How To: Help An Anxious Little One

Miss M, who is 7 and a half, takes after me...she worries, she is anxious and anything outside of her routine stresses her out.  Im not sure if I've subconsciously imposed my worry on her or its in our DNA (think I've mentioned before I think I get it from my Dad!) but it makes for some very upsetting bed times, lots of tears and lots of hugs.

I'll be honest, at first I was at a loss as to what to do.  I've learnt over the years to rationalise things in my head and that no amount of worry will change certain situations but thats hard to get across to a seven year old who doesnt have the emotional intelligence to deal with it on their own.

So I hit the internet and found a huge amount of information on how to help anxious kids.  Some of it doesnt work for us, some of it did.  Its very much a work in progress as just as we've solved one worry, another one crops up.  Its something we're working on and hopefully, every time we deal with one worry, Miss M will learn a little bit more how to deal with it.

1. Listen
Ok this might sound like an obvious one, but when your little one is telling you something do you REALLY listen or just have half an ear listening?  Quite often Miss M will start a story with "Me and so-and-so fell out because.....".  Turns out that falling out with her friends is a big deal for her as she's worried about being on her own in the playground (she's just moved up to the juniors so is a little fish in a big pond).  Once I listened properly, I realised it wasn't just a silly falling out with her friends, but a really worry for her.  Understanding the problem was the first thing in helping to deal with it.

2. Ask The Right Questions
Sometimes they cant find the words to tell you whats wrong.  They're not sure themselves, but they know something is worrying them and they're not happy about it.  Ask if a particular situation is upsetting them, ask if its something you can help with.  Also, ask them how big their worry is...is it bigger than them?  Bigger than the house?  I found this helped to visualise her worry as a tangible "thing" rather than something insurmountable...then we can deal with making the worry smaller.

3. Make A Worry List
This is something  I've done for a long while and helps me even as an adult.  Writing things down on paper helps to again, visualise the actual problem.  Seeing things in black and white some how helps stop it getting muddled in your head.  I did this with Miss M and in actual fact, what seemed like a massive list of problems in her head, she later admitted, didnt look that scary on paper (Mummy - 1, Worries - 0!!)

4. Read A Book
Not just any book.  The Big Bag of Worries is about a little girl who has exactly that...a bag of worries so big it takes over everything!  Miss M is an avid reader so I gave her this book to read one night before bed. She read it aloud to me, then again to herself.  Then we had a little chat about it and about how silly it was that the bag got so big, the little girl couldnt even fit it in the cupboard!  Point proven!  I wont give the story away (incase you want to read it for yourself!) but it helped...it helped a lot.

From Amazon

5. Give A Big Hug...But Not Too Big
This worked for us but might sound harsh written down.  When Miss M first came to us with her worries, we gave her a big hug, dried her eyes and tucked her back into bed (funny how the worries always come at night!).  The second, third and fourth time we did the same thing.  After the fifth time of tears and tantrums over the same anxiety, it occurred to me that by giving her a hug and and sympathising with her worries, I was making it ok to be worried and she was enjoying the attention for what was, infact, a negative emotion.  In actual fact what I wanted her to realise was that she didnt have to worry.    

So thats is, a few things I put into place to help Miss M with her worries.  We've overcome a few of them using these steps, some we're still working on, but we'll get there!

Thanks for reading!

Mummy B x x