Speaker 1the first day of the holidays you've been looking forward to this slower mornings no packed lunches no dramatic rush out of the door and then this your child who managed perfectly well all term falls apart completely the meltdowns the i'm bored within 20 minutes of waking up the clinging the tears over nothing the explosive reaction to being told they can't have more screen time and you're standing there thinking what happened to the child who was fine last week and here's what nobody tells you the holidays don't create anxiety they just remove the scaffolding and anxious children need that scaffolding more than most today i'm going to tell you exactly why the holidays hit anxious children so hard and give you five things that actually help this is the how not to screw up your kids podcast i'm your host dr mary hann so pour yourself a cuppa find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation this episode is about why anxious children struggle in the holidays and what actually helps now anxiety is anxiety worry is a nervous system response to perceived threat and that's the really important word within that particular sentence it's perception it's not is there a real threat but it is how does my child assess that given situation and their capability in terms of being able to manage and operate within it so you'll remember i talk quite often about this idea of a seesaw when our children are in situations where they feel competent capable confident and they feel like they're in a situation where they're confident maybe they don't feel confident but they feel capable and competent then their seesaw is nicely balanced or they're or they're about so what they perceive are the resources that they have available to them are met and matched equally by the perceived demands that they believe are being the demands of that particular situation so we have this lovely balanced seesaw or near balance when anxiety or worry or nervousness or overwhelm kicks in the seesaw goes out of balance and what they perceive are the demands being placed on them far outweigh any perceived the resources that they have to cope so imagine that's the that's the seesaw where you've got somebody who's much older much taller and much heavier on one side and then this sort of flailing legs dangling at the top on the other side and that in its in essence it's a nervous system response but because of this perceived threat and the thing that makes a threat feel manageable is predictability and that's the thing that makes a threat feel manageable is predictability and that's knowing what's coming knowing what's next now school where whatever its flaws are for your child is a predictability machine yeah same time every morning same building same teacher or teachers roughly the same sequence of lessons the same sort of group of people and so anxious children learn to use that structure as scaffolding it holds them up they know what to expect so they can save their energy for the moments that feel harder and what happens when we have those lovely long school holidays that let quite let's face it we're all looking forward to what the holidays do is strip all of that away suddenly there's unstructured time which in lots of ways sounds like freedom and to some of us doesn't to some children really does but for an anxious child it feels like standing in a room with no walls the rules have changed the routine is gone there's no external structure telling them what happens next and that's when anxiety doesn't have anywhere to hide and therefore it exposes itself now what's important to understand is this it isn't new anxiety your child hasn't suddenly become more anxious instead the anxiety is being contained by the structure of the school day and now it's the summer holidays it's fully visible for all to see and that can feel absolutely amazing and it's a very important part of the school day absolutely frightening and debilitating as a parent but what i will say and in a slight reframe for you it is information the holidays are showing you something that was probably always there quietly humming underneath the surface and in the background so how do we spot it so you might you know how do we know that it is anxiety now holiday anxiety doesn't always look like your child is curled up in a corner refusing to leave the house but it tends to show up in subtler ways and here are some of the ones that i see the most often the first one is the countdown to when does school restart so usually within the first week maybe sometimes even the first day you know the child who's supposed to be relishing six glorious weeks of freedom is already asking how many more days until september now i know that for some of you listening to this this will be quite rare but there are some children where they're doing that right at the beginning or they're looking to be placed into every camp every training opportunity anything that provides that structure now it's not because that they specifically love school or they love all of these activities but they're looking for structure because structure to them feels safe and they can feel its absence because they've got these six weeks stretching out so that's the first one countdown to when school restarts the second is the boredom to explosion pipeline so boredom and anxiety are closer cousins than we probably think for anxious children unstructured time quickly becomes uncomfortable time so the absence of a clear task something that they're supposed to do now supposed to do next means that the brain starts filling the space with worry yeah that busy chatty brain low level irritation and a kind of restlessness