Helping Your Child Overcome Anxiety

Anxiety is one of the most common presentations we see in children. Other terms
used to describe anxiety are fear, nervousness and worries. Your child may be
scared of the dark or strange noises at night. They may be fearful of storms, spiders,
dogs or heights. They may be shy and feel anxious in social situations. They may be
worried about something bad happening and have a need to check things like the
locks on windows or doors. They may feel embarrassed when performing in front of
people, like delivering a speech or being on stage. Whatever the reason for your
child’s worries, there are several ways you can help them.

1. Help Them Stay Calm

When children are anxious, they may experience a number of physical symptoms.
These can include:
- Rapid heart rate
- Fast or shallow breathing
- Butterflies in the stomach
- nausea
- Feeling hot or sweaty
- blushing
- Feeling shaky
- Dizziness
- headaches
- Needing to go to the toilet
You can help your child by encouraging them to take slow, deep breaths. Counting
to 4 or 5 as they breathe in slowly through their nose and the same again as they
breathe out slowly through their mouths can help them calm down and reduce the
physical symptoms they are experiencing. Your child may need to do this for several
minutes until they begin to feel calm.
A relaxation exercise such as laying down and alternately tensing and relaxing their
muscles whilst imagining feeling relaxed and taking slow, deep breaths can also help
them feel calmer.
“Smiling Mind” is a free mindfulness meditation app that can be used with children to
help them relax and feel calm.

2. Encourage Them to Develop More Helpful Ways of Thinking

People who worry often make two thinking errors:
1. They overestimate the chance of something bad happening, and
2. They believe that if what they are worried about does happen, they will not be
able to cope with it. It will be ‘the end of the world’.

These thinking errors can affect how your child is feeling and what they do.
For example: your child hears a strange noise at night and thinks someone might be
trying to break into the house. They feel scared and may hide under their covers,
shaking, or come into your bedroom.

Thoughts ------->  Feelings -------->  Behaviour

You can assist your child to develop more helpful or realistic ways of thinking by
exploring alternative explanations.

For example: your child hears a strange noise at night. It might be a possum walking
on the roof, the neighbour’s cat or a tree branch brushing against the house on a
windy night. These more helpful thoughts can help your child feel calmer and they
may go back to sleep.

There are often plenty of alternative explanations that are likely to be more realistic.
Helping your child develop more helpful or realistic thoughts can help them stay
calm.

Helping them feel able to cope in certain situations is also important in managing
anxiety. For example, your child may worry about being late to school or making
mistakes in their schoolwork. They might worry about being in trouble with their
teacher. The belief is that they won’t be able to cope if they get in trouble. The reality
is often very different. Their teacher may be very understanding of the reason why
they were late to school and assist them in understanding mistakes made in their
schoolwork. Even if the teacher does comment about your child being late to school
or making a mistake in their schoolwork, it is not ‘the end of the world’ that your child
worries it will be.

3. Help Your Child Face Their Fear

Children who worry often avoid situations that they worry about. This may reduce
their anxiety in the short term, however, it strengthens their worry over the longer
term. Being able to face their fears gives them the opportunity to learn that the
situation isn’t as bad as they worry it will be, and that they can cope with it.

For example: your child may worry so much about giving a speech in class that they
avoid doing so. Encouraging them to experience giving speeches can help them feel
more confident and learn that nothing bad will happen to them. Often they worry that
the other children will laugh at them, the children won’t like their speech, or that they
will forget their words. The reality is often very different. No-one might laugh at them,
the other children might really like their speech and find it interesting, and they might
not forget their words. Even if someone does laugh or snigger, or they do forget
some of their words, it is not ‘the end of the world’. They can and do cope.
It is often helpful for children to learn to face their fears in a gradual way. An example
might be:

Step 1: Deliver the speech to Mum or Dad
Step 2: Deliver the speech to Mum, Dad and siblings
Step 3: Deliver the speech to grandparents
Step 4: Deliver the speech to a friend
Step 5: Deliver the speech to a small group of friends
Step 6: Deliver the speech to the teacher
Step 7: Deliver the speech to the class

The steps may be swapped around, depending on how difficult each step may be.
The idea is to start with the easiest step and build up to the hardest step. It can often
be helpful to repeat each step, until your child no longer feels anxious about doing
that step, and then move up to the next step. This step-by-step approach can be
used to help children face many of their fears. Depending on the steps and the goal
they are working towards, it is often helpful for children to stay in the step long
enough to experience their anxiety reduce, or vary the amount of time they stay in
each step to progressively longer amounts of time.

4. Reduce Attention to Worries

Focussing attention on worries often maintains the worry and can increase anxiety.
Helping children focus their attention on something else can assist in reducing their
anxiety. Imagine their worry is a plant and attention is like water. When we give
water to a plant, it grows and gets bigger. When we don’t water the plant, it shrivels
up and dies. When we give attention to worries, they get bigger. When we don’t give
attention to worries, they get smaller and, in some cases, they can disappear.
Encourage your child to think about happy or relaxing things. They might like to
recall a memory of a time when they felt really happy, like on their birthday or on a
family holiday. Help them recall that time in as much detail as they can by using their senses – What can they see? What can they hear? What can they smell? What can
they touch? What can they taste? This can help them focus their attention away from
their worries.

