
?
No, we were able to enjoy thefestival in a different way.
(06:20):
We had to take breaks.
There were times he had toleave an area because it was a
sensory overload of sound orvoice or just general noise.
We had to shorten our day alittle bit, but he worked
through that experience, ratherthan rescuing him from it
completely and everybody leaving.
We worked through it.
(06:41):
We created a plan, we tookbreaks when we needed to, we
re-evaluated our plan.
Was it exhausting?
Of course it was, but was itbecause that's what my son
needed and it taught himsomething so strong and valuable
?
Absolutely, we cannot alwaysavoid anxiety creating
situations.
I was at Phoenix Children'sHospital the other day and they
(07:01):
had a fire alarm go off.
Now, it was just a drill, but Iwas thinking to myself, oh,
this is not going to be good.
Well, my son went ahead andtook his little earbuds, plugged
them in his ears and put musicon his phone and he was okay.
We're walking down the stairsand there was a mom and her son
(07:23):
and her son is just having thehardest time in there, actually
in the stairwell, because it wasquieter than not in the
stairwell, which I was kind ofsurprised, but it was, and
that's why we took the stairwelland he was just really having a
really hard time.
But she was working with himthrough it.
You're going to be okay.
I could hear her telling himyou're going to be okay, you're
going to get through this Plugyours.
And she was singing to himalmost and that was calming to
(07:50):
him and I noticed she was kindof rubbing and for some kids you
can, for some kids it's asqueeze.
She was getting him through itand that was so.
I was just so proud of her andas I walked by I was like good
job, mom.
Just kind of under my breath alittle bit, because we all need
that little bit of encouragement.
All right, so dive into theanxiety rather than run away
from it.
Well, it's kind of what I wastalking to Find some strategies.
(08:13):
When we help children avoidanxiety, we actually reinforce
anxiety.
We say you're right, that wassomething to be afraid of,
aren't you glad you got away?
So what we want to do is achild starts to feel, let's say,
uncomfortable and they start tocry and the parent whists them
away.
That's not what we want to do.
Is a child starts to feel,let's say, uncomfortable and
they start to cry and the parentwhisks them away.
That's not what we want to do.
So in fact, it was a great one.
(08:33):
It talked about how it was.
Like, lady, you're embarrassedbecause you're in a situation
and your child is having a freakout moment and it is
embarrassing.
So sometimes we whisk them awaybecause we don't know what else
to do.
We have a little bit ofembarrassment, panicking
happening in our brain and so wedo that.
So it's like okay if we canstay engaged.
(08:56):
This experience is teachingchildren that running away from
uncomfortable things is a way tocope with uncomfortable things
and it's not a healthy way tocope with them.
So we want to teach them tobreak this cycle.
We want to teach our childrenthat it's critical to overcome
anxiety by sitting throughanxiety.
So, like I said, my son I tookhim behind an area but I didn't
(09:19):
remove him from the festival.
We created a plan.
So when you have a child that'sanxious, do your best not to
whisk them away, whether that'sfor yourself or for them, and
stick through it and just talkthem through it.
Find something that'scomforting.
Maybe it's they need a blankiethat you can care with them.
Maybe it's a certain toy.
Maybe it's they need to chew ongums or some kids, it's a
(09:42):
sensory issue with their mouth.
Maybe that pressure therapy youcan learn to pull on joints
just gently, like this for somekids is very calming and
relaxing.
I had an OT teach me that withmy son and it made an amazing
difference in our ability to gethim to stay calm.
Let them know things are goingto be okay, let them know their
(10:05):
anxiety is normal and let themknow that the anxiety will come,
the anxiety will go.
But this is a situation where,even though you're having that
anxiety and it's okay you canalso reduce that anxiety and
that it's even better for you toreduce the anxiety.
In the situation that you're in,your fears may not go away.
(10:28):
So, for example, I'm anxiouswhat if I fail the test?
Okay, well, you could fail it,but let's talk about ways to
prevent that and we talk aboutways to prevent failing.
Now, will those ways preventthe anxiety?
Maybe not, but we need to behonest with them.
(10:52):
You might fail the test, youmight be uncomfortable, your
friend might talk behind yourback, somebody might give you a
dirty look, somebody might laughat you sneezing during a
presentation.
Those things happen.