that was no that's got nowhere to go so what you you see is i'm bored but what's underneath it is i don't feel safe in this unstructured space and i've got a busy brain that i can't switch off and when i have unstructured no tasks nothing to specifically occupy my brain that's the thing that i want to avoid almost at all costs and that is why the screen time battles often escalate in the holidays because screens in lots of ways are structure but they're also a great way to avoid the screen time battles of quietening that internal chatter because you can't possibly be like mentally ruminating and worrying about things that have been in the past or things that are coming when you are dealing with the immediate tap this button press this do that that a game or screen time is going to encourage them to do because screens have that structure to them they tell a child exactly what to look at what to do next what happens in 30 seconds and anxious children will pursue them with an intensity of anxiety and anxiety and anxiety and anxiety and anxiety and anxiety and that isn't really about the screens at all yes there's a certain element of that but actually if we got underneath the worry and the anxiety and the overwhelm we would probably see significantly less screen time so we've got the countdown to when does school start the boredom to explosion pipeline and the third one is velcro behavior yeah suddenly they can't be more than two feet away from you they need to know where you are at all times and they need to know where you are at all times they follow you from room to room and sleep can become more disrupted because they can't settle at night busy brain and they've not necessarily depending on what they've been doing during the day but they haven't necessarily had the same exertion and sometimes we think about it as not they haven't done as much physical um as they would do at school in terms of you know playground time and and going from lesson to lesson but what they also lack is some of that mental exhaustion that would allow them to fall asleep but instead they're just not they don't have that same level of that um intensity of resources having been used and so they find it more difficult to settle at night because those worries just run rife and they start appearing in your bedroom again so it could be a separation anxiety coming to the surface it could be just simply an anxiety but you then become that that sort of comforter as such that they go to so in term time maybe they've had enough scaffolding to manage that distance of that separation anxiety but in the holidays they need you to be the scaffold or it could just simply be that they've got that their anxiety is so overwhelming that they begin to use you as that comfort blanket and therefore can't be away from you because if you're not there then they don't have the tools to be able to self-soothe and to emotionally regulate themselves so number three is velcro behavior number four is social comparison and why can't i just be normal that spiral now anxious children often know that their peers love the holidays they hear it they see it and there's a specific kind of pain to a child in not being able to access an experience that looks super easy to everyone else so you might hear why do i hate the holidays everyone loves them what's wrong with me or something similar to that and of course what we have to remember here is that our children i'm sure you've probably seen it across social or somewhere, this whole idea that we judge other people's out we we compare our insides to other people's outsides it's the same for children so they're looking at what appears to be a confident capable contemporary appear whereas they don't really necessarily know what is what sort of bubbling underneath that but instead that they are comparing their insides their anxiety their turmoil their rumination to that outside that somebody else exhibits and so it's not a fair comparison but of course we do that as human beings because we naturally compare for the child who's doing that comparison and looking at other people it feels like a dramatic overreaction but it isn't it's a child noticing a genuine gap between their experience and what they believe is expected and what they're doing is interpreting the gap between what they're feeling and experiencing what they're seeing as evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with them it isn't but they need you to understand that before they can believe it yep so they need you to get it and understand that gap before you can then help support them and then they believe it and then the fifth one is the first week meltdown yeah so Theo was nine when his mum brought him to see me she'd assumed he was just a worrier manageable really until the summer the first week of the holidays he hadn't slept properly in four nights he was crying about things that even he admitted didn't make sense he was telling her he hated her he hated her he hated himself and it wasn't a crisis but it was the holidays doing what they do removing the structure and letting what had always been there come fully to the surface so those are the five things that you are likely to see that are specific to the summer holidays and the stripping back of that but before we go on to the tools not every anxious child struggles more in the holidays so before we get to the tools I want to name something important because if it if I don't I'm going to lose a significant group of you listening right now who are quietly thinking this isn't my child my child seems fine in the holidays in fact better than fine actually and you're right and that experience is just