Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the deeper dive episodes designed to unpick a thorny topic so you can take away manageable actions which you can implement today. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Hant, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode is all about not being sure what to say when our child or teen feels anxious. So, in this episode, I'm going to cover the words which are more likely to help calm your child or teen and what to avoid saying, even when it comes with the best intentions. In fact, it does come with the best intentions, but they are the things that don't typically work. So, let's start with the words which are more likely to help calm your child or teen. So, let's So, anxiety and children can show up in so many different ways, from school refusal to bedtime worries, to social fears, to new places, new people. How we respond makes a huge difference in terms of how our child navigates that situation and whether we're able to help them in a given situation again in the future. So, in this episode, I'm going to cover four things. The first is, what is this feeling of anxiety? We hear this all of the time, but what is it? Why some of the common responses that we come up with can unintentionally actually increase anxiety? What your child needs to feel safe and supported and how to build long-term confidence and resilience. So, these practical strategies are going to help you support your child through anxiety with clarity and also with confidence. And I guess before we dive in, I think I'm aware very much that we read so much in the press about the levels of children's poor mental health and the number of children who are struggling with anxiety, with overwhelm, with depression, with OCD, with all sorts of areas of emotional well-being. And it can be really tricky to navigate as a parent because you sort of feel that you, you know, there's a real fine line between encouraging our children to do things because we know it's really good for them. Remember that whole exposure therapy when we talk about, you know, pushing our children out of their comfort zone so that they build this sense of capability. There's a real challenge, I feel, as parents to know, is this a situation that I should be encouraging my child to do more? Or is this a situation where they really truly are? I'm so anxious that if I do that, I'm going to somehow tip them over the edge. Or what we worry most as parents is, am I going to end up traumatizing my child? Well, what we're going to cover in this episode in terms of how we best support our child when they have feelings of anxiety is going to give you the best kind of way of knowing the difference. And what I will say is that there's a difference between feeling anxious, feeling nervous, and having an anxiety disorder. So I'm talking about anxiety disorder. I'm talking about anxiety disorder. I'm talking about all situations where a child feels overwhelmed by their nervousness, overwhelmed by their fears, overwhelmed by the what-ifs that are happening within their body. They don't need a clinical diagnosis in order to be able to access these strategies. And we don't need to be worrying whether our child has a clinical diagnosis, because we are all going to experience, and the same for our children, moments where we feel we're ill-equipped to be able to manage a particular situation. Which brings me to this question, which is, how do we do this? What is the feeling of anxiety? And the way that I typically describe it is, imagine a seesaw. We've all been on a seesaw at some point, maybe in our childhood, or maybe we've been on a seesaw with our children. And I want you to imagine that that seesaw, obviously, as we know, has two sides. And when we're sitting on the seesaw, you get two people sitting on, and it goes up and down. Well, I want you to imagine that we can use the seesaw as an analogy to think about our children's well-being and their confidence, within any given situation. So when our child is doing something that they feel confident and capable, then imagine both sides of the seesaw are pretty much in balance. We've got this really lovely balanced seesaw. And what you've got is, at one end, what your child perceives are the demands being placed on them by that situation, are equally met and matched by what they perceive are the resources they have within themselves to navigate that situation successfully. So think about all the things that your child just does, that they love, that they don't think twice about. When we have anxiety, and the same with overwhelm or stress, instead of having this lovely balanced seesaw, we have a seesaw that is tipped. Remember that sort of, you know, when you've got a cousin, or you've done seesaws with your children, and you're the heavier, because you're an adult, and so the seesaw tilts. When this happens, and we get that anxiety and overwhelm, the seesaw side that is tipped, the seesaw that is heavy, is the perceived demands of this situation far outweigh what your child perceives are the resources they have in order to be able to cope with that situation. And that's what creates anxiety and overwhelm. Now you will have noticed that I've really emphasised in both those scenarios, the balanced as well as the unbalanced seesaw, that it's all to do with perception. It's how your child, or how your teen, assesses, and appraises a situation based against what they believe are their competencies and their capabilities. It is not an objective measure, it is a subjective measure. So you could think that your child is more than capable of going into school, they've got great friends, and once they're there, they're absolutely fine, or your toddler is great when they get into nursery, but the whole idea of going to nursery is too difficult, or