9 Strategies for Building Coping Skills in Children with Anxiety

Learn how to manage the symptoms of anxiety in children with these simple tips for helping your child cope with their anxiety

Article by:

Katie Hurley, LCSW

When children are chronically anxious, it’s natural for parents to seek strategies to fix or stop the anxiety. It’s very difficult for parents to see a young child suffer from anxiety, and many well-meaning parents unknowingly exacerbate the anxiety by attempting to protect their children from experiencing negative emotions.

The goal of treatment for anxiety is to help children learn to manage their emotional responses to their triggers. Avoiding triggers won’t help kids learn to cope, and not all triggers can be avoided. In fact, though avoidance might help children feel better in the short-term, it can amplify the fears over time. Children need to learn how to tolerate their feelings of anxiety and to develop coping strategies to manage it.

All kids are different and what works well for one child might not work for another. Learning to manage symptoms of anxiety and cope with triggers takes time and practice. Parents can help their children by trying some of these strategies at home.

Practice Relaxation Strategies

Kids need to learn how to regulate both their emotional and physical responses (they become intertwined) when they go into fight-or-flight mode. Here are some techniques that may help:

· Deep breathing: Teaching your children to “breathe the rainbow” by taking slow deep breaths and thinking about their favorite things to match each color helps them slow their heart rate and relax their muscles. Practice this strategy when calm to increase effectiveness when anxious.

· Progressive muscle relaxation: Most kids tense their muscles when feeling anxious. Many even hold their breath. A simple two-step process helps kids learn to use their muscles to relieve the physical stress they experience when anxious. 1)Tense a specific muscle group (e.g. arms and hands or neck and shoulders) and hold for five seconds and 2) release the muscle group and notice how you feel. Work head-to-toe to better understand all of the muscles affected by anxiety. With practice, children can learn to do this at school.

· Create a relaxation kit: Fill a box with relaxing activities chosen by your child and create a relaxation center somewhere in your home. You might include music, coloring books, fidget toys, a mini sandbox, clay, books, and stuffed animals.

Write It Out

Writing about worries helps children learn to vent their anxious feelings. Anxious kids have a tendency to internalize their anxious thoughts for long periods of time. Often, they don’t want to burden others with their worries. Dedicating time to getting those feelings out for fifteen minutes each day helps children learn to work through their worries. Try to do one of these exercises at the same time each day (an hour before bedtime is a great timeframe as anxiety tends to spike at night):

· Write and tear: Have your child write or draw her worries on a piece of paper, read them to you, and then tear them up and throw them away for the night. This helps kids say their worries out loud and let go of them.

· Worry journal: Keeping a worry journal helps children see how their anxious thoughts improve over time. Writing the worries of the day followed by one positive thought helps break the cycle of negative thinking that can exacerbate anxiety.

· Worry box: This is a great tool to use before bed. Have your child decorate an old tissue box with her/his favorite things or cover it with stickers. Help them to write their worries of the day and place them in the box one-by-one, after they share them with you. Take the box to your room for the night and offer to hold them for them.

Talk Back

When children learn that they have the power to talk back to their worry brains, they feel empowered to cope with anxiety-producing stressors. Teach your child that anxious thoughts make us feel powerless, but talking back to anxious thoughts gives us control over the situation.

· Boss back: Have your child practice saying, “You’re not in charge of me, worry brain! I know I can handle this!” Help your child create specific scripts to target certain triggers.

· Thought stopping: When intrusive thoughts overwhelm kids, they go into fight-or-flight mode. Teach your child to stop anxious thoughts before they snowball by saying, “No! That’s not true!” This technique interrupts the anxious thought cycle.

· Create a character: One thing that helps young children is creating a character to represent the anxiety. It’s easier to talk back to a character they can visualize in the moment.

Childhood anxiety can feel overwhelming for both the child and the parent, but it is treatable. If your child’s anxiety is pervasive and negatively affecting her ability to sleep, attend school, and other areas of her life, seek an evaluation from a licensed mental health practitioner.

