Working with kids, I’ve seen a lot of anxiety in all shapes and forms. Anxiety stems from a feeling of fear and a loss of control. It can manifest in a faster heart rate, rapid breathing, inability to focus, anger, talking quickly or not at all. Our bodies respond with fight, flight, or freeze; and it’s crucial to know how your clients/students/children are responding to anxiety provoking situations. Over the years, these are techniques that I have used to help overwhelmed children learn to start coping with anxiety in therapy and in the classroom. Developing coping skills can be a long process, but coping with anxiety leads to overcoming anxiety.
Note: If a child is in the middle of a panic attack, “meltdown,” or crisis; it is not the time to teach coping skills. They won’t hear or absorb any of it. In times of panic, you need to use grounding exercises to help the child regain control.
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Coping with Anxiety for Children
Normalize Anxiety
Everyone has fears. For children, adults may seem like they have it all together, but we know better. Have a group discussion or an individual session where everyone in the room talks about their fears, including the counselor. I’m not talking deep fears like fear of personal abandonment, but I always share that I am terrified of rodents.
Besides sharing personal examples, there are some great stories that feature characters with coping with anxiety, like:
- Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears
- Wilma Jean the Worry Machine
- When My Worries Get Too Big!
- The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes
- The Huge Bag of Worries
- 100th Day Worries
- Wemberly Worried
- David and the Worry Beast: Helping Children Cope with Anxiety
(Also, check out my post on Teaching Life Lessons through Stories or Coping Skills Youtube videos)
Identify Causes of Anxiety
Coping skills need to be developed for coping with anxiety, but you have to identify what is making the child anxious in the first place. If you don’t know the cause, you can’t begin to help with working on a solution. In many cases, a child can’t verbalize why he/she became upset. I find it’s best to observe the child in different environments and see what is going on around the child before a meltdown.
Identify Coping Skills
To develop coping skills for anxiety, kids have to be able to identify, know why they work, and be willing to engage in them. If they don’t believe the coping skill will be effective, they won’t use it when their anxiety flares up. I work on identifying and utilizing coping skills year round with the same kids over and over again. Here are some coping skills that I have found effective:
Coping Skills for anxiety:
- Deep breathing (use bubbles to practice)- Nobody believes me when I talk about the impact of deep breathing, but it really does work. My kids practice deep breathing at the beginning of every session.
- Essential oils- Eucalyptus oil is amazing for anxiety, especially before a test. I put some out in the classroom or my office. When kids smell it, they instantly take a deep breath.
- Rub your temple- I have kids practice rubbing their temple to “turn their brains on” while their eyes are closed, and they take a few deep breaths.
- Having an item that provides comfort- A lot of kids with sensory issues love sensory vests, but I’ve noticed that many of the children that I’ve work with gain comfort from wearing a soft sweatshirt when they are anxious. It mimics a hug when they may not feel that they can ask for one.
- Having a safe place- a calm down area in the classroom or in the school for children who need a break
- Asking for a break (but knowing when to come back)- teaching kids to ask for a break is a positive coping skill because they are learning to recognize when their anxiety is rising. Many times when teachers send a child to a “calm down” space, the child is already in a crisis mode. Some kids will take advantage of this. I always used a glitter jar timer on top of shelf. When the glitter reached the bottom, the child returned to class.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Once they can identify coping skills, practice is crucial. Again, kids have to know to utilize these coping skills before they become too upset. So, I try to create small anxiety provoking situations in my office so coping with anxiety becomes easier. It’s basic desensitization.
I start with sharing my personal experiences with anxiety. I share with my clients how I used to hate public speaking and would become overwhelmed with even the thoughts. To overcome this fear when I had a public speaking class, I wrote out my speeches on notecards, and I practice three times (at least) looking in a mirror with a timer on my phone. I’ve worked with several children with similar anxiety about public speaking or test taking. So, we practice.
I find a similar practice test or task. Before we begin, we practice deep breathing, a relaxed position, and maybe set a timer to mimic test conditions. I try to cause the event, but in a calmer, controlled environment.
Then, we discuss:
- How do you feel with this practice? Scale of 1 to 5
- What would it look like if you weren’t scared of this?
- What happens before you take a test? How does your heart (body) feel?
- What could you do when you something like that is going to happen?
In addition, I use games like Feelings Jenga, Bananagrams, or Uno. My kids hate losing, but so do I. Games in my office are usually pretty intense. After the game (sometimes the next session if they become really upset), we talk about:
- How did it feel when you lost?
- What was the hardest part of the game?
How did it feel when you won? (sometimes, you play more than one round.) - How did you stay calm? How could you have stayed calm?
Coping with anxiety is hard, but I do believe that most kids can learn to manage their fears by learn to identify, practice, and utilize positive coping skills in therapy and in the classroom.
Do you have any suggestions for helping kids coping with anxiety? Leave them in the comments and don’t forget to pin!
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