Videos

Supporting Children With Anxiety: What To Do And What Not To Do

Added Mar 19, 2024 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//paulreverems.lausd.org/apps/embed/?v=370698" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Anna Riley, Revere's PSW, discusses the Dos and Don'ts

Show Transcript

introduce myself and is my second year at Paul Revere my role is really mental health base so when students are having social emotional issues often times we get to the counseling office first benefits and more deeper mental health issue they do get sent to me and that's when I work with students I can do a gradual therapy on as well as helping them get resources outside so one thing I wanted to the size is that I am a social worker but I'm not doctor oven times when parents be my title psychiatric they think of me as someone that can fax it or provide medication those are not things but I do in my particular role so as we talked today about the symptoms of a variety and things like that just know that I actually diagnosed your children with an anxiety disorder but I can provide you and you do want to go that path I can help you with that process okay so please wait with your questions please hold until the end I have a lot to get through so I want to make sure I get through every day analogy questions at the end this is our agenda for the evening I'm going to start out with a general overview of anxiety what's the look for and then I'm also going talk about what US parents can do some advice for you what to say what not to say and then some really practical techniques that you can take away and directly Implement in your home to work with your child if you're having anxiety so breathe making a plan helping them talk to their anxiety and then at the end talk about how and when it's time to get extra professional and then question and okay go to start at all I just wanted to do a little check-in this is something you can do with your kids on a regular basis how is everyone feeling tonight I like to see where my audience is feeling dog faces to represent some different moods so if you could just type in the chat what number is kind of representing where you're at right now Channel 7 I want you to cuddle in the blanket on butter love it as a lot of people on the porch okay 52g tired just you're just answering how you're feeling but these dogs use dog screen okay nice so this is something you can do with your kids there's a lot of different ways you can check in with them I like this one it's funny you can also do like name a song that describes how you're feeling right now and just doing this on a regular basis to make sure that you guys are connecting on a more emotional and social level okay busy with his little image that kind of describe what anxiety is so the reality side we have someone texting their BFF Jeff and yo dude want to hang out later and just read it 3 hours ago but he has not responded yet on the right we have the anxiety brain and that is telling everyone can just make sure you're on mute thank you read three hours ago because I Hate You Please Die for us so this might seem a little silly or dramatic but this really is a depiction of what anxiety makes you get in your head and make you overthink dolphin makes you think about situations that actually aren't real and it's more likely that stuff is just busy or forgot to respond but this is what our kids are doing especially on their phones on this they're over thinking a lot there worrying and this is cause a big increase in anxiety which we will not talk about so approximately 9.4% of children are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder that's 5.8 million children and it's a rising each year especially since covid so are noticing an increase even at Revere I've noticed an increase since last year that's why I wanted to do this presentation Ben and I think this is a good for stuff is teaching parents some of those tools to help their kids if they aren't. Anxiety you all for coming okay so when assessing for Jen license ID disorder which is the most common type of anxiety disorder clinical professional Hazard looking for the follow so they need all three of these to be the one would be the presence of anxiety and worry about a variety of topics events or activities has more often than not try at least 6 months and is clearly excessive so make sure you're keeping in mind the six months so if you're just noticing your child has become anxious in the past couple weeks if they probably would not qualify for it. But that time it might be more like something in the moment but stressing them out something that some coming up this has to be going on through at least six and then we also have the experience also are very challenging to control so for example the child they might be trying to do normal coping skills and they aren't working for trying to control their worries by exercising or talking to their parents but it's still not working there still feeling bad where you going outside and the number three the anxiety and worry has to be accompanied by one of the following physical are calling it has been some severe pain in children they only need one. along with number one and two mollify for a diagnosis so restlessness excessive anxiety increased muscle aches a concentration irritability and difficulty sleeping one of these and then also the first two that we talked about they should have all Faith prayer and anxiety diet I also wanted to highlight on and somatic symptoms that are not necessary part of the diagnosis but I really really comment on things that I'm seeing a lot this year, cake and headache I'm almost every day students coming home with anxiety related stomach aches and headache as well as dizziness chest pain numbness kind of like tingly feeling in the hands or leg hyperventilating maybe more if they're having a panic attack wedding either all things will look out for you're noticing