Last Updated: Nov 25, 2018

https://copingskillsforkids.com/deep-breathing-exercises-for-kids

https://copingskillsforkids.com/calming-anxiety

https://copingskillsforkids.com/books

PRACTICING GRATITUDE

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough”-Anonymous

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Being grateful for what we have, especially in times like these, will help us realize our gratitude for what we have. Practicing gratitude has been scientifically proven, over and over again to help improve our mental health. Psychology today gives 7 examples on how this practice helps us.

1. Gratitude opens the door to more relationships. Remembering to use our manners and show appreciation can help us make new friends, or strengthen our current friendships.

2. Gratitude improves physical health. People who practice gratitude claim that they have fewer aches and pains than before.

3. Gratitude improves psychological health. It can help reduce toxic emotions like envy, resentment, frustration, and regret. Gratitude effectively increases happiness and reduces depression.

4. Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression. Practicing gratitude helps us remember to practice our second step lessons!

5. Grateful people sleep better.

6. Gratitude improves self-esteem.

7. Gratitude increases mental strength.

What is your favorite part about your home? Why?

What does gratitude mean to you?

What is one of your favorite things to do? Why are you grateful for it?

Who did something nice for you today? What was it, and how did it make you feel?

What is something you love doing with your parents? Why?

Name something about your teacher or school that you are grateful for. Why?

https://youtu.be/Uxbdx-SeOOo

https://www.imagineneighborhood.org/podcast-1

https://youtu.be/uGazyqG6YgM

https://youtu.be/Uxbdx-SeOOo

As all of us around the world confront this difficult new period, we recognize the importance—and the challenge—of staying relaxed and entertained, especially for kids at home who are missing the stimulation of the classroom. From the beginning, Audible has served as an antidote to loneliness and even isolation, as a way to hear words that inspire and transport and for many – words that teach and entertain in deeply intimate ways.

With all of us experiencing varying degrees of social distancing and school closures, we have created something that we hope makes our customers’ lives a little easier. At stories.audible.com, you will find hundreds of our titles available completely free. The collection has been handpicked by our editors and is a mix of stories to entertain, engage, and inform young people, ages 0–18.

These stories offer a screen-free option that we hope may help break up the day for families with students home from school.

There are selections for our listeners in English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese and Italian.

To access the free titles, just visit stories.audible.com from any web browser.

The experience is completely free – no log-ins, credit cards, or passwords required. Just click, stream and listen.

We wish you and your loved ones good health, and we hope that listening to a good story will offer some respite during these unsettling times.

All of us at Audible

https://youthlight.com/lessons/PS_Lesson1.html

Feeling Coping Skills:

· Figuring out how my problem makes me feel

· Figuring out what my feelings are trying to tell me

• Ask myself – “Can I begin finding solutions to my problem by being honest with myself and others about my real feelings?”

Thinking Coping Skills:

· Thinking about the problem from the other person’s point of view

· Exploring another explanation for what happened

· Think about what I need to do to help myself feel better

· Believing that I am worthwhile

· Thinking positive things about myself

· Believing that problems can be solved

· Setting new goals

• Ask myself – “Can I cope with my problem by changing how I am thinking about myself or the problem?”

Doing Coping Skills:

· Walking away

· Taking a break

· Journaling or drawing about what happened

· Deep breathing

· Relaxing my muscles

· Exercising

· Count to 10

• Ask myself – “Can I cope with the problem by changing what I am doing?”

Talking Coping Skills:

· Talking with a trusted friend about what happened

· Standing up for myself (being assertive)

· Using an I Message: “When you ______, it makes me feel ______ because_______. I need you to ________.

