Kids thrive when taught to manage anxiety

As parents, one of our chief roles is to teach our children how to handle their feelings effectively. When our children can understand, express and manage their feelings and emotions, we call this emotional intelligence. This column will discuss how we parents can teach our kids how to handle anxiety in particular.

Anxiety is a feeling that tells us that something is wrong, that there's a threat or that something is unsafe. It is like a radar system; we scan what's going on around us, or inside us, and if we feel anxious we can then figure out a course of action.

In this sense, anxiety is our servant, something that is useful and can alert us to danger. An acute danger, such as a car coming towards us, needs quick action and anxiety will energize us to avoid the danger. But many of life's challenges are social and we have time to respond in a more measured manner.

Sometimes we struggle with anxiety because it's uncomfortable. We may learn to fear anxiety itself, avoid situations that we think will make us anxious, and maybe use things like drugs and alcohol to numb the anxiety. These negative practices impact our lives and do not lead to helpful coping strategies. So, what do we want to teach our kids about anxiety, and how might we do so?

As parents, we teach by example, hence we can practice the following tips for anxiety and teach them to our kids when they feel it.

The first step is to recognize anxiety: a feeling of tightness in the belly, a sense of fear or alarm and label it. Simply saying the word “anxiety” can suffice.

The next step is to breathe deeply. Anxiety will cause us to tighten up and breathe more shallowly; it is essential to focus on breathing deeply, as this helps calm us a little and enables us to start thinking.

We now can focus on what we are thinking and in particular, any “hot thoughts” that are associated with the anxiety. These are thoughts that add to our fears, such as “This is the worst,” or “I'll die.” We can then challenge these thoughts, asking if they're true, is there any evidence to support them. This exercise uses the wise mind part of our brains and enables us to figure out how we are making our anxiety worse with scary thoughts.

Once we determine the hot thoughts, we can then work on alternative thoughts that empower and reassure us, such as “I can get through this.”

We can then begin to consider ways to handle the situation and who can help. Such problem-solving means that we are using our anxiety to guide us into constructive action.

Parents can practice these ways of handling anxiety and demonstrate them to their children. This normalizes anxiety and shows that we don't have to be scared of it.

All of our feelings have purposes; anxiety is there to keep us safe enough but not to run our lives.