your kid is complaining about a stomach ache almost every day and there's no other really explanation for the stomach ache. Maybe a time to start thinking okay this might be anxiety related so these are some effects on roll and social performance that you want to look out for if your child is experiencing any of these changes so for example maybe there's suddenly struggling with the various demands of school I'm noticing that are sixth graders this year I think it is really hard to adjust coming from elementary environment to Revere which we do have a lot of high expectations of our kids inattention perfectionism that the usually I see I Revere you know those kids to go into full panic mode if they miss a question or test or don't have straight A's forgetful or unwilling to participate due to concerns about failure where is there a boy named difficult task maybe they're suddenly refusing to do any work they're not volunteering or participating classroom activities anymore they're withdrawing from others may be refusing to go to school or maybe their teachers are calling him saying I think your kids I'm interested on motivated you might you know you're so you know if that's true or maybe there's something deeper going on anxiety issue common anxiety disorders include obsessive compulsive disorder specific phobias I am seeing that one a lot this year of kids fearful of coming notice with your kids you're full of coming to school because they have a phobia of like health issues though because that are really terrified that maybe they're going to throw up at school or they might pass out at school so they might have a specific phobia is really causing their anxiety and preventing them from social anxiety is a huge one that increase after covid you know our kids were home they were pretty isolated and then just suddenly getting thrown back in school and I have a lot of kids to do struggle with that social aspect and they get really anxious about social interaction also causes them often times not to even want to come to school which is something we've been working on since last year and then separation anxiety as well after covid I think it was hard when you know she was home in there safe please with their parents they feel safe with and then suddenly having to come back to this unfamiliar environment and having to be away from their parents that's another big one that we seen so I wanted to emphasize that we all experience anxiety and I'm going to talk about this. presentation I got thrown around super Lucy these days which is okay but I want to be careful with the English and the difference between a any disorder like having anxiety and then also feeling anxiety or having normal work so it's time to get more help or be at least a little more concerned if your is the kissing diary is happening out of the blue there's not a real trigger for it normal very is usually tied to a specific cause I have an upcoming public speaking event where I have a test coming up those are things that we all worry about your kids feeling super anxious that's not play something said that they would need more help for that's something they can learn coping skills but if it's just anxiety happening all the time or it's not really a trigger or threat then not maybe a more serious disorder also it's more serious if it started interfere with daily list this is really what you want to keep your eye out for so if your kids names are feeling nervous or anxious flies and their grades are still okay or at least what normal is has been it is not interfering with their daily activities it's in might be more like normal worried and you know what is it interfering of kids that are refusing to come to school they're having panic attacks on the ceiling that are isolating from friends and family that are saying they got 1 hour of sleep per night because their mind is racing so much that's one of my BMO serious issue and I am to get more support professional support so what might could be anxious about one thing I hear kids say a lot and Aaron told me I'm too young to feel anxiety or my parents said I just need to worry about kids so I need to stop worrying that I can't so there are kids free at all and we're about that cause them to have anxiety feeling so she was some examples of social media and a huge one specially with the increase in phone usage School pure conflict divorce your loss health issues traumatic incident Sports these are just a start there's many more things that can cause anxiety but these are some of the main thing that I've seen start kids at Revere I'm going to play just a quick video to Showcase a few of these are not one of your students to Showcase a couple of kids talking about how anxiety feels like and how they cope with anxiety I'm 10 years old 12 years old I'm really good at making people laugh I'm actually got reading I can kinda juggle dance the same fishing for a lot of fish I'd like to read that go to my pool running biking swimming thing I worry about is my cousin because I don't want him to get I am the machine shirt worried expression or scared or nervous when my heart is beating fast like something's wrong never leave stress that I can talk about it with my mom to watch the stop the process that is calm down like lay down listen to music hello Snapchat that's pretty cool things you can do to work through your emotions and start to feel better for you for ways to get support visit kids help phone. but you just wanted to play that today kind of stroke is what I'm talkin about that students do feel anxiety even though we wish they didn't and sometimes we feel like they're worrying about things that you shouldn't have to eat all the one girl worrying about your cousin getting bullied like it's so sad that that's causing her things already but it's like things like that the kids really do worry about and possums have a physical symptoms at times and you deserve to get support when they're feeling