· Talking to an adult about what happened

• Ask myself – “Can I cope with my problem by changing how I am talking to help others better understand me and my problem?”

https://www.mindful.org/free-mindfulness-resources-for-calm-during-covid-outbreak/

https://www.mindfulschools.org/free-online-mindfulness-class-for-kids/?utm_source=Mindful+Schools+Newsletter&utm_campaign=538815a38f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_NEWSLETTER_2020_03_18_MF&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_024a46d2a1-538815a38f-20749875

• Virtual Field Trip to the San Diego Zoo

• Scholastic Magazines

• Storyboard That - Create your own digital storyboard

• PBS Video Library

• Google Arts & Culture - Learn something new & tour the finest art museums

• Fitness & Yoga Classes from Philadelphia Gyms

• Free Fitness Videos on YouTube

• 20 Virtual Field Trips to Take with Your Kids

• Educational Shows on Disney+

• 30 Great Educational Shows on Netflix

• ABCya.com - Literacy Games for PreK through 6th Grade +

• GoNoodle® - Movement and Mindfulness Videos

• Khan Academy - See their schedule for school closings here

• Math Playground - Give your brain a workout with these free math games!

10 Books to Rewild Your Child Outdoor-based reads from board books to YA novels

Have you ever noticed that most of our favorite childhood books star animals? Maybe that’s because before we “grow up,” we feel a natural kinship with what’s wild. We wish we were friends with monkeys and lions. We speak to the trees and they listen. And we long to run free and explore the world.

We’ve rounded up some books that speak to the free spirit of kids—and help them get back in touch with their wild side in the age of screens. From board books and picture books to Young Adult (YA) novels, here 10 tales to rewild your child.

My First Book of Nature by Alain Grée

Introduce babies and toddlers to the natural world through the colorful drawings of a famous French illustrator. This board book teaches that tot about everything from trees and rocks, to fruit and fish.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain by Verna Aardema, pictures by Beatriz Vidal

“This is the cloud, all heavy with rain, that shadowed the ground on Kapiti Plain.”

A tale of drought from the Nandi people of Kenya shows kids a way of life entirely rooted in and dependent on the natural world. Originally published in 1909, this story teaches a valuable lesson: nature sustains us all, whether we realize it or not.

Squeak! Goes Climbing in Yosemite National Park by D. Scott Borden, pictures by Mallory Logan

“Wow, how do you just stand on vertical rock like that?” Squeak asks.

Young climbers get the lowdown on the sport from a mouse that hops into a haul bag and makes it all the way up El Cap. Squeak introduces kids to the climbing dictionary and shows them how to face down their fears. Bonus: part of every book sale benefits the Access Fund.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

“He’s just a boy, pretending to be a wolf, pretending to be a king.”

No list of books about rewilding your kid would be complete without a nod to this classic. We all know how the story goes, but here’s a reminder: Max gets in touch with his wild side, imagining that his bedroom is a jungle filled with playful beasts.

Someday a Bird Will Poop on You: A Life Lesson by Sue Salvi, pictures by Megan Kellie

“Probably every single day, somewhere in the world, someone is getting pooped on by a bird.”

A day in nature isn’t always a walk in the park. From bug bites and unexpected downpours, to headwinds and bird BMs, this book imparts the key lesson that things don’t always go our way—and that’s okay. And for the Type II outdoor adventures in your child’s future, this lesson is invaluable.

A-B-Skis by Backcountry’s own Libby Dudek, pictures by Nathan Jarvis

“A is for attitude, the way you think in your head. You decide how your day will go when you get out of bed.”

This alphabet book by a former Olympian runs kids through the skiing experience, from chairlift rides to pizza turns down the bunny slopes. It all takes place in a colorful, animal-filled world that will make any kid excited to gear up for a day on the slopes. Libby also includes tips for parents to make your kid’s first ski day a positive one.

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

“A monkey! A real, live monkey! Ah! How delightful!”

Originally published in 1812 in Germany, this legendary chapter book tells the story of a Swiss family who gets shipwrecked en route to Australia. We follow the Robinsons for over a decade as they eke out an existence on a tropical island, building a treehouse, living in a cave, and growing their own food.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

“… the most important rule of survival … was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work.”

In this timeless YA novel, a 13-year-old boy must survive in the Canadian wilderness with only a hatchet after a plane crash. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t die! But he does teach your young reader some invaluable lessons about everything from wilderness survival skills to patience and positive thinking.

Call of the Sun Child by Francesa G. Varela

“This is the energy that is life, the glow of connection. In the crow that chases smaller birds. In the stream that flows downhill. In the flower, wilted after a storm, with holes chewed in it by caterpillars.”