going to bedtime. Whatever the anxiety situation is, it doesn't matter, what you think they're capable of, because your child is going to assess that situation based on their subjective view. So that's the first thing that I would say, and I think for a lot of parents, that can be a lightbulb moment and life-changing, because it really helps us say, okay, I might think my child can do this, but they're clearly in overwhelm. They're in fear, they're feeling that they can't do this. And so if I can speak to that, and that's why when we start looking at the things that we can do, it gives us a different lens to operate. So I think that's the way to think about it. And I think of it, and I often say this to young people, is I think of it as a smoke alarm, which has gone off when we've burnt the toast. The smoke alarm is simply doing its job. Its job is to alert you that something's not quite right. And that's in lots of ways what happens when our children go into that fight or flight, that sympathetic nervous system, when their heart beats faster, their palms get sweaty and they feel overwhelmed. It's that acknowledgement of something doesn't quite feel right. I don't feel like I can cope with this situation. So there's no fault with them. And I think that can make such a big difference to how they view. There's nothing, you're not at fault here. Your body's doing its job. It's alerting you to something that feels a little bit out of whack, feels a little bit uncomfortable, a bit difficult. And our job is then to think about ways that we can switch off that smoke alarm. Do you know what? It's fine. I've just burnt the toast. Nothing's on fire. It's okay. So hopefully that helps you in terms of understanding the context. Now, I just want to share two things that we do as parents. It's quite a common response that we have that unintentionally is likely to increase anxiety levels. And at best, just simply doesn't make it any better. And the first thing, and it comes from a place of love, is minimizing the feelings as a way of comforting. What that actually has the complete opposite effect. So it's, there's nothing to worry about. You're being silly. This isn't anything that you need to be worried about. So we're minimizing it, not because we are like, oh, for goodness sake, get a grip. That's not where it comes from. But what we're trying to do is comfort them and let them know and reassure them that everything's going to be all right. But inadvertently with the language that we use, that has the exact opposite effect. Because what that does is it makes them feel like, okay, this is what I'm feeling. This is what I'm feeling. And what it does is that communicates to the child. So there is something wrong with me because I am experiencing this. I'm being told that there's nothing to worry about, but there clearly is something to worry about. So that's the first one that can actually have an unintentional opposite effect. And then the other one is about trading the feelings for where we simply try and remove the feelings by distraction or no, no, don't do that. Don't, you mustn't, you mustn't worry about that. Do this instead. Let's do this instead. So what we're doing in that situation is. Yeah. Yeah. What we're doing is in that moment, we may be able to distract, we may be able to avert, but what was subliminally giving them, sending the message is that difficult feelings are ones that you want to avoid at all costs. So instead of allowing our child, I always sort of think of the, gosh, I'm going off a slight tangent here, but if you've read the book, you'll, you'll understand it. We're going on a bear hunt. Do you remember that book? I love that book. We're going to catch a big one. What a beautiful, beautiful day. We're not scared. Oh, a river. Do you remember that? They come across all of these things, forests and rivers, and it's all like, we can't go over it. We can't go under it. We can only go through it. And that's exactly. what we want our children to do when it comes to navigating any of those uncomfortable emotions is that when we try and go around it or avoid it we are telling our children that that's fundamentally how we manage emotions and bad things and you want to avoid them at absolutely every single cost and so we're teaching them I guess what we would call psychologically as maladaptive practices we're teaching them things that don't serve them if we are there and we'll talk about ways that we can support our children if we can be with them and provide that scaffolding and that support as they go through it then what happens is they get a the experience okay right mate okay this was felt really scary but actually I managed it and they might even think that wasn't as bad as I thought but what we do over time is that they learn through that process of exposure you know that I can do this they build that sense of capability what we do when we try and trade the emotions or when we try and minimize it because we're trying to do our real best to kind of comfort our children is that we do them that disservice of saying that they're not capable we take away that opportunity for them to experience a certain element of capability and capability doesn't mean that they've got to be able to navigate that situation successfully but they've at least made an attempt and that's where capability comes and over time that then reduces that sense of overwhelm and that lack of agency so those are the common things that we do so what do we do when our child needs us in those moments how we can how can we help them feel safe and supported in any moment where they feel that seesaw tipping and they feel anxious so here are my six steps the first one is that we need to stay calm so it doesn't mean we necessarily need to use a tone or you know be monotone or very softly