Anxiety does not occur among the adults alone, children too come face to face with anxiety many a times. Under such circumstance, it becomes extremely difficult for parents to manage their kids. Children often fall sick due to the excursion resulting from the anxiety and this leaves a negative impact on the parents.
Though anxiety is a very common issue among kids, the chances of developing an anxiety disorder later in life cannot be ignored. In that light, it is always advisable to stay prepared and have a form of protection.
While it can be very confusing and mind-boggling for parents when it comes to dealing with such tantrums, here are 6 easy ways which they can use to calm down a child during the fits of anxiety.
Give A Particular Name To Anxiety:
Though it can be very upsetting for both the parents and the children, anxiety is a common emotion and its occurrence is nothing disturbing. It only becomes a problem when anxiety becomes disproportionate to fear.
In order to calm things down, as a parent, you ought to help your child understand this emotion. In that light, naming it would be of effect. That way the child will understand that even others are facing it and there is nothing to worry about.
Dealing With Fear:
Another good way to deal with anxiety is by addressing and facing one’s fear. Since both are often linked, in fact, dependent on each other, addressing the fear factor can help children deal with the problem of anxiety.
Fear often builds up when we start avoiding doing those activities. Thus it’s necessary to address these issues at the very beginning, step by step.
Practice Slow Breathing With Your Child:
When a child gets anxious, it impacts his daily behavior too. Under such circumstance, this causes further panic.
This situation can be best dealt with slow breathing. Practice slow breathing with your child. That way he or she will learn how to calm down during the time of stress and distress.
Tutoring To Deal with subjects that are causing anxiety:
Though it often becomes difficult for a child to understand, teaching him/her about anxiety can be of help. They may not be able to understand in detail, thus teach them in bits. Find out the core reason behind it. You can begin by referring to his/her last anxiety fit and then build on it.
My daughter used to hate Biology, and because of that, she often used to come home irritated. After having long discussions, I got her biology tutoring and now her stress and anxiety is automatically low.
Additionally, you can get help from professionals who know how to teach kids about stress and anxiety. Once the kids get to know about it, they slowly learn how to deal with it, eliminating the chances of developing a long term disorder.
Let Your Child Learn:
If your kid is still posing a lot of “what if” questions to you, you can do better than reassuring, you can help him/her learn.
According to eminent psychologists, instead of reassurances, parents must go on to counter question the child, “what if it does not happen”? This ensures that the kids will learn to solve the problem on their own.
Conduct Practice Runs:
Since the best way to deal with fear is by facing it, get your child to face his/her often. In that light, if your child is afraid to start to a new school, and has associated anxiety with it, go to the school when the holidays are on. Give him/her a tour of the building. Facing fear up front like this has positive effects.
Offering Rewards To Children:
Rewards can be another way of motivating children to take up nerve-racking situations. When a child does challenge his/her fear and stays calm in a situation which would have otherwise made him/her anxious, it’s important to award such efforts with rewards.
Such rewards will motivate the child to portray similar behavior in the future as well.
Help your child bring out the best. A little help in time can go a long way in the future.