Family Support Blog #2
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is the body’s natural response, it helps us respond or avoid dangerous situations, and it motivates us to solve everyday problems and EVERYONE will experience anxiety at some point in their life
How does anxiety make them Feel
- Dizzy
- Dry mouth
- Sweating
- Feel sick
- Jelly legs
- Shaking
- Headache
- Tummy ache
- Palpitations
How does anxiety make them Think
- They are losing control
- They think they may faint or be sick
- Feel people are looking at them
- Feel on edge and alert to everything around them
- Feel like they want to run away
When children & young people feel anxious, they cannot always understand or express what they are feeling
You may notice that they:
- become irritable, tearful or clingy
- have difficulty sleeping
- wake in the night
- start wetting the bed
- have bad dreams
- Complain of sudden physical illness such as stomach aches and headaches
- lack confidence to try new things or seem unable to face simple, everyday challenges
- find it hard to concentrate
- have angry outbursts
- have a lot of negative thoughts, or keep thinking that bad things are going to happen
As parents we want to protect our children, but our role isn’t to eliminate anxiety, but to help our child manage it.
So how can we support our children and young people
Don’t avoid things just because they make a child anxious, helping children avoid the things they are afraid of will make them feel better in the short term but will reinforce anxiety over the long term.
Ask open ended questions encourage your child to talk about their feelings, like “how are you feeling about the test?”
Listen and empathize “I know you’re scared, and that’s okay, and I’m here, and I’m going to help you get through this.”
Talk things through “If I’m not there to pick you up” – who could you ask or tell, where could you go, this reduces their anxiety and gives them the tools to use if they are faced with the situation.
Children are very perceptive and learn from how we react and behave to situations so as parents we can without realizing pass on our fears onto our children through our facial expressions, body language & tone of voice
Ideas to help lower anxiety
Breathing Exercises
Colouring
54321 Grounding
Family Support Team are here to offer support and advice and are running workshops in your school throughout the year so please get in touch if you would like more information contact admin@chexs.co.uk
The family support team are here for you if you need advice or support – you can contact us via the contact information on our Team page.
