Coping Skills for Children: Getting started and Relaxation
In my last blog I explored calm breathing in detail, as this an important coping skill that children can use in many situations when they feel anxious or afraid. I noted that children who learn healthy coping skills, such as calm breathing, can become more confident and resilient, and will also be more resilient and able to manage stress in healthy ways as adults.
Of course, there are many more coping skills that children can learn and use, and it is important for children to have a range of coping skills to choose from, as some coping skills will suit particular situations better than others. For example, what works well in a bedroom at home (e.g. doing jumping jacks) may not be acceptable during class at school. Also, which coping skills an individual child will find useful will depend on their interests and preferences. In my next few blogs I will describe a range of coping skills that children may benefit from.
Tips for getting children started on coping skills
One at a time: Learn one coping skill at a time.
Start calm: Help the child to learn and practice a coping skill when they are not anxious or worried. Ask them how they feel before and after using the coping skill.
Give it a go: Encourage the child to try each coping skill, just to see how it feels. Sometimes it will take a few times before they get the hang of it. They may be surprised by how a skill works for them. But if they still hate it after a few attempts, try another skill.
An individual approach: Make it more fun, and likely to work, by tailoring coping skills to the interests of the child – be creative and think about what they enjoy.
Relaxation-based coping skills
Now I would like to outline some more relaxation-based coping skills that children may find helpful, because they help the children to relax and calm themselves.
In addition to calm breathing, children can learn to use visualisation, grounding and muscle relaxation techniques:
1. Calm place visualisation
Ask the child to think of their favourite place that is calming for them. It could be a favourite chair, their bedroom/bed, a beach, garden, veranda, or park. Or they can make up a place that they find calming (e.g. a shady garden with a waterfall, soft grass, flowers and birds).
Once they have the place clearly in their mind, ask them what they can see, feel, hear, smell and taste. For example, the soft grass or bed under them, a warm gentle breeze, the blue sky above, scented flowers, the sound of the waterfall splashing. Encourage them to spend a few minutes exploring and experiencing all their senses in their visualised place.
Explain that this is like a ‘mini holiday’ that they can have whenever they feel like it. It will get easier to visualise and experience their chosen place if they practice ‘going’ there more often.
2. Present moment grounding
The 5 senses (5-4-3-2-1) grounding technique can help children mentally step back from their thoughts and fears, and help them to relax and focus on the present moment. Ask the child to do the following:
Look: name 5 things you can see
Feel: name 4 things you can feel (e.g. their weight on the chair, soft clothes, the temperature of the air, their warm breath).
Listen: name 3 things you can hear
Smell: name 2 things you can smell
Taste: name 1 thing you can taste
3. Relaxing muscles
Progressive Muscle Relaxation, or PMR, systematically tenses and then relaxes many of the muscle groups of the body. In this way PMR demonstrates the association between relaxed muscles and a relaxed mental state, and can help children feel calmer by helping them relax tensed muscles. PMR works by helping the child to learn to feel the difference between tensed muscles and relaxed muscles. Once they have mastered this, the child can learn to notice muscle tension that occurs when they are anxious or worried, and relax their muscles in response.
It can take some time for a child to learn how to do this technique on their own, so it is important for them to be guided through the process a number of times. There are numerous YouTube videos/audio guides, apps and PMR scripts readily available to help with this – find one that you think will suit you and your child.
Don’t forget that these coping skills are also relevant to adults – give them a try yourself!
