Do you know a child who is feeling anxious at the moment? Are you wondering how we can support children’s wellbeing? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, here are some valuable resources for you.
This amazing Irish primary school teacher and yoga instructor (Instagram here) has combined his two roles to create engaging free well-being lessons that combine stories, yoga, meditative exercises and movement to support children’s mental health during these challenging times.
He has been kind enough to create two different versions of the same lesson: one is aimed for 5 – 9-year-olds while the other is aimed at the older classes. Both lessons range between 30 and 40 minutes and are a great resource in the current climate.
Video for the younger classes is here:
Video for the older classes is here:
If you find these remote yoga classes engaging and valuable, please share far and wide to help the widest audience possible. Make sure a click subscribe on David’s Youtube Channel to make sure that you get notified when Lesson Two comes online.
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With children having missed a significant portion of the year in school and coronavirus dominating the media and household conversations, there is a chance that children may be feeling anxious about returning to the classroom.
Valuable content is abundant out there for teacher, parents and children to support them in their return and I’ve written my own contribution to this cause.
My eBook Banking on Anxiety includes a lens through which to view anxiety alongside strategies that may help teachers and parents prevent minor anxieties from becoming bigger ones with early intervention.
Click the link below to download and please share far and wide or let me know what you think!
Every so often, I send short and free emails to 100s of subscribers with strategies for behaviour, inclusion and random thoughts, feel free to sign up here.
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Phobias are a form of anxiety disorder. They’re much more than fear. They occur when someone develops an over-the-top fear of a scenario or object. Their level of fear will be disproportionate to the level of danger. The idea of the scenario or object or being exposed to it may cause extreme anxiety, panic or distress.
Phobias can emerge from frightening events or stressful periods in their lives. A child may adopt a phobia from a family member displaying phobic behaviour.
There are five common self-explanatory types of phobias: Blood-injection-injury, natural environment, situational, animal and “other” types (such as fear of the number thirteen). As teachers and parents, how might we intervene with a child displaying phobic behaviour? There are two ways to try to intervene early and help the child overcome their issue.
Cognitive Behaviour Strategies
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) helps people identify, understand and correct thoughts that have become irrational. Teachers and parents can attempt strategies based on CBT principles to intervene and support the child to overcome their phobia.
One such strategy that comes from CBT is “Think like a Scientist”. This is a strategy for children who would have the ability to be analytical and rational in their approach to anxieties that they may be facing. This approach encourages the child to detail what they are afraid of, why they are afraid of it and then research and note the realistic outcome of facing their fear based on facts.
You set up a page to look something like this:
Feared Situation
Anxious Thought
Realistic Outcome
You may be as detailed as you need to be. Instagram post here.
I would encourage adults to use their discretion and best judgement in using this strategy and basing their decision on their knowledge of the child and their personality. I have previously mentioned more indirect strategies that can be utilised. This strategy is useful for fears of going swimming, going on stage and other common irrational fears that children face in school.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a longer-term solution. Practising mindfulness takes patience and consistency to develop higher levels of tolerance of anxiety. There are several ways to do this with or without technology.
Getting your child to try focussing on their breath and striving to be in the moment are great ways to explicitly reduce anxiety. The benefits of these strategies are well known and there is so much content out there to facilitate these strategies. You might want to choose a physical object like a breathing ball or perhaps you want a youtube video for young children. Older children might enjoy learning about how to do 4-7-8 breathing or engaging in a full-on 5 minute guided meditation aimed at children. There are also apps like Headspace and Calm that provide a certain amount of free content to test out. I am also a fan of the app Mindful Gnats. This app provides relaxation exercises, breathing exercises, body scans and more through an attractive interface which may encourage children to adopt mindfulness as a regular practice.
These are two different routes to attempt when dealing with phobic behaviour. If you’re not experiencing success and the phobias are causing extreme distress, I would recommend reaching out and seeking professional help from the appropriate source who may offer structured behavioural therapy or medication if required.
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Avigdor Klingman detailed how we can prevent children from developing anxiety to the point of post-traumatic stress disorder (PDST). Klingman had some interesting thoughts that have implications for the current coronavirus pandemic and how we can try and mitigate the dangers. He provided three variables that predict a child’s adjustment to trauma like the one we are experiencing and four ways that parents can help prevent the impact trauma has on a child.
Children are influenced far more by their environment than adults. Their adjustment and reaction to trauma will, therefore, be impacted by how parents and siblings respond to the coronavirus and the impact it is having. Children will take their stress-response cues from their parent’s and will interpret the traumatic event according to how their parents do.
Three parental variables predict a child’s adjustment – or maladjustment – to trauma:
Separation from significant family members during a traumatic event.
The parent’s traumatic stress reaction.
Deterioration of family functioning.
