Dr. Monica Jackman is an occupational therapist and mother of four. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Health Science degree from the University of Florida and a Doctorate in Occupational Therapy from Chatham University. Monica has authored research papers and book chapters on topics including mindful engagement, the mindful engagement support model, occupational therapy in mental health, and teaching mindfulness to children, and has developed and implemented mindfulness-based training programs for caregivers, preschoolers, and school-aged children. She is the creator of the Mindful Engagement Support Model of Treatment, the OpenMind Preschool and Kindergarten Program, co-author of the OpenMind Elementary and Middle School Program, and the author of the book Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten, published by New Harbinger in August 2022. She has lectured nationally and internationally on mindfulness and social emotional learning interventions for children and adults. You can find her on Instagram at openmindwithdrmonica
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7 TIPS TO HELP YOUR CHILD COPE WITH ANXIOUS FEELINGS
The start of the school year can bring about anxious feelings for kids. Dr. Monica Jackman shares tips to help guide you through the back-to-school jitters.
WHAT DOES ANXIETY LOOK LIKE FOR YOUR CHILD?
Anxiety can look very different, depending on the child and the situation. Anxiety is a response to an actual or perceived threat, and it motivates our bodies to protect ourselves from the real or imagined threat by fighting, fleeing, or freezing. We feel a fear or anxiety response because our blood and energy resources are moving around to prepare us to react to the threat, and we tend to feel this in our bodies in some way, such as with a racing heart, upset stomach, breath holding, muscle tension, dizziness, sweating, or feeling like we are shutting down. We can also feel anxiety and have this physical response when we experience or think about something in the past that has posed a threat to us.
There is a second part of anxiety that happens when we feel fear about something that hasn’t happened yet; this is called worry. With worry, we can feel scared, angry or sad about feeling anxious, or our bodies can start preparing to fight or escape a threat that we think could possibly happen in the future. These thoughts, feelings, and sensations, in our minds and bodies can be very uncomfortable and scary, and we can all cope with them in different ways.
Your child may show obvious signs of feeling anxious, such as verbalizing fear or showing signs of anxiety in the ton or their voice and their body language. Although, it is also important to remember that anxiety can also look like other things, such as avoidance of certain tasks, people or situations that the child associates with a real or perceived threat. In addition, it may also manifest as physical symptoms such as an upset stomach, or other emotions like anger or sadness.
ARE ANXIOUS FEELINGS NORMAL FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS IN THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR?
It is completely normal for children, teens and adults to feel anxious during the new school year! Any new experience brings a degree of uncertainty and the unknown, which can cause feelings of stress, fear, apprehension, overwhelm, and worry.
However, stress is not always a “bad” thing; it is simply the way we respond and adapt to new or unexpected changes, challenges or opportunities. We often experience some of the same physiological sensations that we do during feelings of anxiety when we feel excitement, curiosity, and positive anticipation in new situations. Both are stress responses; the difference lies in how we label, judge and perceive the situation, and this can be shaped by factors like our trauma history, the way we process sensory information, and our physical and mental states.
WHAT ARE SOME WAYS TO START THE CONVERSATION WITH MY CHILD?
The best way to start a conversation about starting the new school year is to build connection and empathy by sharing your own experiences. By sharing how you have felt when you started something new (anxious, excited, nervous, curious), along with the physical sensations you experienced (sweaty hands, queasy stomach, a need to move around, pounding heart, and so on), your child will not feel alone in their emotions.
You can also model coping strategies by sharing with your child what you did to cope with the feelings (e.g., took deep breaths, paced around).
Most importantly, you can emphasize how all of these feelings like anxiety and worry are impermanent, meaning they do not last forever! All of our feelings are constantly changing, moving around and co-existing with each other.
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IDENTIFY FEELINGSList Item 1
Help your children to identify which feelings they are feeling, and where they are feeling them in their bodies. You can use a visual to help them if they are having difficulty verbalizing how they feel with words.
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SUPPORTList Item 2
Support your children to rate how “big” their anxiety, worry, or feelings of overwhelm are; this can be a way to decenter, or objectively describe their emotions, which has been linked to better emotional regulation. A simple way to do this is by using a 5 point scale (1 is no anxiety, 5 is a lot of anxiety); this can help your child to track how it changes.
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BE PRESENTList Item 3
Be present with your child if they are feeling anxiety so that they can begin to feel safe and calm, use as few words as you can and, if possible, take them to a place that is not threatening or overstimulating. If your child is having difficulty calming down on their own, you can provide co-regulation to help them feel better, by giving them a hug, verbal reassurance (you are safe, I am here) or physical reassurance (such as a hand on the shoulder), or doing deep breathing beside them.
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PROBLEM SOLVEList Item 4
When your child is in a calm state, then you can begin to help them problem-solve what may help them the next time they are feeling anxious, worried, or overwhelmed. This is where teaching and modeling can be helpful; you can share things like, when I feel really anxious in my legs at work, I bounce them really fast under or desk to help get the nervous out; or when I felt overwhelmed at school, I would raise my hand and ask to go and get a drink of water to get a little break.
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ALARM CODES
I think of anxiety as a fire alarm in our bodies, and use this metaphor to explain the experience to kids. When there is a fire, the alarm goes off and it is loud and scary and its purpose is to get us away from the fire and protect us. But sometimes, the alarm accidentally goes off because it gets pulled or the wires aren’t working like they usually do, or the alarm gets tricked by something that seems like a fire but isn’t. When this happens, the alarm is just as loud and scary as when there is a real fire, but there is no danger, even if it feels like the real thing!
It can be helpful to teach kids to recognize whether it is a real fire, or a false alarm. When they can distinguish the difference, they can start to use a cognitive alarm code strategy. This is a simple practice of noticing and identifying when an alarm is a false alarm, and visualizing entering a code into the alarm or turning a key to “deactivate” it. This can be followed by deep breathing, remembering that no feeling lasts forever, and noticing other emotions we may be feeling that may be quieter that the anxiety.
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YES, AND...
Use the YES, AND strategy. Even when we feel unpleasant emotions such as anxiety, fear, overwhelm, anger, or sadness, we can also feel pleasant and health giving emotions at the same time, such as love, gratitude, and excitement. Because humans have a natural negativity bias, we are wired to notice and focus on unpleasant, or scary emotions more than positive motions, because the “negative” emotions are the ones that can possibly hurt us, and our first goal is to stay safe and protected.
However, when we realize that we are not actually in danger, we can start to notice other emotions that may be much quieter but still there! In the YES, AND strategy, we can help children to notice all the emotions that are coexisting.
For example, YES I am feeling scared in my chest, AND I am also feeling love because you are right here, hugging me; YES I am feeling worried about whether my new teacher will be nice or mean, AND I am feeling excited about seeing my old friends.
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YOU ARE NOT ALONE
The most important things to teach your child is that no matter how they feel about starting out a new school year, THEY ARE NOT ALONE, ALL FEELINGS ARE NORMAL, and NOT ALL FEELINGS ARE FACTS (some can be false alarms)!
Be present with them through their journey and share your feelings to help them realize they are not alone and to model how you have both faced the tough emotions and celebrated the exciting ones that turned out to be not as scary as they first seemed. Experiencing uncertainty and new situations, such as starting a new school year, will help your child to navigate big feelings, learn new skills and build resilience through all types of life challenges.
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