FUNDANEED.es
Anxiety and its negative symptomatology is an emotion that can appear in children of any age. The reasons for this are varied, but it is necessary to address it in all cases in order to avoid major complications and to prevent it from getting worse.
FUNDANEED offers you some brief advice on how to work on anxiety with your children:
1. Create rest routines within their schoolwork. With these activities your child will be able to disconnect momentarily from their obligations.
2. Give importance to their feelings, to how they express themselves. Even if we believe that their problems are not important, for our children these worries are.
3. Find out what is causing their stress. Many children do not know how to identify what causes them anxiety, so it is important to know where the stress comes from in order to be able to intervene.
4. Teach them strategies to calm their discomfort. Practice relaxation and/or breathing techniques with your child. Reading and music can help your child to focus on something more pleasant.
5. Set an example for your child. If our child sees us dealing with problems in a fearful way, he or she may learn that from us, so we should remain calm in the face of worries.
6. Build their self-esteem. Talk about the obstacles they have overcome in the past, the achievements they have made and thus form new motivations and goals.
7. Create an atmosphere of security, love and trust. It is very important that your child feels that you support them, show them that they can trust you with their worries and problems.
8. Help your child to change those negative feelings, ideas or thoughts into more positive ones. Your child may verbalise these thoughts with phrases like “I’m not good at this”, “I’m going to do badly”, etc. When this happens, you can show them an opposite thought: “I can do it”, “I’m going to try” in order to increase their self-esteem.
9. If he shows fear in any situation, give him encouragement and comfort. Once he/she is calm, use some of the strategies mentioned in the previous points to overcome the situation.
10. Gradually prepare him to do what he fears. Start with small approaches to the feared situation, which should be positively reinforced (“you have done very well”, “you are getting better and better, son”, etc.) as these are small successes that will increase your child’s motivation.
In conclusion, it is vital that children feel listened to and understood. The help of parents is fundamental for them to overcome anything that may be an obstacle. Understanding does not mean that the child does not face what is causing him/her anxiety, but that he/she understands why he/she has this fear, this fear, and that he/she can be given the necessary resources to overcome it.
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