as worth talking about so not all childhood anxiety gets worse when school ends for some children particularly those whose anxiety is tied to school itself to separation or to worries about family safety the holidays themselves bring genuine relief and that relief can look on the surface like the anxiety has gone away it hasn't gone anywhere it's just that the trigger has temporarily left the building and I see this time and time again because what typically happens in the summer when we've got these type of anxious children is that it looks like they've made an improvement and then quite often I'm then getting calls from anxious parents overwhelmed about how to help their anxious child because come October and November and sometimes even at the beginning of September it's all unraveling because it looked like they'd made headway in the summer but in fact they hadn't addressed the tools which is why I was so keen to do this particular episode and whilst we're on the subject of the episode let me just give you a moment here to remind you that we have just 18 places available for the summer reset so this is a coaching program that I will be running for parents of anxious children what will happen is you're going to get all of the tools and strategies in group coaching sessions and you will get two one-to-ones all of the details are in the show notes but it is aimed at children supporting anxious children from the age of five all the way up to 18 so if your child maybe doesn't struggle in the holidays because actually being at home makes them feel much better or you've got a child where the holidays everything the structure has gone and they become that's where the anxiety comes up this summer reset is for you but you can check out the link in the show notes but please be aware that this it starts on Monday the 23rd and places are restricted to just 18 so if there are still places available click on the show notes now we've talked about not every anxious child struggles more in the holidays so which are the which children feel better in the holidays now there are three groups that show up most often in my in my practice where the summer holidays actually is a time where their anxiety reduces so children with separation anxiety is one group because school requires a daily separation from the people they feel safest with every morning to them is a rupture yeah however brief however gentle we've made the goodbye routine in the holidays that rupture is a rupture rupture disappears you know they wake up and the people they love are there they go to bed and those people are still there the nervous system is sighing with relief and these children may seem transformed in the summer easier calmer more able to manage their emotions and parents sometimes wonder whether the school itself was the problem and the answer is generally much more nuanced much more a combination of different things the anxiety is real but what was triggering it daily has stopped triggering it for six weeks so that's one group the second group are children with school specific anxiety so this is either performance worries or social anxiety in the classroom fear of getting things wrong in front of peers anxiety about a particular teacher or subject sometimes bullying that hasn't been fully disclosed for these children school is the primary source of threat and it doesn't feel for them like their safe happy place remove school and you remove the threat again we get genuine relief genuine calm the anxiety hasn't been resolved though the context producing it has simply gone and the third type that i get where you know the holidays create calm and the anxiety reduces our children with what i sometimes call safety monitoring anxiety and their worry tends to center on something bad happening to their family an accident an illness a loss these children are the ones who are the ones who are the ones that are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are these children often spend school days not fully in their own experience but monitoring from a distance checking in the back of their minds whether everyone is okay if they've got a mobile phone they may well be messaging regularly they may even be going to the school office to send messages in the holidays however they can see everyone is there the monitoring can stop they feel safer simply because the people they love are visible and present so how do we spot this particular group now the signal with all three of these groups is contrast if your child is significantly calmer in the holidays than they are in term time and especially if the difference is stark and obvious that contrast itself is worth paying attention to other things to look for the end of school holiday dread the countdown that runs in the wrong direction not how many more days of holidays but how many more days until school the child who begins to feel better is the child who begins to feel better begins to tighten up in the final week of august who or who starts having physical symptoms who cries about going back before september has even arrived maybe reluctance to talk about school during the holidays not the typical glazing over when adults ask about school but a real shutting down a turning away a visible change in physical state when the subject comes up or a completely different child parents often describe it as i get my real child back in the summer warmer funnier more present more able to regulate that's not being dramatic it's it's a genuinely accurate observation when the daily source of anxiety is removed the child who has been managing that anxiety all term is suddenly freed up to just be themselves so why are