If we learn to bounce with themrather than shrink into them,
we are going to be stronger.
So we have to learn to face ourfears.
Your confidence in yours you'rethe parent your confidence in
(11:14):
their ability, the child'sability, to overcome and face
their fears and function throughtheir fears is the key to them
developing their ownself-confidence in their ability
for the future.
So showing confidence in yourchild and showing them ways to
get through it will build thatconfidence in them, because
you're telling them I know yougot this All right.
(11:38):
A key part too this will be ourlast point is having empathy
without having agreement.
As parents, we can validate andrespect our children's feelings
without empowering theiremotions.
Our emotions should not be ourdecision makers.
That should not be the basis bywhich we decide on our fight,
(12:00):
flight or freeze or which wemake any other decisions in our
life Our social decisions, ourfamily decisions, any other
decisions in our life our socialdecisions, our family decisions
, our work decisions should notbe emotion-based.
That's when we make decisionswe regret, and we have to teach
our children that we must becareful not to belittle their
fears.
So we don't want to say youdon't need to be afraid of that
(12:20):
or that's not something youshould be afraid of.
What we can say is I understandthat you're afraid of that.
Not everyone feels the same wayyou do, so let's see if we can
help reduce your fear and getyou to be more comfortable, and
that's a different thing thansaying hey, don't dismiss, don't
worry.
It's saying no, I get you, butlet's figure out a way for you
(12:42):
to be stronger rather than youto sit in fear.
So here's an example.
A child is terrified of someonelaughing at them during their
presentation at school.
First of all, they might beright, that might happen.
Their fear is normal andrational.
So what do we do about it?
Rather than allowing the fearto paralyze the child, we help
(13:02):
them process the situation andcome up with a game plan.
Everybody, children especially,are more empowered when they
have a plan, when they can thinkthrough rather than emotion
through.
Think through what they'regoing to do next, step by step
by step.
Maybe they're going to laugh itoff, maybe they're going to
ignore it.
Maybe they're going to shrug.
Maybe they're going to smile.
(13:23):
Maybe they're going to laugh itoff, maybe they're going to
ignore it.
Maybe they're going to shrug.
Maybe they're going to smile.
Maybe they're going to be niceback to the other person.
You know the old adage killthem with kindness.
Maybe they're going to have afriend ready to cheer them up in
the background.
Maybe they're going to prepwith their teacher.
There's so many ways that theycan overcome something like that
.
The details of that plan arebased on their developmental
level, so keep that in mind.
(13:44):
If their fear or their anxietyis because last time they were
at their friend's house, theirfriend stole their toy and they
don't want to go back becausethey're mad at their friend and
they're afraid their friend isgoing to steal the toy again,
excuse me, then that isdefinitely something that we
have to work them throughdevelopmentally and that's why
we want to practice with them.
You know we want to say, okay,I'm whole, I you're playing with
(14:06):
the toy, I'm going to be thefriend to walk over and take it.
How?
How are you going to respond tome?
So we have them practice androle play and that helps us get
over anxiety because we have agame plan, we know what to do
with it, so it becomes lessfearful.
So the key points we've talkedabout today listen and be
empathetic.
Help your children understandwhat their fear is actually
(14:28):
about.
Encourage them to face theirfears.
You're scared, that's okay, andI'm here to help you get
through it.
Remember, our feelings are notour facts.
Feelings come and go andfeelings are not the same for
every person in every situationand our feelings can change
based on how we handle asituation.
(14:48):
We grow stronger when we canlearn to push through our fears
and it's okay to say, hey, thisisn't something we should really
be afraid of.
This is something we shouldlearn to be stronger through.
This is where we're going tostop here for today and we'll
have again.
(15:08):
This is a several part episodeon anxiety helping your children
work through it, and we'regoing to pick apart different
parts of anxiety in differentsituations.
The keys here manage and walkthrough, normalize, be
empathetic, be strategic.
Walk through, normalize, beempathetic, be strategic, but
focus on triumphs.
Make sure to focus on thosewins.
I love to always say that thereare wins in every situation.
(15:31):
Focus on the wins.
So join us next week.
What we're going to discussnext week is how we can model,
distract the benefits ofdistraction and reframe our
thoughts.
A lot of anxiety is reframinghow we think.
Thank you so much.
Glad you could join us heretoday.
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