Knowing what to do when your child is anxious is critical to their mental health and confidence. If you don’t deal with this correctly, they can grow fearful, and this would limit them as they get older.
Before everything else, it’s essential to understand that anxiety is normal and everyone experiences it. How many more children if teaching an adult to deal with stress is tricky? Is prevention more important? Is cure more critical? The answer is that both of these things are important, and you need to cultivate proper prevention measures and a course of action should your child get nervous.
Presence
It’s essential to be present when your child feels anxious or nervous. If they struggle with stress, the damage will increase.
Presence doesn’t just mean being physically there. It also means being emotionally present and ready to listen and spend time with them. You can hug or hold your children to give them a sense of security. If they don’t want to be touched, just being there and being present is enough.
Don’t be overly involved
Your child must learn how to deal with their emotions. This means knowing the right things to say, the right thoughts to think, and the right way to solve their problems. Dependency might help them overcome a problem, but this will hurt them later when they face difficulties and their parents aren’t around.
Because of this, it’s essential to allow your child to go through the motions and not give them too many instructions. Instead, offer comfort and maybe suggestions that will enable them to learn how to transition from crawling to walking.
Start moving
Physical activities are known to help ease anxiety and nervousness. So if your child gets nervous most of the time, this might be because they lack physical activities. It’s also important to note that there are different types of physical activities for children, some requiring socialization and others not.
Some activities require your child to play with others. However, if this causes them to become even more stressed, you can opt for a sport or physical activity with less interaction with others.
Doing the task anyway
One thing that could significantly affect your child is if they are taught that stepping away from stressful situations is okay. This is a dangerous teaching they could carry on for the rest of their lives. Instead, teaching them that going through a challenging task is part of the process is essential. One thing you can practice is aftercare, like when your child is done going through a stressful situation.
If they feel nervous about something, but they do it anyway, you can reinforce that feeling by acknowledging how it made them feel nervous, but praising the fact that they overcame that situation.
Let them express what they feel
Please do not cut your child off when expressing their feelings. Instead, always keep an ear ready to listen. Unfortunately, some parents make the mistake of cutting them off immediately if they say something wrong when expressing themselves.
Although what they might have said at the moment isn’t good, it’s essential to let them express themselves until they feel better. Correct them later, but this could negatively affect your relationship if they think they can’t speak to you.
Teach them small challenges
Sometimes the significant challenges can be overwhelming, so it’s essential to introduce more minor challenges every so often to increase your child’s resistance to stress. Then, just like exercise, you can teach them to slowly learn how to deal with more stressful situations over time to help guide them in dealing with nervousness.
While going through the challenge, always remind them that it’s okay to feel nervous and teach them how to deal with fear healthily.
Remember that they are still children
It’s always important to remember that they’re still children. This means that what might seem like minor problems for us might be enormous problems for them.
You must empathize with your child and share examples or problems they can relate to. Sharing something they cannot understand or fathom would create dissonance and make it harder for you to connect.
When communicating, you can give them examples of when you were their age, what you felt, how your parents helped you, and how you can help them. Also, never encourage them by sharing how they can accomplish their hardships.
In conclusion
Children who don’t learn to deal with anxiety will struggle even more later. So it’s better to teach them how to deal with fear early so that they will take that bravery and confidence with them when they get bigger.
As a parent, it’s essential to accept that each child has a different pace when coping with stress. So be patient and let them learn how to face their fears.
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