that way so she was Miami start with just some general advice and then I'll go to the specific tactics that you can use with your kids but these are some things I do hear when kids talk about how are so I wanted to emphasize these pieces so first of all avoid criticism or sarcasm sarcasm when your child doesn't perform well so this my favorite example and is buying Tom show their parents maybe they got it be on it for example in the first thing the princesses will what did you get wrong so you really want to try and build your kid up praising them for trying hard maybe talking about how okay like it's okay if you didn't do next time I'll be there for you to help you study you really don't want to tear them down because that's not really going to help them performance-wise and if anything it's just going to increase that anxiety and then avoid comparing your child older sibling a I think parents often don't mean to do this but I do have kids sometimes telling me Tok my sister gets straight A's and my channels I like why can't you just you know study like your sister that I get the tires an easy thing that we might think in our head but for a kid that really isn't helpful and if anything it just kind of makes me want to give up and feel more worried or anxious that they won't be able to achieve I'm in the same way that their sibling or friends may be able to and then always emphasizing effort over performance so even if your kid is having a really hard time going to school and maybe one day they'll get window school for two. And then they called you because they were just having a meltdown really emphasize thing. Progress in that effort like I'm proud of you for making it to two. What can we do to help you calm down instead of what you didn't make it through the whole day at the whole thing is if you want to emphasize that effort and that little progress to try and push them along versus shutting them down and make them feel hopeless and helpless this one is huge I know it's hard with middle schoolers setting a positive phone before and after school I know our teenagers aren't always super excited and energetic to wake up in the morning and to go to cool but it's really important as being adult that we try to set that positive trolling because you know starting an argument right before school about how their clothes are on the floor or something like that can really mess up the whole day and I might be a better conversation have after-school when you have more time and more space to talk and process whatever is going on Friday purposes you really just want to keep things light excited about anything for that day if not do anything they want to do after school homework just trying to keep things light and positive before they go to school you also want to emphasize and model healthy have it so our kids are watching us constantly and they're learning from us everyday so you're doing things to help when you feel stressed or anxious you can all that for them the most important to me at least personally are the top two on getting exercise each day and getting eight plus hours for kids with recommended hours every night X ER hand and hands like if you're having those physical symptoms exercise is probably one of the number one things you can do for that relief of those physical symptoms so they could be a walking the dog family law you know playing someone playing a game in the backyard I don't know something together that you're showing them that you do this as well as an adult and how it helps you I do classroom presentation that often asks the students how many hours of sleep they got and I've been very concerned this year's hear some of our kids getting 4 5 6 hours of sleep each night and I'm like no one. not feeling good and I try to get you hours of sleep each night otherwise I'm not really feeling my best so just got to them about how you try to get enough sleep because it affects you as well as an adult and I'm helping them with like a sleep routine before bed you know cutting away the phone maybe playing some relaxing music just trying to do relaxing things before if that's what they can on their body. Limiting screen time and social media this one is hard because I think we're most of us are pretty addicted to our phones at this point including myself so it's easy for me to tell a kid you know you need to try and limit your screen time on my phone a lot of the day as well as the same thing goes when your parenting and you want to model for your maybe if you have a time where you put your phone away and you just have family time I'm here just trying to be present I know jobs in different commitment so it can be hard but we do want to try and model especially if your kid has a phone modeling that you don't always want to be on your phone that gets rid of action it gets rid of communication and it gets rid of other coping skills the last bullet when listening to music reading a book these are coping skills that really help anxiety the phone usage has not been shown to help anxiety so why doesn't Google tell me you know that I'm trying to help them with told me feels like we're watching YouTube or looking at Tik-Tok and I try to explain to that okay if you're in a crisis situation may be. a doctor a few minutes to just calm yourself down a little but typically if you're feeling anxious it's better to do things off of your phone so as parents you can also model that for your kids you know set literally saying them out loud I had a really sure they are not feeling good I think I'm going to take a few deep breaths and then listen to some music trying to calm myself down it might sound awkward if that's not something you do but it can go a long way and teaching your kids and model how to handle that anxious feeling okay we have a long list year but some of them are pretty self-explanatory so what do do so pretty song literature and courage in your kids to talk about their feelings I do want