5 Practical Ways to Help Your Child Handle Worry
This past week I interviewed author and counselor Sissy Goff on the podcast to talk about the anxiety that moms are experiencing these days. Sissy even said she has seen more parents in tears in her office in the last 3-6 months than she has in the past 30 years of counseling!!
Life is especially difficult in a lot of ways for many of us right now, but the best gift we can give our kids is to deal with our own stuff. We can’t help our children deal with their anxiety until we have tackled our own. Maybe that means going to counseling for the first time or opening up to girlfriends about what’s going on in your head and your heart.
When it comes to helping our kids handle the stress in their own world, Sissy offers these practical tips for families experiencing a rise in the anxiety level in their home:
Let your child lead the conversation. When we moms are nervous about a conversation, we tend to talk more. Only answer the questions your child is asking and keep it simple.
Use short concrete statements to talk about the worrying things in the world around them. i.e. “We have a vaccine and things are getting better, but we still need to be careful and there are a lot of ways we can be careful.”
Use the following prompts to help your child verbalize what’s bothering them:
Tell me what you’re hearing…
Tell me what you’re worried about…
Tell me how I can help...
Get outside daily! Play (you too, momma)! We all need more play and more laughter in our lives to help beat back worry and stress.
Help your child practice being brave. Tell them you believe in them, and don’t immediately rescue them out of the situation. Take one step today toward helping them face their fear and worry.
If it feels like worry/anxiety or depression is taking a hold in your home, I’d love it if you would listen in to this conversation and put some of Sissy’s strategies and suggestions into practice today.