Although the thoughts of contributing to their child’s development of anxiety could add to a parent’s stress, this could instead be viewed as a controllable factor when so many more factors are uncontrollable right now. The following actions are within your control and actionable right now:
Control your stress
Parents cannot pour from an empty cup and cannot reduce the stress levels of their child if they are stressed themselves. Implementing a self-care routine that will help you maintain a level head is paramount to helping your child. This can be as simple as an episode of your favourite Netflix show or as complex as a meditation/yoga/journaling routine.
Early Detection
Ensure you are available for your child throughout this crisis. If a parent is stressed, a child may lose adult support when they need it most. Keeping an eye out for early signs of traumatic stress can help prevent a small problem becoming a bigger one down the line. Communicate with your child openly, let them know that you are controlling everything you can, their reaction is normal and they are not alone in this.
Reframe the Event
It is easy to get stuck in a cycle of news that is negative and scary. Turn off the global news and start to reframe the event in the confines of your own home. Discuss it as an opportunity for more family time, a chance to practice hobbies they enjoy, gratitude that everyone in the family unit is safe and well under the roof. Reframing the event and communicating this to your child will impact how they view it. It might be challenging to change your mindset but this is important.
Portray Confidence
Communicating confidence to your child that you have the controllable factors under control is important to how they respond to the current stress. Keep as calm a routine as is viable. Demonstrate confidence that things will improve and this too, shall pass. Parents have a huge role in exacerbating or buffering the child’s response so conveying this confidence will help reduce feelings of anxiety that could grow as time passes.
Klingman’s research points to continuity and simplicity as successful traits of effective interventions when supporting children through traumatic events. Thankfully, simple strategies for anxiety are readily available even in the confines of our own home. I provide 6 ways to ease anxiety here along with a more fleshed out explanation of how to implement journaling with your child here.
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Anxiety is rife right now. The Coronavirus Crisis has fully arrived and everybody is struggling to make sense of this new isolated world we have been thrown into at the deep end.
Now, more than ever, we need to look out for our children’s mental health. I have written about 6 different ways to prevent or manage your child’s anxiety during this time with a suggestion of journaling as one of the options. I want to dig into the topic of journaling in this post and give some concrete examples of how to bring out its benefits over the coming weeks.
The Case for Journaling Right Now
Shawn Anchor is considered to be an authority on happiness. Shawn contests from his research that the small act of journaling has the potential to help us rewire our brains to scan for the positives instead of the negatives. This rewiring can lead to the writer developing a positive outlook on life in the long term with increased happiness and therefore, reduced anxiety.
As we adjust to this time of uncertainty, helping your child cultivate this positive mindset could protect them from the outside world – such as social media and news channels – that looks to sell fear and increase anxiety.
There are added benefits to journaling that it will promote literacy skills through the act of putting their thoughts on paper while Shawn also states that happier people are more resilient and 31% more productive.
How to Journal for Children Who Can Write
Shawn suggests writing about the follow prompts for journaling to garner the maximum results:
Spend two minutes a day writing down three things you are thankful for. These must be new things each day and can be as big as your family’s health or a small as your bowl of cornflakes.
Spend two minutes a day writing about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours.
Added prompts that may help create a more positive outlook are:
Writing down 7 things you are excited for at the start of every day.
Write about a “win” you had today. So it could be achieving a new personal best, an improvement in a skill, something difficult that you overcame. Write about why it’s important, how to progress and what your next step will be.
There are additional principles to journaling that are important if being used or attempted in the homeschool or school context.
A journal is not be read if the writer does not consent.
The parent or teacher can guide the child but there is no need to correct it and do not use this medium for correcting grammar and spelling.
Modelling the act of journaling by completing it alongside your child or letting them see you do it is an effective way to encourage them.
Using fun pens, markers and stationery is a great way to promote this. Let them choose their journal type with options like bullet journals and regular diaries being widely available online.
Let them go off script and design and write what they like as well. A journal is a great way to put thoughts to paper, vent and stoke creativity. If your child is engaged, let their imagination run wild.
Journaling for Children Who Can’t Write
If your child is not at the stage where they are ready to write, but you feel that this is something either you or they want to try, you have some options.
The prompts can be completed by drawing pictures.
The prompts can be completed by having a trusted adult write for them.
The prompts can be completed by recording a video diary on a tablet or phone.
The language of the prompts can be adjusted to be age-appropriate in the following ways:
“I am happy because”: Respond with anything that is making them happy.
“I am excited to….”: Respond with three things (instead of seven) that they are looking forward to doing that day.
“A good thing that happened today was”: Let them come up with a mini-win that they had.
Give it a Go!
In this unique time, we have an opportunity to teach skills for dealing with uncertainty and adversity. Journalling is one such tool that has stood to many of the world’s great creatives and leaders over time so it might be worth encouraging your child to experiment with it.
As always, this is one tool among many others that you can pull out and try to promote positivity and reduce negative emotions. It might not work for everyone but it is certainly worth giving a go!
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