to Travis's with there's like a time and place to talk about their feelings so if they're having an anxiety and you talked about going into there were few things coming up in may not be the time to lure all the things are feeling anxious about so when I have a kid in my office in the morning that's crying saying I can't go to class and I think I'm going to throw up that's not the time when I really am trying to totally fully understand why are you feeling that way you know what thoughts are you having what are you feeling I'm not a moment trying to get their body to calm down and then Jackson so that I can get them too so let's take some deep breaths let's play with some sensory toys and then let's talk about something else so that we can get you to class and then usually once they're in class feral cats usually that or feeling or they're working themselves up so you do want to talk to me about their feelings but not like at a moment right before school or right before the triggering event want to do that maybe I'll just go away flour and can really talk about it and they feel safe that's when you would want to talk about those things the second one that I really wanted to emphasize to parents right now is normalizing anxiety and then telling kids that you can still do even when you're so anxious about it so I'm noticing a little bit of enabling happening the some families the kids feels anxious and I know it's hard as a parent to watch your kids feel that way but the worst thing it's just by your shed Beasley avoid whatever they're anxious about so letting them stay home day after day coming to pick them up every time they call you because they're feeling anxious I really want to normalize after that like yeah I know it's okay that you're feeling that way that you're feeling really nauseous they are shaking it's okay I know it's not comfortable I felt it too before when I was really nervous or anxious but we still in life to do things even when we're feeling. running away from those things is not necessarily going to help us do it in fact it's going to make it harder to go do it the next time so just continue as normal as a shin and then encouraging them to spill just do the are they going to do with that anxiety and I'll talk about it a little more later in a specific thing that you can activity that you can do with your kid so then listening if they're willing to talk about it if they're not wanting to talk to you letting them know you're there or that you're willing to find another supportive adult that they can talk to you helping them understand their anxiety triggers so what's making you feel anxious is it is it being around friend you're certain teacher understanding what those are so then you can figure out a game plan for dealing with that particular trigger Telecom examples are keeping your own fears to yourself I know this one a lot during covid in my own family I have a much younger sister and we were having a lot of whole family discussions about covid and gun violence and really serious topic and she was in elementary school and she started having her own anxiety we had to check ourselves because that's not that's really something you really need to be talking about with kids I mean they're going to see things but try and keep your own anxieties to yourself and not put the to your kids limit access upsetting news and stories that reasonable expectations limits and consequences so you want to be really predictable you want your kids to know what to expect like if I do that this is how my parents going to react if it's like a different reaction or different consequence every time. Can cause a lot of anxiety when should feel unstable or unpredictable in the home and then working together as a family and if your parents have different types of family structures you want to make sure that everyone's on the same page so all the adult figures are communicating talking about with the kids going through and then they are on the same you're handling it that you're both are all valid you and your kids feeling and then also I'm sending those predictable and encouraging them to talk about how they're feeling Jimmy Harden middle school because I do hear from parents a lot you know like had locked himself in their room when I get home they don't want to talk to her but this is something you can at least try and do a scheduling time as a family where laughter Joy on maybe you play board game do you want to walk together this is really important at this age especially to continue in connection with your kids at a time when they're going through a lot of change you're having a lot of feeling maybe that they're taking out on you scheduling that time so that you can still build connection with your kids so now I'll talk little bit about what not to do one thing I hear from kids a lot that's not helpful for them is when I parents just say don't worry or stop worrying or just calm down the kids have directly told me that this just makes them where is because they don't know how to stop worrying or they don't know how to calm down so I just saying that it's not really sure how to do if that is your objective down is not worry we really need to give them more School versus just telling them on down there don't worry and I'm going to talk about this don't change their routine frequently make sure they do have and they have no routine and some kids also you know when is your tutoring session or what is your therapy and they're like I don't know what changes every week I don't know when I have to have a few neck so I can cause anxiety and stress you want your kids to know and they have certain appointment when they have certain tests when they have things you want some have like a schedule so that they know what to expect so I can relieve a lot of anxiety add over schedule kids on I know it's tempting we want I want them to be involved and I'm not saying don't schedule them it's actually really