Helping your child deal with their anxiety can be very confusing and overwhelming. Anxious children can spend a great deal of time being fearful and unwilling to do things with their families. Many anxious kids may even display highly oppositional and controlling behaviors at home in response to their anxiety. This may not, however, be evident at school, where the kids work very hard to restrain their anxiety and need for control- after all, they don’t want to get in trouble with their teachers or draw the attention of their peers for acting out. In fact, some of these anxious kids are the rule abiders who get upset at peers who are disruptive. When teachers inform parents of how well-behaved their children are in school, parents often feel as if they don’t understand their anxious kids.
This feeling is often due to the fact that, when these kids come home, parents observe the out of control behaviors that routinely occur when something doesn’t go their way or as expected. The level of stress that occurs for these anxious kids is likely disproportionate to the situation. For example, it might be the “end of the world” when a parent needs to make an extra stop on the way home from school or if their sibling has a doctor’s appointment. The child works so hard to hold it together in school, but they can so easily fall apart when they get home to a safer environment where everyone loves and knows them. While these behaviors may suggest that they are being bratty and selfish, what you might be seeing instead is an anxious child who is attempting to assert some control over their world. If this is the case, you’ve got some work to do in order to support and understand your child, but you can do it. Here are 5 great articles to help parents understand their child’s anxiety.
9 Things Every Parent with an Anxious Child Should Try
This article, published on Huff Post, is a must-read. The author shares nine great suggestions on how you, as a parent, can approach your child’s anxiety in a way that truly benefits them, rather than simply resolving the current issue in the current moment.
12 Tips to Reduce Your Child’s Stress and Anxiety
This article, published by Psychology Today, shares 12 great tips for reducing anxiety. Included are ways that parents can foster a reduction of stress and anxiety, as well as techniques and strategies that parents can teach their child to utilize when he or she is feeling stressed or anxious
How to Help Your Child with Fear and Anxiety
This article, published on Hand-in-Hand, shares a “fear toolbox” with some very unique approaches to helping your child overcome fear and anxiety in a number of ways, none of which include letting your child back down.
More and More Children Are Feeling Anxious. This Graphic Novelist Is Trying to Help.
This article, published by the New York Times, explores the pages of an ever-popular book titled Guts. This book, and many others like it, can help your child understand that they are not alone in their feelings of anxiety. Beyond this, the use of a graphic novel makes this story on anxiety much easier to get through for a child. Exploring this book, and others like it can provide you with a new strategy to help your child with their anxiety.
The Complete Anxiety Guide: How To Live Anxiety-Free
Published on Calm Clinic, this anxiety guide truly is a complete guide to all things anxiety. The guide dives into what anxiety is, provides an introduction and overview of the various types and symptoms of anxiety, as well as potential causes and treatments. This article is a must-read if your child is struggling with anxiety and you don’t know where to start!
Receive online class information and helpful tips from Dr. Randy Kulman's LearningWorks for Kids |