Doing an activity they enjoy can also take their attention away from their worries.
They might like to read a book, draw a picture, play their favourite game, jump on the
trampoline, or ride their bike. It is important that they think about the activity they are
doing, and not think about their worry whilst they are doing the activity.

5. Reward Your Child

It is often hard for children to overcome their worries and face their fears. Rewarding
examples of brave behaviour and their attempts to manage their worries can often
help with motivating them to try harder. These are some examples of rewards:
- Verbal praise
- using stickers or a point system that they can exchange for a tangible reward
- time spent together doing a fun activity

Children can also say positive words to themselves. For example: ‘That was hard,
but I did it!’ or ‘I did a great job’.

Making Big Decisions

I see so many people who are in the grips of making a seemingly impossible and overwhelming life decision. It may be whether to stay in or leave a romantic relationship, whether to change careers, or whether it is the right time to have child. The number of variables to consider in making these big decisions, the amount of uncertainty involved, and the risk involved in getting in wrong means that there is no way around difficulty. And as much as I want to step in and tell my clients what the “right” decision is, unfortunately it isn’t my role, and there is no “right” decision anyway!

Here are some tips to help navigate the decision-making process:

1. Pros & Cons

Put some time aside when you’re not feeling too emotional to write up a list of pros and cons for the options available to you. Make sure you include both short- and long-term consequences.

2. Connect to Your Values

Taking a big picture perspective, think about what truly matters to you deep down. This is the stuff that you want to stand for in your life, the kind of person you’d like to be remembered as, the kind of friend/partner/parent/daughter/employee you’d ultimately like to be. This can be a helpful anchor for the pros and cons exercise to frame whether the different options take you towards or away from these principles.

3. Don't Overthink It

 If multiple options take you towards your values and don’t have disastrous consequences, pick either one. Don’t stress about deciding which is “better” if both are taking you in the right decision. Similarly, thinking too far ahead will complicate matters unnecessarily and introduce too much uncertainty and possibility. 

4. Avoiding Making a Decision is Making a Decision

If the prospect of getting it wrong, or the pressure to make the “right” choice is too overwhelming, we can be paralysed and avoid thinking about the issue altogether. Doing so means that we are actually making a decision anyway. 

5. Reconnect With What Matters

 It can be easy to get so caught up in the mind chatter related to the decision-making that we disconnect from other areas of our lives. Make an effort to stay present and engaged in what matters.

6. Have Self-Compassion

This is difficult stuff. Hold yourself gently, talk to yourself kindly, don’t expect too much of yourself. Have patience, and think about what you would say to a friend in a similar situation. Recognise there is no perfect solution, and it is likely that it will take time to resolve the issue. Practice self-care and look after yourself in the process. 

Perinatal Wellbeing

Having a baby is one of the most significant events in your lifetime. It affects so many areas of your life, your relationships, and your identity. 

The challenges faced with the arrival of a new baby are seemingly endless - recovering from birth, breastfeeding, lack of sleep, feeling overemotional, coping with an unsettled baby, bonding with your baby, body image, managing priorities, managing advice from others, and relationship dynamics with your partner, friends and family. 

Many women (too often) just brush off negative thoughts or feelings, putting them down to lack of sleep, hormones or 'baby blues'. Many feel pressure to live up to their initial expectations of parenthood, or how motherhood is portrayed in the media. This can be even more difficult when it appears that others are coping and managing. Sadly, many women perceive asking for help as a failure on their part. 

The truth is, becoming parents and parenthood is harder for some than others for a whole range of reasons. It is not your fault. The earlier you seek help, the better. By looking after yourself first, you will be best placed to then nurture the needs of your baby and others, as well as giving yourself the opportunity to have an experience of parenthood which is as positive as it can be.

Here are some signs to look out for that may indicate you could benefit from professional support:

Based on material from the Centre of Perinatal Excellence - www.cope.org.au

Thriving During Year 12

Does the beginning of the school year fill you with excitement or dread?

Especially for those in Year 12, many students can find the prospect of their final year overwhelming. So many of my patients fit in this category, but I'm always excited when Year 12 students come in to see me at the start of the year. That way, we can work together to set them up in a way that not only protects their wellbeing, but sets them on a path to thrive.  

High school pressure can be too much at times. If you, your child, or someone you know is struggling to cope, let them know that there is help available.

Here are 5 Top Tips for Making the Most out of your Final Year at School:

Dr. Amanda Hale is the Principal Clinical Psychologist in a team with offices in Bondi Junction and Killara. The practice specialises in working with children and adolescents, using evidence-based techniques and client-centred care to maximise wellbeing.