healthy when they're in extracurricular activities but they have like two or three activities every single day after school I can get a bit overwhelming and they might start to feel bad anxiety I don't like I said Express you're all over express your own anxieties especially one that I hear parents away from his talking about your own relationship issues whether you're still with the other parent or a divorcing or separating. Chocolate chip a lot of anxiety when parents try to talk to the kids about their own issues with their partner or partners try to keep that in adult conversation try not to over to discuss their feelings and anxiety before trigger situations like I said the time to really process of Explorer would not be right before we try we got them to go. And then I know how to enable unhealthy Behavior so this is super important and important step in managing anxiety and these things whatever they're worried so it's normal to want to avoid this year for example if they're having anxiety about school is normal. They want to avoid going to school however this only prevents them from learning that the things that they're scared us no school is not actually as dangerous as they think so with exposure which is the process of peace in your anxiety and you know doing whatever is causing the anxiety over its 5. Really is what sure or lessen the anxiety so that example of the kids being super worried about school the more they're avoiding School the Worst their fears going to get the more they're attending school and going there are we going to realize oh it's really not that bad it's more in my head building in it and I see it all the time kids off and come before homeroom super panicky worried I don't want to go as soon as I'm able to help him calm down and go to class I usually don't see him the rest of the day in class to know if you're doing your work it's really not as bad as their brain is making it up to be there will be set back like we were exposure likely at the beginning it might be worse before it gets better but you really really want to try not to enable the anxiety as much as you can letting them stay multiple deer it's just it's not going to help if anything you want to try for Progress why don't you at least go to school try homeroom and then see from there so you won't have to take Little Steps but you really want to avoid enabling whatever it is that they're open okay so I'm going to start talking about some things you can directly teach your kid these are therapeutic approaches. things they can learn about in therapy but they're pretty simple so it stays that has parent you can really help your kids understand and help them start to do in these are things that we as adults need to do as well sing is called the cognitive behavioral approach some of you may have heard of this is a really probably one of the most common treatments for anxiety and therapy so it's really helping kids understand that your thoughts are connected to your and that's connected to your behavior and they all kind of reinforce each other so we're going to talk about when I can sample and it's so this is the kind of course up the first one is identifying labeling your feelings and the worried that you're having don't worry I'm going to go through each step with an example so it'll be more experience and the second one is connecting your body changes with our thoughts and feelings so when I think about that I feel a stomach ache or dizzy and then the third step is using relaxation strategies which we will talk about in a moment and then the force that is replacing those worried Thoughts with r holistic thoughts and call my cell phone so you could talk to your kiddo what's a your kid is having really bad anxiety that's going to be our example as we walk through so you're going to talk to your kids about okay through the thoughts and feelings that you're so I called the strategy named it to payment so let's verbalize it what are you thinking what do you feel so maybe there's author I'm going to sail I'm going to get in trouble up in time so you think you know how to do this I'm dumb so they're all thought they might be having related to the test anxiety the feelings may be nervous scared overwhelmed so this is something at home you would help your child identify the fact that they're having and the feelings that are attached I don't know if I mentioned that we are ordering the presentation so it will be posted soon this will be both of you don't have to write everything down on the presentation Sub-Q is going to be connecting their body changes with those thoughts and feelings so awkward about this so you're having that feeling about feeling tired I'm going to get in trouble what's happening can your body your kid might say I don't know if my heart is feeling kind of like it's freezing start having like a stomach ache it's harder to breathe I feel like my hands are sweating you want them to really get good at identifying how are you feeling physically when they're having that 3 is going to teaching a relaxation strategies for when they start having those physical anxious symptoms so here's a list I usually go through at least like 10 with each of my kids but I see you and figure out what works for that so deep breathing drinking water visualizing their happy place like maybe the beach or muscle relaxation with provide suggestions for that at the end like a YouTube video if you look up muscle relaxation it can take you through like a whole body relaxation and talking it out with a friend or future positive cell Fox having a stress ball which by the way I just got one of the new stress balls and sort of like anxiety fidgets in my office so if your kid doesn't need those against my office I'm a bun listening to music those are all things that even as adults you to calm myself down when we're feeling anxious so that's that three is teaching them to use one two or three of these relaxation strategies