the holidays themselves what i would call a therapeutic window hence why the summer recess is so important and why the summer recess is so important and why the program and how to use it now here's what most parents of these children don't know and what i want you to hear clearly the holiday window is not wasted time it's actually the best time to do something about the anxiety precisely because your child is regulated you cannot do meaningful exploratory work probing fishing around asking questions with an anxious child when they're in the grip of their anxiety because the nervous system is their nervous system is flooded the defenses are up and anything you try to address will be met with resistance or shut down but a calm child a child who's feeling genuinely safe can think reflect and hear things that simply aren't accessible during term time so while they're feeling safe you might say i've noticed you seem really settled in the holidays you might say i'm not feeling safe i'm not feeling safe i'm i love seeing you like this can i ask what's it like when you're at school is there anything that feels hard there keep it light keep it curious we're not interrogating put your own words into this don't necessarily use mine we're not looking to kind of literally extract a confession we're literally looking to open a door letting them know that whatever there is that they can they can bring it to you and that you can handle it and it may be that nothing comes out immediately in that moment it may be that nothing comes out immediately in that moment it may be that nothing comes out immediately in that moment it may be that we need to kind of be curious several times but what we're doing is we're creating that opportunity to speak and explore and understand, and our child is probably going to be more receptive. Now, if something does come out, a worry about a friendship, maybe a fear about a teacher, a dread about a particular lesson, we want to take it seriously. We don't want to immediately try to fix it or reframe it. So hear it first. Yeah, really hear it and then ask, tell me more about that. What does that feel like? How long have you been feeling like that? And if you've been wondering whether to get some support, wondering whether to see someone, this is the window. A child who is calm and settled can engage with therapeutic work in a way that a child who is activated and overwhelmed simply cannot. Don't wait for September and the anxiety to return. Act now while you have the regulated, accessible version of your child in front of you. It will make a huge difference. Where does the overwhelm come from? So for children who do struggle more in the holidays, there are three routes. Now, these are not a checklist of ways you get it wrong. They're just the reality of how an anxious child is wired and what the holidays expose. And the first one is this loss of predictability. Anxious children, whether they are enjoying the holidays more because they're not at school, because their anxiety is related to something about being separated from you or school, or children who really struggle with school holidays, is that anxious children fundamentally like predictability and they expend a lot of energy managing the unknown. School reduces that unknown, even if they're unhappy, but it reduces it to a manageable level. And six weeks without that structure means six weeks of the nervous system working much harder to feel safe. And that is exhausting. An exhausted child is not able to feel safe. They're not able to feel safe. They're not are explosive children. So that's the first thing. The second is the loss of automatic social connection. School provides social scaffolding that anxious children often don't realize they've been relying on. They don't have to arrange to see people because their friends simply appear. They are there. In the holidays, social connection has to be engineered. Play dates have to be planned. Messages have to be sent. And for an anxious child, initiating social contact can feel like a huge risk. What if they say no? What if no one wants to come? And so they withdraw, which amplifies the loneliness, which amplifies the anxiety. And then the third one is we have this increased family intensity. Everyone is home. There's less personal space. Siblings are in constant proximity and the inevitable arguments. We're less available because we're juggling the logistics of keeping everyone alive and entertained, for six weeks, as well as our work. And anxious children are finally attuned to shift in our own attention and an emotional state. Now, more intensity in the family system means more inputs for an anxious nervous system to try to manage. And that's genuinely hard. So here are my five tools. These are manageable things that you can begin to implement immediately. So tool one is to build a rhythm, not a schedule. Now, this is the most important one. Anxious children need enough predictability to feel safe, but a rigid schedule will collapse on day three because fundamentally we're juggling multiple things. And then we'll have the anxiety of the broken routine on top of everything else. And I would also say that we want to provide some sort of some schedule, but we don't want to over schedule because we want to use the holidays, which as this great opportunity to help our children who are anxious, find other ways of being able to manage their anxiety. So a rhythm means sort of loose anchors at the same time each day. So morning start time, a loose activity, maybe after lunch, a screen window that they get at a particular time, dinner at a consistent time, you know, wind down routine before