This YA take on Climate Science Fiction—a genre that’s been dubbed CliFi—imagines a dystopic world in which humans must live in a windowless dome. But one day, a 16-year-old girl named Sempra becomes curious about life outside the walls of her artificial home. Call of the Sun Child will help your young reader appreciate our wild world, and become an advocate for protecting it.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

“I miss the north side cliff and the waves below, and I miss the way the wind steals your breath like it never belonged to you in the first place.”

Don’t let the disturbing premise scare you—this book will empower teen girls to take on the grisliest of situations, outdoors or in. Hailed as a feminist Lord of the Flies, Wilder Girls tells the tale of three best friends who must tackle an island’s wild forests after a virus spreads through their boarding school.

9 Strategies for Building Coping Skills in Children with Anxiety

Learn how to manage the symptoms of anxiety in children with these simple tips for helping your child cope with their anxiety

Article by: Katie Hurley, LCSW

When children are chronically anxious, it’s natural for parents to seek strategies to fix or stop the anxiety. It’s very difficult for parents to see a young child suffer from anxiety, and many well-meaning parents unknowingly exacerbate the anxiety by attempting to protect their children from experiencing negative emotions.

The goal of treatment for anxiety is to help children learn to manage their emotional responses to their triggers. Avoiding triggers won’t help kids learn to cope, and not all triggers can be avoided. In fact, though avoidance might help children feel better in the short-term, it can amplify the fears over time. Children need to learn how to tolerate their feelings of anxiety and to develop coping strategies to manage it.

All kids are different and what works well for one child might not work for another. Learning to manage symptoms of anxiety and cope with triggers takes time and practice. Parents can help their children by trying some of these strategies at home.

Practice Relaxation Strategies

Kids need to learn how to regulate both their emotional and physical responses (they become intertwined) when they go into fight-or-flight mode. Here are some techniques that may help:

· Deep breathing: Teaching your children to “breathe the rainbow” by taking slow deep breaths and thinking about their favorite things to match each color helps them slow their heart rate and relax their muscles. Practice this strategy when calm to increase effectiveness when anxious.

· Progressive muscle relaxation: Most kids tense their muscles when feeling anxious. Many even hold their breath. A simple two-step process helps kids learn to use their muscles to relieve the physical stress they experience when anxious. 1)Tense a specific muscle group (e.g. arms and hands or neck and shoulders) and hold for five seconds and 2) release the muscle group and notice how you feel. Work head-to-toe to better understand all of the muscles affected by anxiety. With practice, children can learn to do this at school.

· Create a relaxation kit: Fill a box with relaxing activities chosen by your child and create a relaxation center somewhere in your home. You might include music, coloring books, fidget toys, a mini sandbox, clay, books, and stuffed animals.

Write It Out

Writing about worries helps children learn to vent their anxious feelings. Anxious kids have a tendency to internalize their anxious thoughts for long periods of time. Often, they don’t want to burden others with their worries. Dedicating time to getting those feelings out for fifteen minutes each day helps children learn to work through their worries. Try to do one of these exercises at the same time each day (an hour before bedtime is a great timeframe as anxiety tends to spike at night):

· Write and tear: Have your child write or draw her worries on a piece of paper, read them to you, and then tear them up and throw them away for the night. This helps kids say their worries out loud and let go of them.

· Worry journal: Keeping a worry journal helps children see how their anxious thoughts improve over time. Writing the worries of the day followed by one positive thought helps break the cycle of negative thinking that can exacerbate anxiety.

· Worry box: This is a great tool to use before bed. Have your child decorate an old tissue box with her/his favorite things or cover it with stickers. Help them to write their worries of the day and place them in the box one-by-one, after they share them with you. Take the box to your room for the night and offer to hold them for them.

Talk Back

When children learn that they have the power to talk back to their worry brains, they feel empowered to cope with anxiety-producing stressors. Teach your child that anxious thoughts make us feel powerless, but talking back to anxious thoughts gives us control over the situation.

· Boss back: Have your child practice saying, “You’re not in charge of me, worry brain! I know I can handle this!” Help your child create specific scripts to target certain triggers.