feeling anxious okay I'm just giving a few things for the sake of time step four is kind of the not the hardest that but definitely took the longest to Holiday Inn and really be changed so that 4 it is replacing the worried Thoughts with realistic thoughts and call me the free example when they were having the song I'm going to fail I'm going to get in trouble they're replacing those with some realistic thinking so okay what am I worried about so I'm worried about failing what are the chances that will happen you know my last test I didn't do so good but usually I do okay trying to think about like evidence from their past that either proves or disproves they're anxious thoughts on what else could happen you know I might do really well so what if that interesting happens what if I do say how will I handle it if it happens maybe I'll talk to my teacher you'll get tutoring I'll talk to my parents about didn't do well and I'm sad about it there's almost always a solution for if that worst case scenario does happen so by kind of talked in herself is a question that kind of talk does out of the invited me so depending what the anxiety is this is kind of a series of questions that they can follow on to kind of help themselves realize I owe first of all my anxiety might not actually happen it may not be the case and then if it does there's things I can do and to handle the situation and this is also something as adults we can do and model for kids and then the last step for continued is replacing those were your thoughts but call me self, so I'm nervous that I can handle this have good friends and family that I trust I am going to be a lot of things I just have to content strong I sometimes have kids right out like five of you and then before I test top then go over it read over in their head so you really want them to learn to calm himself down when they get in the house level of anxiety they are capable of doing it but a lot of them have never been taught to do this so they don't really know what to do when they're in that Steve's to just feeling the Panic do you want to teach them these strategies and over time with practice you can become more and more easy for them to do but I will say I'm headed to change thoughts and feelings this is also something that a lot of therapists use so if you are interested in you feel like your kid needs therapy this is probably something that their therapist would work with them okay so now we're going to talk some of those practical strategies that you can teach your kid or how to calm himself down so the first one we're going to talk about is teaching your child how to free sound simple and is simple but a lot of kids have never done it so the one that I have them do I have them sit up straight Place their hands on their stomach and take a deep breath and count to four a lot of time when they breed in there sucking in their stomach and kind of like crazy shoulders will you want to see some to do is when they're breathing into relax the shoulders and inflate their stomach like a balloon to take a really relaxing and calming breath you want their stomach to inflate with air and then they're going hold their breath for 4 seconds and then breathe out and feel their stomach flat when I do this in classrooms with the kids I kind of do like a competition I guess you could say when they're breathing out I have all the kids herbally make like the class to the loudest really letting it out if anyone wants yoga class still hear that everyone collect out and you will notice just as release feeling when are breathing out and really verbally letting out whatever you were holding it so I would encourage everyone to teach your kids but it's super quick easy and she sound like if you're feeling there if you're starting to feel anxious this is something you can do whether you're at school and class resides at home it doesn't matter this is something at school that they can have in their toolbox to do whether there with you or on there the next one that I want to talk about is making a plan with your kids so if they're having a about a particular trigger then they making a plan for them can really help alleviate that anxiety is a lot of times I'll notice the kids are anxious because I like I don't know what to do if I start feeling that way I don't know what to do what if I start freaking out so giving them like a written down plan can really just already even though it's not actually changing anything they can alleviate some of that anxiety go for example if they're really anxious about school you can make this plant stop one you're going to try and self-regulating Costco doing those deep breaths imagining you're happy you please and drinking some water if that doesn't work you're still feeling super panicky you should ask your teacher a break to step outside the bathroom maybe splash some water on your face almost all the teachers I know it Revere are totally going to be okay with letting your kid have a break if they need it at 3 if they're like that building work on still panicking usually after  you are okay. 3. If it's like that then work then they can ask your teacher to go to the counseling office or some my office which is in the services you can help them try to calm down we all have sensory toys we can talk to them then if it's still not working. Would be a time call the parent and you know if it's still like an extreme situation where they're freaking out having we might request a parent come to pick them up but that's like the worst case scenario hopefully it won't get to that and I think having these steps written down for that can really alleviate a lot about anxiety okay this is the new one that one of my other psew friend recently told me he grew up with severe anxiety through childhood and this is something she said really helped her so Panic. I'm hoping it will help some kids talking to your anxiety but you see your kid like literally to talk to their