Activities for Anxious Kids
When your child is anxious, no matter how old they are, it can feel impossible to help them stop worrying. There are some ways you can help, though.
How to Help your Anxious Child
As much as we would like it to, trying to talk your child out of worrying doesn’t often work. Even when an issue seems small to adults, it can take on large proportions to kids. And when you think about it, it’s not uncommon for adults to worry about things that can seem really insignicant.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do! One of the first and most powerful ways to help your anxious child is just tuning into them and listen. Don’t try to distract them or convince them that they’re worrying needlessly. Instead, hear what they have to say, and then reflect that feeling back to them. Like this: “You’re really worried about how you’ll do on your spelling test.” Make your face and voice match what you’re saying–this is empathy, and it’s a superpower. After you reflect their feeling, STOP TALKING. Don’t ask questions or offer suggestions. Just listen and reflect.
Dealing with an Anxious Child
Lots of signs of anxiety can look like misbehavior. These can be hard to interpret and include irritability, refusal to do something they need to, or arguing about seemingly small things. You know your child, though, and if they’re prone to anxiety, try reflecting that feeling to them: “You don’t want to go to bed, I wonder if you’re worried about feeling afraid.” Again, you don’t have to solve this, you’re just letting them know you understand them. (Don’t think they’re not listening if they don’t respond. Kids are pretty much always listening to us. More about kids listening in our blog here.)
A powerful way to deal with an anxious child is to provide them structure and information about what’s going on ahead of time. One reason anxiety pops up is that children don’t know what to expect and/or how things are going to go. Providing them a simple tool like a calendar, a schedule in a notebook, or a regular time you tell them what will happen that day (like at breakfast or in the car), can help calm those worries. (Our online parent class covers structuring and reflective responding, find out more about it here.)
Parenting an Anxious Child
While you can’t really talk your child out of worrying, there are activities you can do with them that can help calm them down.
When you do activities to help your child stop worrying, here are some ideas to help you succeed.
It’s important to start off on the right foot. First, commit to introducing one or two actitivies to your child when things are calm. It’s really hard to incorporate a new idea when they’re overwhelmed by anxiety.
Plan to join them in the activity. Just having you close to them can help them calm. It also helps them learn what to do and can make them feel less self-conscious.
Stick close and initiate the activity when your child starts to show signs of being worried. Don’t expect them to do this themselves at first.
Don’t tell them that this will make their worries go away. Instead, tell them something like “When I get worried, doing something to calm my body down helps. Let’s try it together.”
Activities for Anxious Children
Deep Breathing: a known way to calm the nervous system, deep breathing is quick, free, easy to implement, and always available. Use playful ideas to help young children master it: pretend you’re sniffing a cupcake when you’re showing how to take a deep breath in through your nose, and then pretend you’re blowing out a candle on the cupcake when you exhale through your mouth. Older kids may enjoy tracing a shape with their fingers–one arch of a rainbow as they breathe in, back the other way as they breathe out. Repeat this several times–at least 10. Encourage them to stick with you as you do it.
Art: just the act of getting hands and eyes busy with coloring, cutting, glueing or painting can engage the body and take the mind off of anxieties. Free form creations like “scribble scrabble” or collage can be fun and easy to implement. You can also introduce an idea like drawing a monster that looks like the worry, and then drawing something that can scare the monster away.
Telling a story: our minds love to practice what we need to master. One of the best ways to help children do this is by telling them a story and/or engaging them in telling it with you. It can be about a character or animal they love, and should include an example of a time that they were worried, how someone listened to them (like using reflective responding), and how they figured out to handle the worry. The story doesn’t have to end with the main character never being worried again. That’s not realistic. But it can end with a calm and peaceful resolution. This way kids can start to master the idea that when worries come up, they’ll be able to get help and get to the other side of them.
Movement: a walk or jog around the block, a game of tag, dancing the worries out, or throwing a ball back and forth can take some of the focus off of the anxiety and let the body decompress. If worries come up at bedtime, make sure activity occurs before the wind-down routine starts, so it doesn’t cause a spike in wakefulness!
Having a “place” for worries: help your child create a worry box. Decorate a small box however they like and put something to write on and with next to it. The next time they’re having trouble letting go of a worry, have them write or draw it on a piece of paper and then put it in the box. The worry doesn’t disappear, but it can stay in the box and out of their minds for a bit or for good. You don’t have to create a box–a worry doll can hear whispered worries, or a worry smasher might take a piece of egg carton with a worry on it and smash it (use a hammer toy for this, or a play steamroller).
Give them some magic: help your child create a wand or saying that helps them let go of the worry. Write down what they tell you, and keep it with the wand or bubbles so they can say it and release the anxiety they’re feeling. It can be as simple as “Worry, get out of here!!”
How to Calm an Anxious Child
The important thing to remember when you’re helping to calm your anxious child is that worry is a common and understandable emotion–we all have it. Joining your child in accepting and finding ways to release some of the worries can be your gift to them, and it’s a gift they’ll be able to use all their lives. All parents want the absolute best for their kids, and these ideas can help them make their way through anxious times.
If you feel like your child is more worried than they should be, or you’ve tried everything and they’re so anxious that it’s affecting their ability to enjoy and manage their everyday activities, play therapy or parent coaching can help. Schedule a free phone consultation to see if either might be a solution for your family.