bed. We're not filling every hour. We're just giving the day a shape. That the child could internalize. So might say something like tomorrow morning from nine to 11, I'm going to be working after that we can. Yeah. So it's not rigid. It's not rigid scheduling, but it's a transition warning that their nervous system can work with and that their nervous system needs. So that's the first tool. And as you know, I'm a big believer in the power of one. So do one thing at a time. And if this is the only thing that you can do, this is the first, this is where you start with tool one. Tool two, is actually a tool two you can use with tool one is about giving transition warnings and then meaning it. So transitions. So that transition is simply moving from one thing to another, one activity to another one place to another. They're hard for anxious children, even in term time in, in school and across lessons in the holidays with no natural structure, holding the day together, every transition becomes a potential cliff edge. So we want to give transition warnings such as in about 15 minutes, we're going to start getting ready to go out. I want you to get to a good stopping point. So we've given them an advanced warning in 15 minutes. We then want them to get to a good starting point. We're leaving at two half an hour before we go. I'll remind you so you can start winding down. So these are helpful. The warning itself is less important than the fact that you follow through, say it, mean it, do it. And if you cannot follow through, there is no point saying it because it's, it's then ends up being part of this yet more evidence that my parents say something, but they don't then follow through. So that can be super helpful with our rhythm. We build the rhythm and then we implement that rhythm with the transition warning. Tool three, one anchor activity a day. So not an activity that fills a day, but one thing, ideally at a consistent time that your child can look forward to. And count on a walk, a game you play together, swimming, baking, a television program you watch together. It gives the day almost like the center of gravity. Everything else can orbit loosely around that particular anchor. So for children who are struggling significantly in the first week, you might maybe need two anchors, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. And then the, you know, you can relax the structure and the rest of it will settle. But one anchor activity per day, is super, super helpful. So that's tool number three. Tool number four is don't become the holiday entertainer. Oh God, I remember this. It was like feeling constantly like, let me entertain you. What do I need to do? But when your anxious child says I'm bored and you immediately fill the space, you're inadvertently teaching them that boredom is a problem and it has to be solved for them. Tolerating boredom, sitting with the discomfort of it and discovering that they can manage it, is one of the most useful skills an anxious child can build because it's like sitting with the discomfort of difficult emotions. So we might say things like, I hear you. I wonder what you can find to do. I know it's hard when you don't know what to do with yourself. That feeling doesn't last. See what you come up with. Then hold the line. It will be uncomfortable for you probably more so than them, but it will pass. So that's tool number four. Don't become the holiday entertainer. And tool five, name it without fixing it. When your child is mid meltdown, the most powerful thing that we can do is name what's actually happening. Not you're being ridiculous. Holidays are supposed to be fun. But instead, I wonder if some of this is just that the holidays feel a bit wobbly right now. There's no routine and that can feel really unsettling. Or it makes sense that you're finding it hard. The structure you usually rely on isn't there. That's genuinely difficult. A child can identify, I feel like this because there's no routine and that's uncomfortable for me. You know, it has a framework. A child who just feels terrible and doesn't know why is much harder to help. So hopefully that that's given you some structure, whether your child is reveling and relishing the summer holidays and is delighted to be around you all of the time or feels like their whole world is falling apart. And here's what I would say. What I want to leave you with. The holidays don't cause anxiety in children who weren't already anxious. For some children, they remove the scaffolding, the routine, the predictability, the automatic social connection, and they show where the work needs to happen. But for others, they remove the trigger and you get to meet the child who has been working so hard all term finally at rest. Either way, that's useful information. Either way, there's something you can do with it. The child who falls apart in week one of the holidays isn't broken. The child who blooms in week one of the holidays and dreads going back isn't broken either. They're both telling you something important and now you know how to listen. If this episode was useful, please do leave a rating or a review. It helps other parents find the podcast and it means the world to me. And if you know a parent standing in their kitchen right now wondering what happened to the term or a parent marvelling at a completely different child in the same summer and not knowing what to do with that, send this to them. They need it today. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, the holidays don't break anxious children, they just show you where the scaffolding was. We'll see you next time.
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