spoken but we just need to keep our emotions in that moment in check and I say that because we could have a whole variety of emotions if your child is in a situation where their seesaw tips but maybe that's your happy place maybe it's something that you have never struggled with so if you're in a situation where So the ability to stay calm may well be about being able to manage your feelings of, oh, for goodness sake, this really isn't that bad. Why do they make such a big deal out of things or something of that view? Or it could be that actually you're feeling nervous and anxious, too, because the situation that your child is trying to navigate is one that you find difficult or is very close to home because you remember as a child finding that really difficult, too. So that staying calm is about keeping our feelings in check so that we show up for our child in that moment in a way that they need us to be for them, not necessarily what we need to do for us. So that's the first thing. Then it's really important that we validate our children's feelings. Remember, this is their perception. This is their interpretation of that situation. And hearing us say it's OK to feel nervous. This feels like a really big deal, feels super scary. I get it, because by doing that, we really are meeting our children and our child in that moment exactly where they are at. And that's what they need. They're hearing that the significant adult in their life gets what they're going through in that moment. So we want to validate their feelings and label the emotion if we can. What we next want to do is provide a space for them simply using language like I'm here, you're safe, because what we want to do there is we're saying to them that I, as the adult in this particular situation, get what you're going through and I'm going to do everything I can in this moment to reassure you that I'm in this with you. We're going to do this together and you're in a safe space right now for us to work through that. So you're providing that space. Safe space, not just in the words that we use, but also in our body language. But also it may well be that we need to physically provide a safe space by removing our child from that particular situation. It doesn't mean that you're removing them entirely, but it may well be that you want to put them somewhere, step aside, so they're not feeling that they're under public scrutiny. Obviously, a lot of this depends on the situation that they find themselves in when the anxious feeling occurs. So we're staying calm. We're validating their feelings. We're providing that safe space for them physically with the words that we're using and every aspect of our being is all congruent. Then we want to offer some encouragement. Yeah, because really we want to be able to work through this. We don't want our children avoiding situations where they feel anxious. Yeah, we're not going to go over it. We're not going to go under it. We want to, where possible in that moment, go through it. So we want to encourage. We want to offer encouragement. We'll work through this together. I'm with you. You're safe. We're going to do this together. So we're just offering those words of encouragement. Depending on what the situation is, you adapt that. The fifth one is about we want to normalize that it's okay and it's really normal for them to feel nervous in a particular situation. Trying something new is really tricky. No wonder you're feeling overwhelmed. But I'm here. You're safe. And we'll work through this together. We'll do it at your pace. Don't you worry in that regard. We're here. And we're going to do this together. We're going to do it together. So we want to normalize that. And then the sixth one is we want to process, help them process the feeling together. And we're going to do that using techniques such as breathing, naming emotions, identifying where the feelings are in the body, what may work in terms of helping that pass. Now, obviously, that processing of that feeling together is something that may well be really new to your child in that situation. If you're listening to this episode. If you're listening to this episode because you've had a scenario where your child's felt overwhelmed and feel anxious and you've never talked about breathing techniques before, then you may want to, and I would really encourage you to listen to the bucket emptying episode, the 30 second reset, which talks about the physiological sigh, because that is something that we can do with our child in any given moment. And the science and the evidence is that it works within one to three of those breaths. That's all that. That's all that we need to do. It's called the physiological sigh, the 30 second reset, the sniff, sniff, sigh, whatever you want to call it. But that can be a really powerful tool. So we want to help them by doing it with them rather than sending them away to manage it and do it on their own or practice it on their own. We're doing it with them. And if we get, and you'll find this in the episode, the 30 second reset, if your child refuses, do it anyway. You do it because you are modeling that. You do it because you are modeling that process. So that's what we can do in the moment when our child is feeling anxious to help them feel safe and supported. But I want to just finish off the episode by talking about how can we build some long term confidence and resilience? Because there's one thing, and I talk about this often, is that there's the thing we do in the moment, which quite often is about helping our child navigate and sometimes just damage limitate. But we want to concurrently with that alongside. Besides that, be doing the, you know, the building piece, the neural connection piece, that education piece that will help in the longer term, you know, build that skills gap