Talking about anxiety

Lisa

I just wanted to share some tips and advice for those Sunday evening anxieties that sometimes come creep in for a child they've had this amazing weekend and then suddenly it's maybe Sunday lunchtime or early evening. Or it's kind of bath time and you notice.

You know your own children best, but you notice a change in them. You notice they've gone quiet or they've got a bit of a tummy ache or something's just out of kilter. So my main thing would be to let them acknowledge and let them know that you are there and that you're listening.

As parents we want to fix everything for our children and sort it out for them. But actually the best thing we can do as a parent is give them the tools and techniques and the strategies to respond themselves so if it happens again. It’s as simple as suggesting that if someone says a mean thing, it's OK to say “that hurt my feelings and walk away. Spend time with the friends that are going to be nice to you. 

If their worry is that they got all their spellings wrong and they have a spelling test reassure them that it's OK because you can learn those next week or we'll work on them again. And sometimes some children take longer to learn their spellings and just give them that reassurance that for you it's not a big deal. They need to know you have got their back and that you're not going to be hard on them if they've got things wrong. 

Listening and offering reassurance is a really important thing for small children. Older children have different issues: it might be they've got to get on the noisy bus and somebody was rude about their new shoes or unkind. These are things they have ot deal with on theri own, so maybe you can make some suggestions about where they sit on the bus.

We can give our children tools, techniques and strategies so that they can then visualize how to changer things. And so they're not laying away all night worrying about them. So you can imagine the scenario but them doing something slightly different where possible to avoid something happening that's going to increase on their anxiety.

Obviously I've got loads and loads of tips, but I don't want this video to come on forever, so if you would like to know more, just get in touch with us and We're more than happy to answer any of your worries.

Adam

In order to give them that reassurance about the spelling test, or the bus journey, they need to be able to tell you that they're worried about.  Children get a sense of what subjects they can talk about – you need to give them permission to talk about their feelings. Maybe they tried and the parent did not hear it, or did not want to…

Amongst other things, anxious children can seem over-excited, argumentative, disobedient, tearful,  silent, or unsettled at bed-time.  Any of these things can appear as bad behaviour, or lead to family bad-feeling. 

So anxiety can be mistaken for bad behaviour. The classic scenario is one where because the child's anxious, they do something that annoys the parent. They end up getting into trouble and their underlying anxieties goes unseen, let alone understood.

Elanor

Many parents can recognise their child is probably feeling a bit anxious but it takes more insight to understand some of the more subtle ways in which anxiety can portray itself. I'm thinking of a friend who is a wonderful parent. And yet there are many things she does where I can tell she is not really not switched on to how her son is feeling.

There are occasions when her child has things coming up which are very high pressure for a child of that age, like swimming competitions, or school concerts where he has to play solos. There will usually be an episode in the days before. He behaves in a way that frustrates and unsettles his parents. They are either very over-excited, or grumpy and argumentative, or refuse to go to bed.

When I say to her, “Well he has got the Christmas concert coming up, perhaps he’s feeling a bit anxious?” his mum just brushes the idea aside. 

She comes up with all these reasons why it's not that, and it's so obvious to me. Some parents just can't see it because the signs are subtle. It always makes me sad when that happens.

Lisa 

Yeah, it's very sad, isn't it, that that the parents not tuning in.

Adam

Mum may be trying to avoid facing it, because she may fear what she will hear if she gives him permission to talk about it. Mum needs to get to the other side of that. Most parents would start from the position that , “if performing makes him anxious then I shouldn’t be making him do it.” 

A reflective parent might stop themselves their and ask the question, “How am I making them do it? Probably not by threatening punishment but by exerting more subtle coercion. 

The volunteering coercion spectrum 

The volunteering coercion spectrum, runs right from physically forcing somebody or using drugs to subdue them while at the other end we have completely free choice. Somewhere in the middle we have things like persuasion, negotiation, discussion, explanation.

So is persuasion coercive? It certainly can be. There is a big difference between persuading  through reasoning and trying to persuade emotionally. " “Mummy will be so sad if you don’t play your lovely Beethoven piece which you’ve practised so hard”  puts the child under emotional pressure.  "Mum will be very proud if you do it” does the same. Both statements make the mother’s feelings the responsibility of the child.

If your friend is able to give her son permission to talk about his anxieties then she can reassure him that anxiety is normal, most performers get it, and help him also get in touch with the feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction he feels afterwards. 

There are two  unlikely scenarios -  either he loves performing and is just naughty, or he hates every minute of it. But the more likely scenario is that he is ambivalent about it.  If mum can talk to him about his feelings, and help him understand them himself, then she can say “Well, there you are. That's the price you pay if you want to do something big that makes you feel great afterwards - you have to deal with the anxiety before. But it's your choice whether you do that. Do you want to do it?” Then her son can make up his own mind and make what should be his own decision.

Sometimes parents are anxious about having that conversation because they fear the child will decide to give up the activity. As always, there are “two hearts to this river”. 

One heart says, “the child needs your encouragement and support to do it, not to be burdened with another decision about whether they will”. The other heart says “if it is not my child’s wish to do this activity why should they have to? Is it my need or theirs which is being met?”

Lisa 

My grandson has a passion for football at the moment. He is absolutely mad about everything football and I'm sure he'll outgrow it. He may get to a point where he does get anxious and doesn't want to play. But he can talk to us about his feelings and we suggest things like deep breathing exercises which help. It’s up to him.