Children experience anxiety and very often do not understand what is happening to them. As parents and educators the tendency is to correct, label or punish the behaviour instead of recognizing the cause and supporting them through the process of change.
A simple set of rules
1. Children need down time every day. Don’t fill their days with work and classes. The down time helps them process experiences including emotions through play.
2. Listen don’t lecture. Many children feel better just talking. It may seem irrelevant to you but it helps them. They don’t need an opinion or for you to fix it. Just listen.
3. Chronic anxiety often shows up as academic issues. These have unfortunately been misdiagnosed and have resulted in entire systems working against a child making sense of the world.
4. Remove screen time as a lot of content raises anxiety levels and also helps them zone out from emotions instead of dealing with them with awareness.
5. Human beings feel emotions. Age is just a number. Don’t belittle what a child feels. An experience can be overwhelming for them even if it seems silly for you.