anxiety as if it's a real object so when they're feeling it in their head start to talk to it that's okay. I hear you you're here with me that's fine you can sit with me and be here but I'm going to focus on what I need to be doing right now sometimes just the active acknowledging it and speaking to it, helps them calm down because it's like it's here that's okay I still am going to do what I need to do is get back to whatever you're doing your school work drawing painting whatever you're doing in that moment acknowledging your anxiety and then literally talking to it I've had other students it said it was helpful to imagine their anxiety I'd like a literal creature or maybe like a little person sitting on their shoulder and sometimes that helps them to visualize it talk to it and then tell it okay but I'm going to go back to what I'm doing and maybe that can help me anything is worth trying these are all strategies I've gotten from either evidence-based practices or true real life experiences help people so it's all we're trying to figure out what works for your kid this is another one scheduling worry time so kids are worrying about things all throughout the day especially if they do have an anxiety disorder to having a lot of excessive worrying all throughout the day giving them a notebook or a journal to write down their worries when they have them but then instructing them to wait until after school and giving them 15 or 20 minutes to talk about and think about all the worries that they wrote down so instruct them to keep all their worries locked in the notebook instill that worried time after school or whatever you decide is a good time for them so this can help them like sending a talking to your anxiety it's like I hear you you're the I'm not even write you down but then I'm going to put you away for right now and come back to you whenever my worried this is something that can really help and then also coming up with a ritual with them by the end of every time so you want to have a tree out of every time so that after it they're not continuing see you. So you know telling them why don't we have this one song that we play after where you time and then we'll go on with the rest of the night and then you can go back tomorrow to writing down your worries and then we'll have a great time again tomorrow scheduling and I know it sounds a little silly but I have her this can work this works really well okay we're almost to the end of the question answer the one to get additional help so we talked about it a little bit at the beginning but if your if your child's behavior is trying to interfere with their life activities so that their anxiety is getting so bad but they're having daily panic attack they're isolating themselves they're starting to feel classes maybe they're having new repeated disruption in class so you know that wasn't the norm for that instead of you getting a lot of calls from the future is there a self-injuring especially if they're becoming suicidal or threatening others that's definitely a time when they need extra help if they're withdrawing or avoiding activities and then also thinking about the length of time freak so if one of these things happen like they they avoid school one day that doesn't have Jelly Bean oh my gosh they have anxiety and therapist this is like a sister and in 10 feeling that they are a behavior that they should be showing and that's when you 90 okay it's time to get additional Health like there's something wrong here so here's your options for support at school I always recommend if you're comfortable reaching out to teachers to let them know you have the academic counselor there's one for every grade there's me there's a school climate Advocate we're all available support but I all do want to emphasize that we have a lot of kids over here and so the level of support may not be why your kidneys so your kid is having severe anxiety every day having a lot of extreme Behavior we might not have enough support to see your kid every single day as individuals. Members of the teachers are going to see them everyday but I'm the only P A W and then there's only one your grade so if your kids having like that severe anxiety Then we do recommend outside support so there's therapy in groups before it we are happy to assist with getting resources and agencies for you to reach out I miss. Is this something you're interested in but we just like to set those expectations clear that we don't have enough stuff to be that actual therapist the weekly I can't schedule a weekly hour with your kid just because there's so many kids out of Revere and then there's always the option of medication if you know you tried therapy and your child to symptoms are not getting better if you're interested you can always schedule a Psychiatry appointment I never tell. I never tell them what they should do you know your kid and you know what you're comfortable with but I have seen medication help a lot of kids if it was like a release of your cheese so that is an option is that something you're interested and then additional resources to apps the Calm app and headspace app has so many resources on there you can encourage your kids to download them every once awhile what I'm feeling a super anxious day I'll just do like it's like meditation on headspace and they have different ones to cater to what you're looking for like sweet meditation anxiety meditation stress you can kind of curious what you're feeling and then also I know we don't want to accept on YouTube more than they already are but there are a lot of great resources on YouTube meditation guided visualization muscle relaxation and tonight as the kids do get more engaged then there's a video component so that's another another auction and I know I covered a lot I'm sorry we had a limited amount of Panthers trying to squeeze everything been going to stop share and then if anyone has questions that he wants to close in the chat