#93: 6 Steps to Calm Your Anxious Child

Season #2 February 11, 2024

DESCRIPTION:

In today's episode, we'll explore how you can support your child through moments of heightened anxiety and help them build resilience for the future. Anxiety is a natural part of life, it isn't something to be feared or avoided. It's a natural and necessary human emotion that helps us navigate the world safely. However with anxiety disorders on the rise among children and adolescents, it's more important than ever for parents to understand how to support their children through this challenging emotion and provide a sense of safety. Today, I'll be giving you practical tools to help you do just that.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

The significance of building a securely attached relationship with your child, which serves as your most parenting powerful tool in guiding them through difficult emotions, like anxiety.
Understanding co-regulation and how it empowers you to help your child manage overwhelming emotions by utilizing your own regulated emotional state.
A proactive strategy called "Name It to Tame It," which involves personifying your child's anxiety to help them separate it from their core identity and regain control over this powerful emotion.
Six practical steps to effectively co-regulate with your anxious child, including selecting suitable stress and anxiety regulation tools, reassessing their anxiety level, and repeating the co-regulation process as needed.

Now, if you're looking for more insights into anxiety and parenting, be sure to check out episode 50 of "The 3D Parent" podcast, where I cover a range of tips and perspectives on parenting an anxious child. It's a great companion to today's episode and can provide you with even more valuable information.

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of The 3D Parent Podcast. If you found this content helpful, be sure to share it with fellow parents and caregivers. And don't forget to subscribe for our weekly episodes and more insightful episodes on parenting!

SHOWNOTES:

Hey there, fellow parents! Today's episode is going to be a bit different than our usual discussions because we're diving deep into a topic that's close to many of our hearts: anxiety in children. If you've ever found yourself wondering, "What do I do when my child is experiencing anxiety," then stick around because I've got some specific strategies to share with you.

Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty, I want to give a shoutout to a previous episode where we covered the broader topic of parenting an anxious child. If you haven't listened to Episode 50 yet, titled "Parenting an Anxious Child," I highly recommend giving it a listen. It's a great companion to today's episode and covers some essential do's and don'ts, along with practical tips and perspectives for navigating anxiety in your child.

It's important to recognize that anxiety itself is not inherently negative. In fact, it's a fundamental human emotion that serves a valuable purpose. However, when a child experiences overwhelming or frequent anxiety, it can be cause for concern. With children and adolescents facing anxiety at unprecedented rates, it's more important than ever for parents to understand how to support their children through these challenges.

Anxiety can be a tough nut to crack because it's not always driven by rational thoughts and it certainly doesn't come with an easy fix. But as parents, our role is to provide a sense of safety and support so our kids can weather the storm of anxious feelings and emerge stronger and more resilient on the other side.

Before we delve into the strategies, I want to emphasize the importance of seeking professional help if you feel your child's anxiety is worsening or significantly impacting their daily life. While this podcast episode offers valuable insights, it's not a substitute for the expertise of healthcare professionals.

Throughout this episode, I'll be sharing practical strategies to help you support your child through their anxiety journey. From creating a safe space for open communication to teaching coping skills, each strategy is designed to empower both you and your child.

Anxiety can manifest in various ways, affecting not only the child but also their family dynamics. If you observe changes in your child's behavior, such as reluctance to participate in activities they once enjoyed or difficulty coping with daily tasks, it's essential to address these concerns promptly.

Untreated anxiety can escalate over time and may lead to other mental health issues or behavioral disorders. Therefore, early intervention is key. Start by consulting your child's pediatrician, who can provide valuable insights and recommendations for further evaluation or treatment.

In the show notes, you'll find a link to an article titled "When to Seek Additional Support for Your Child's Anxiety," which offers detailed guidance on assessing your child's needs and approaching the topic with them in an age-appropriate manner.

Even if your child receives outside help, your role as a parent remains crucial. Therapy sessions typically occur for a limited time each week, leaving ample opportunity for you to provide ongoing support and guidance at home. Your deep connection with your child serves as the foundation for effective parenting, especially when addressing difficult emotions like anxiety.

Now, let's take a step back and consider the bigger picture. Before addressing specific strategies, it's essential to nurture a deeply connected relationship with your child. As I discussed in Episode 87, "Parenting with Deep Connection," your relationship with your child is your most powerful tool. Building a secure, deeply connected bond lays the foundation for providing effective support, especially during challenging times like anxiety.