· Thought stopping: When intrusive thoughts overwhelm kids, they go into fight-or-flight mode. Teach your child to stop anxious thoughts before they snowball by saying, “No! That’s not true!” This technique interrupts the anxious thought cycle.

· Create a character: One thing that helps young children is creating a character to represent the anxiety. It’s easier to talk back to a character they can visualize in the moment.

Childhood anxiety can feel overwhelming for both the child and the parent, but it is treatable. If your child’s anxiety is pervasive and negatively affecting her ability to sleep, attend school, and other areas of her life, seek an evaluation from a licensed mental health practitioner.

Last Updated: Nov 25, 2018

Activities

• A bin of rice with small objects for them to pick up and let go

• Rain stick
• Water bottles with food coloring in them, empty water bottle with buttons in it to make sounds
• Placing beads on a pipe cleaner
• Blowing bubbles
• GoNoodle is a website that provides very short video brain breaks. These are games and exercises designed for helping kids stay focused and motivated, and they’re free! GoNoodle has an entire section dedicated to calming activities. I recommend doing the same brain break each day for a week so it becomes automatic for students and they can reap the calming benefits instead of focusing on the directions.

Breathing Exercises

• Hissing Breath: Breathe in the nose, long deep inhale, and out the mouth on a hissing sound, slow and long. Extending the exhale will allow kids to slow down their inner speed. It’s wonderful to connect kids to their exhale to help them learn to slow themselves down, mentally and physically.
• Bunny Breath: Just 3 quick sniffs in the nose and one long exhale out the nose. Invite kids to pretend to be bunnies, sniffing the air for other bunnies, carrots to eat, or safety. It can be a lovely cleansing breath when you use it in this way. You can also use it when kids are very upset and can’t find their breath, because it will help them connect to their exhale, so that they breathe instead of spin out.

• Do the “Downward Facing Dog” pose. Just like inversions help reset the autonomic nervous system, the yoga pose known as Downward Facing Dog in particular has the added benefit of activating several muscles in the arms, legs, and core. This stretch helps muscles begin to burn additional blood glucose that is made available by the body’s fight or flight response.

• Shake a glitter jar. “Calm Down Jars” have been making their way around Pinterest for a while now, but the concept behind them is sound. Giving your child a focal point for 3-5 minutes that is not the stressor will allow their brain and body to reset itself. These jars can be made simply from sealed canning jars filled with colored water and glitter or with baby food jars filled with warm water and glitter glue.

• Blow on a pinwheel. Similar to the candle exercise, blowing on a pinwheel focuses more on controlled exhalation rather than deep inhalation. Tell your child to make the pinwheel go slow, then fast, then slow to show them how they can vary the rate at which they blow out the air in their lungs.

• Squish some putty. When a child plays with putty, the brain’s electrical impulses begin firing away from the areas associated with stress. Try a store bought putty or make your own.

• Crinkle tissue paper. Babies are inherently aware of this trick as one of their favorite things to do is crinkle paper. Not only does crinkling tissue paper provide a satisfying noise, the textural changes in your child’s hand sends sensory feedback to the brain in a pathway away from those associated with stress

• Pop bubble wrap. Anyone who has received a package in the mail knows the joy of popping row after row of bubble wrap. The same material can be found at most retailers and dollar stores and be cut into manageable pieces for stress-relief anywhere, anytime.

• Roll a golf ball under your feet. Rolling a golf ball under your child’s feet can not only improve circulation, but there are pressure points on the bottom of the feet that relieve stress and relax the muscles of the feet and legs. Roll over the entire sole of your child’s foot using various pressures for maximum benefit.

• Roll a tennis ball on your back. An old physical therapy trick, rolling a tennis ball on your child’s back will give them a gentle massage when they are most in need of a calming touch. Focus on the shoulders, neck, and lower back as these are typical places where the body holds tension.

https://sites.google.com/kasd.org/virtual-calming-room/home

Virtual activities such as journaling, movement and other calming resources.

Family friendly virtual activities - for example - soothing music, live animal cameras, self-care (grounding and breathing)

www.ymcagbw.org