and then I can answer those questions and if I can answer the question that I can look into it and get back to you I have a question. I'm from her. The question is do you have any tips or resources that kids who have your dad's that triggers panic attack text here. You said panic attacks so that would probably be the specific phobia category where it's like a perfect thing but they're terrified of all and I don't I don't know a specific thing for the. Sophia but I think she was all of the strategies that we talked about and learning how to calm their butts down with the strategies we discuss and then also thinking about that Stevie T approach How likely is it like maybe I've lost maybe they've lost someone recently but you know How likely is it that everyone in their family is going to die it's really unlikely there's no evidence in their car that has shown that that is something that's going to happen and then talking about if someone does pass away what can I do you're going to be there to support them there they have a loving family and a safe home where they're going to be able to get through. With their family I'm just trying to leave the extra address of like their mind is racing about it first you know coming to come bring it down to like not very realistic but if it does happen you're going to be okay and we're going to be there to support you as a family meditate using all the strategy we covered the calming strategies all of those and work for any type of anxiety is there any more Tyler 15 words okay let's be away how are you how do you work with separation anxiety and to face the authority similarly you really want to try and not enable the behavior so your parents instincts might be you know my kids freaking out about going to school I want to be a part for me I want to keep them home but that's only going to make it worse so what you really want to do is see some of those strategies feel like it's okay that you're feeling really anxious and panicky when you're not with me but you still are going to have to do the things that you got to do like go to school and go to class so let me give you some tools that when you're feeling that way you can use those tools to calm yourself down the deep breathing the visualizing a happy walking to their anxiety maybe even making a plan for those students like yep you might feel really anxious when you're away from me that you're going to try and self-regulate and then you're going to take a break and then you can go talk to the counselor at the PSW and then giving them those those strategies for when they're away from you and telling them you know you can use these strategies even when I'm not there and that should hopefully provide some encouragement be there thank you next question how can you help students to get medication so I personally cannot that is not in my scope of practice but you would should we go through the primary care doctor and ask for a Psychiatry referral and then that's something that a psychiatrist would help you out if you're interested in that are students aware they can come to you for help yep I think sixth graders might be a little less aware but I do whatever I'm just around campus is doing a lot of events and activities and then yeah I went around to every 6th grade class homeroom and introduce myself and told them how to find me if they do need mental health support so my office is in services and I do recommend a cow Diane on academic time so before school nutrition or lunch but if it's like an emergency to come down and see if I'm available she was that all the question I don't see one any others text message but just about how sometimes you don't want to talk to their parents and don't want to take instructions from their parents on God's common you know I do emphasize the relationship building as part of that like scheduling that family time going and doing an activity that they enjoy with that maybe they want to go to the movies maybe they want to go shopping and I would always want to spend money but things they like to do and doing those with them try and build a relationship if they're still refusing to talk to you and they're really struggling that's what I would recommend maybe it's time to look for a therapist if they need practice login to another adult and a therapist can help them learn how to feel more comfortable talking to their parents about these things hey with all the questions I'll reassure my screen so you can take down my email if anyone has further questions feel free to reach out the one thing I do want to emphasize one more time where we go and that we have a lot of kids at Revere so my capacity right now is pretty limited to students that are having pretty severe so so if you know Ken is having more. Normal worry maybe they're having a little bit of struggle I can still try and talk to them but my caseload is pretty hefty right now so I can add them to the list but is there having severe issues please let us know so that we are aware and that we can help support in the school environment then here's the email just Anna. Riley leave St. Net and the last thing is on Tuesday we have a special guest coming to do an event that part of our Wellness month she is doing a breath Work Work Shop and it's on. is there at lunch in the Rose Garden so you can encourage your kids to college she said she's going to be teaching some meditation and stretching and Yoga practices that can help kids so if your kid is interested they can sign up and student services and save them a spot I'm really looking forward to it she's been doing this for quite a long time so a little plug for that I am for next week but thank you so much and feel free to email me if you have any questions and I look forward to it and I'll continue to support all the kids at Revere thank you thank you have a good one

Videos

Supporting Children With Anxiety: What To Do And What Not To Do

More videos in PTSA Pride Booster Club