A secure attachment with at least one significant caregiver is essential for a child's emotional well-being and development. This connection enables you to come alongside your child, understanding their emotions and providing the support they need. By nurturing this deep connection, you create a safe space for your child to express their feelings and navigate difficult emotions like anxiety.

So, what exactly is co-regulation? Simply put, it's the ability for a parent or caregiver to use their own regulated emotional state to help a child regulate their difficult or overwhelming emotions, like anxiety.

Now, let's talk about why co-regulation is so important, especially for children who may not yet have developed the skills to regulate their emotions independently. This could be due to their age, temperament, or the nature of their current circumstances. For example, younger children or those with highly sensitive temperaments may need to rely on their parents for a longer period of time to help them manage feelings of anxiety.

The beauty of co-regulation is that it enables a parent to not only help to regulate their child, but also to model coping skills that children can carry with them into adulthood. By modeling healthy ways of managing emotions, parents are laying the foundation for their children to become emotionally resilient individuals who can eventually face life's challenges independently and with confidence.

Understanding a proactive tool called "Name it to Tame it"

Now, let's dive into some strategies, starting with a proactive tool called, "Name it to Tame it.”

This strategy involves helping your child name and personify their anxiety. By giving your child’s anxiety a name like, “Spike” or “Sheila,” you're helping them separate their anxiety from their core identity. This can empower them to feel a sense of control over their emotions, reducing feelings of overwhelm. Naming their anxiety allows children to acknowledge it as a part of themselves, but not all of who they are. This strategy draws from therapeutic approaches that focus on understanding and managing different parts of oneself.

To implement this strategy, have a conversation with your child about anxiety or their worries and its physical manifestations, such as feeling panicked or experiencing an upset stomach. Help them understand that these feelings are normal and can be managed. Then, encourage them to come up with a name for their anxiety. Make it a fun and creative activity to help them feel more comfortable with the concept. Remember to reinforce the importance of using this name when discussing their anxiety in the future.

Now, I’ll walk you through the Six Steps to Co-regulate with your Anxious Child:

Step 1: Center Yourself

Imagine it's the day of your child's first karate class, something they've been eagerly anticipating. But when the moment arrives, they're overwhelmed with anxiety and refuse to go. As a parent, your first instinct might be to feel anxious too. Step one reminds us to center ourselves before attempting to co-regulate with our child.

For example, Take a few deep breaths and place your hand over your heart. Say to yourself something like, "I am safe. This is not an emergency. This is just a moment and will pass." Before you can effectively support your child, it's essential to regulate your own emotions. Children often pick up on their parents' anxiety which up-regulates and increases their anxiety, so taking a moment to center yourself is crucial.

Step 2: Acknowledge Your Child's Anxiety by Name

Remember when you helped your child name their anxiety? Now's the time to acknowledge it.

Say something like "Hey, buddy, I see Spike's here today. That's okay. We'll work through this together."

By referring to your child's anxiety by its chosen name, you help them recognize that it's a separate part of them, not their entire identity.

Next, ask your child where they feel Spike in their body. Are they feeling Spike's presence as butterflies in their stomach, tightness in their chest, or tension in their throat? By pinpointing the physical sensations associated with Spike's visit, your child becomes more aware of how their body responds to anxiety.

This awareness is crucial because it helps your child recognize that anxiety is not an overwhelming force but rather a temporary state that can be managed. For instance, they might realize, "Whenever Spike shows up, I feel a knot in my stomach," or "Spike is hanging out in my chest, making it hard to breathe."

By identifying where Spike resides in their body, your child gains insight into their emotional and physical experiences. This self-awareness forms the basis for managing anxiety more effectively in the future. It's like shedding light on the dark corners of their mind, enabling them to confront their fears directly.

Moreover, as your child learns to recognize the physical manifestations of their anxiety, they become better equipped to cope with it. This newfound awareness empowers your child to take control of their emotions and navigate through moments of heightened anxiety with confidence and resilience.

Step 3: Rate the Anxiety

Let's explore step three of helping your child manage anxiety. Here, we're diving into the crucial task of gauging the intensity of your child's feelings. Asking your child to rate their anxiety level on a scale of 1 to 10 might seem simple, but it's a powerful tool for building emotional awareness. It's like taking a temperature check of their emotions. Picture this: you sit down with your child and gently ask, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how big is Spike right now?"