rather than always being having to feel like you're firefighting in those moments. Because if you've got a child who's feeling anxious, who seesaw is tipping, then we want to bridge those skills that help them feel more competent and capable. And this is where these three would come in. So I think the first thing I would say is we want to. Normalize anxiousness in situations where our children may well feel ill-equipped. And I think it's really helpful to explain the seesaw, help them understand. So what we're doing is we're giving them something tangible in that moment that they can understand. Right. OK, so my seesaw is out of balance. This is how I'm feeling in the moment. And so when we then start talking about breathing techniques, when we start talking about changing internal narratives and questioning how, you know, how likely is that? Really bad outcome going to be? We can then relate it to the two sides of the seesaw. The perceived demands are the conversations that your children are having in their head about what they can and what they can't do. That's their internal chatter. And we have to help them change and reframe that. That's where mantras and affirmations come in, as well as the questioning of how how real is that? How true is that? How likely is that to happen? So that's the kind of the bit where we're changing the internal dialogue. But the. Received resources are all of the things or the strategies that your child will be equipped with about how do I manage when I'm feeling overwhelmed? What are the things that happen in my body, the physiological responses and what might I need to do to switch my my spoke alarm off? So having those conversations is something that gives a shared language that helps our child understand what's happening in the moment, but also helps them understand why we'll start building these skills. So having those conversations is something that gives a shared language that helps our child understand why we'll start building these skills. That will help both sides of the seesaw, because we want to lighten the load on the perceived demand. So that side of the seesaw tips back up, and then we want to equip with resources so that the perceived resources piece of the seesaw. can then begin to get some weight that comes down. So that's what we want to do. We want to normalize that. The second thing is then we obviously really want to focus on building skills. And what I would say with this is it takes time. Yeah. These are in the moment skills, such as breathing techniques, as well as techniques which help them identify the chatter, which knocks their confidence. It's the stuff that helps them with reassessing a situation, questioning how likely those outcomes that they're fearing, how true are they. And those skills will take time. It's a skills gap. We're just simply building on those. And when we can accept that it takes time, it then helps manage expectations for ourselves, but also helps manage expectations for our children. And what we can then do as part of that, normalizing it, so we understand the seesaw, focusing on building skills, we can then bring those two together and get them together. And that's what we're doing. And that's the exposure ladder. Remember, a ladder is something that we place against something that gets us from the bottom to the top. An exposure ladder is exactly the same. Each rung of that exposure ladder is something, is a small challenge that pushes your child slightly out of their comfort zone into that space of those feelings of anxiousness that they then use the skills that they're acquiring, the breathing techniques, the changing that internal narrative so that they can build up these regular bravery challenges, these micro challenges that help them build that experience. I've tried this and this is what happened. So we're constantly in that situation of being that safe space for them, but whilst encouraging them to work through. And obviously what that does over time, the more that they repeat these things, even if they're very small challenges, that builds that confidence, it builds that resilience, and it builds that confidence. It shifts that narrative that says, I can't, this is too overwhelming. What if? Because they've got evidence because I did it and this is what happened instead. So I hope that that's kind of been a really helpful way of seeing why your child might be feeling anxious and things that we can do not only in those moments, but also how we can then support them in the longer term. And I know that this is something that you've been, a lot of you have been writing in and asking for. And as when you email in and ask for specific topic areas, we do record, I do record the podcast episodes that address those things always. I don't always do them straight away because sometimes it just depends on the schedule and what's already been pre-recorded, but I will always record an episode from a listener's question or a listener's specific dilemma or a specific topic that a specific question because the bucket emptying episodes really look at specific questions as well as really short top tips. Then do email in, do write in because we do, we do read them and we do record episodes on those. So email in and that's contact at drmaryhan.com. And if you put on the subject line request for a podcast episode, we will then reply and let you know when that is coming out. And if you have found this episode helpful, there is a likelihood that this at least a handful of people, you know, who would also find this episode super helpful too. So why not just take a moment now to share this episode with them so that they can also find the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast and we can spread the love. So until next time.
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