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How Do You Help Your Child Get Over the Anxiety Episodes

It's important to support your child in the difficult moments

By Mike SandersPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
How Do You Help Your Child Get Over the Anxiety Episodes
Photo by Yousef Espanioly on Unsplash

Anxiety is just a form of stress that children feel as well. Parental support is a real help in overcoming unwanted conditions.

Anxiety can be experienced in many forms, both physical and emotional while influencing people's perceptions of the reality around them.

This is an alarm system that activates every time we detect a danger.

When the body and mind react, various sensations appear, such as dizziness, palpitations, shortness of breath, sweating, or trembling in the limbs.

All this is caused by increased levels of adrenaline and other stress hormones, having the role of preparing the body to face the problem or to avoid it.

It is normal for a certain nervousness to set in when we are dealing with unusual situations or others that represent a challenge.

In the case of children, the feeling of constantly facing new situations is more present than in people, because the little ones become addicted to their parents and are much more vulnerable when they leave their safe space.

One of the most common states of anxiety is related to school performance, the trigger being the fear of not being disappointed or being considered inferior to other colleagues.

For some, a little adrenaline may be helpful, but for others, excessive fear can be overwhelming.

Moreover, it can lead to altered quality of life, by losing control and the inability to complete an activity.

Parental support is very important when children are facing such situations. Here's how to put one together for use.

Be empathetic

The first reaction of parents when their child is anxious about a certain situation is to assure their child that there is no reason to be afraid, or that they are there and have nothing to fear.

There are two wrong reactions, even if the intention is to help.

Any anxious person, whether a child or an adult, is already in a state of struggle or flight, a state generated by a series of reactions in the brain.

They can only disappear in the absence of the stimuli that generate them, so the parents' attempt is useless. In the second case, overcoming a fear just because the parent is there can work, but only temporarily.

The child may develop an addiction to the parent's presence over time, which is not desirable. The most important thing is that he can overcome his anxiety on his own.

So, the first thing the child needs is to know that his parent understands what he is going through, breathes with him, and accepts his condition.

After such an empathetic attitude, the child will calm down, and only then can you think of possible solutions.

Don't avoid communicating with your child to find the best one. Ask him what he thinks will make him feel better and try to apply.

Make him understand what's going on

You should avoid making your child think that he has a problem that needs to be solved.

Instead, you can explain to them that fear is a normal reaction and is even useful in certain situations because it protects us from dangers, but sometimes the brain reacts to false alarms, which you can help detect.

Use the game method

The role play that may involve creating a character to represent your child's fears can help him learn how to overcome anxiety.

Use a toy to represent the character created and make sure that each time, the character has positive results and the story has a happy ending.

Avoid overdoing it with anything that could trigger anxiety

It is almost impossible to try to eliminate from the path of an anxious person any event or thing that could trigger his condition.

Try another approach. If, for example, your child is afraid of dogs, do not protect him from any dog ​​he meets.

Let him see from a distance the puppy of his neighbors or friends that you know is harmless, then let the little one get close to him, while another person holds the dog on a leash, and after noticing that things go normally, leaving the dog free to interact with the child.

If such an exercise happens several times with different dogs, the little one may be able to overcome his fear.

Don't blame yourself for the child's problem

As in many other situations, most parents wonder what they could have done wrong, what affected the child in such a way that it triggered this excessive fear.

You need to give up such an attitude that is harmful to you, your child, and your relationship.

In the case of genetic anxiety, the child's personality and the environment in which he grows up are responsible for triggering the condition.

Also, physical and verbal violence at school, or a traumatic episode from childhood that he witnessed, can generate these conditions.

You can't protect your child from any event that could have a strong negative impact on him, no matter how much you want it.

Give up blaming yourself, because the more emotional you become, the less you will be able to help your child calm down.

You and the little one need to be a team and act accordingly to overcome the problem, and with patience, tact, and mutual trust, this can be done.

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