This simple question opens up a dialogue about their feelings. Maybe Spike is feeling like a 10, ready to burst out of their skin, or perhaps Spike is a more manageable 7, but still making their presence known. Whatever the number, it provides a starting point for understanding and addressing their anxiety.

Asking your child to rate their anxiety not only increases their self-awareness but also activates their thinking brain. When we focus on numbers and bodily sensations, we move away from the primal fight-flight-freeze response and into a space where rational thought can prevail. It's like flipping a switch from panic mode to problem-solving mode.

Imagine your child says, "My anxiety feels like an eight." That's a significant number, signaling a high level of distress. Now, armed with this information, you're ready to move on to step four – choosing an emotional regulation tool.

Step 4: Choosing an emotional regulation tool

Step four invites you to select from a range of tools designed to help your child manage their anxiety. From deep breathing exercises to mindfulness techniques, there's a wealth of options to choose from. Let's delve into ten of these tools to give you a starting point:

1. Box Breathing:

This technique involves breathing in for four counts, holding for four counts, exhaling for four counts, and then holding again for four counts. It's like guiding your child through a calming breathing exercise, akin to creating a pattern of relaxation.
You repeat this cycle four times, which helps slow down their heart rate and reduces stress hormones, giving them a sense of control over their emotions.

2. Short Inhale/Long Exhale Breathing:

With this method, your child quickly inhales for one count, then exhales slowly for eight counts. It's like teaching them to take a deep breath to let go of tension, like releasing a balloon slowly into the air.
Doing this helps regulate their heart rate and reduces stress hormones, providing a sense of calm amidst chaos.

3. Five Senses Mindfulness Technique:

Encourage your child to notice five things they can see, four things they can hear, three things they can touch, two things they can smell, and one thing they can taste. It's like inviting them to a sensory scavenger hunt, grounding them in the present moment.
Engaging in this activity reduces their sense of alarm and activates their thinking brain, helping them focus on the here and now.

4. Visualization:

Guide your child to close their eyes and imagine their overwhelming feelings as a heavy coat on a hot day. Then, have them visualize taking off this coat, feeling the relief wash over them. It's like helping them paint a mental picture of letting go of burdens.
This exercise encourages them to connect with their emotions, providing a sense of relief and empowerment as they release their stress.

5. Vagus Nerve Massage:

Use your fingers to massage the bones behind and in front of your child's ears with medium-firm pressure. It's like giving their nervous system a gentle massage, soothing any discomfort or upset.
This technique is particularly helpful for calming anxiety-related stomach issues, easing nausea, and reducing overall anxiety levels.

6. Big Belly Laughter:

Share a joke, funny story, or watch a humorous video together to trigger laughter. It's like sprinkling a bit of joy into their day, lifting their spirits and easing tension.
Laughter releases stress and tension, helping your child feel lighter and more relaxed.

7. Crying:

Create a safe space for your child to express their emotions through crying. It's like offering them a release valve for their feelings, allowing them to let go of pent-up stress and sadness.
Crying is a natural and healthy emotional release, helping them process their emotions and move forward with a sense of relief.

8. Quick Exertion of Energy:

Engage in brief physical activities like jumping jacks, walking, or dancing to release pent-up energy. It's like hitting the reset button on their mood, boosting their spirits and reducing stress hormones.
Physical activity helps your child feel more grounded and centered, promoting a sense of well-being and calm.

9. Creative Expression:

Encourage your child to express themselves creatively through drawing, writing, or playing an instrument. It's like giving them a blank canvas to explore their emotions, providing an outlet for self-expression.
Creative activities help your child process their feelings and gain insight into their inner world, fostering emotional growth and resilience.

10. Give a 20-Second Hug:

Share a sustained hug with your child for 20 seconds or more to decrease stress hormones and increase bonding hormones. It's like wrapping them in a warm embrace, comforting and reassuring them.
This physical connection helps regulate their emotions, strengthening your bond and providing a sense of security and support.

Step 5: Reassess Anxiety Level

Once you've guided your child through the emotional regulation tool of your choosing, it's time to check in and see how they're feeling. This step is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of the tool and determining if further support is needed.

Reassessing your child's anxiety level involves asking them to rate their current level of anxiety. Encourage them to express how big their feelings of anxiety are now compared to before using the regulation tool.

Start by asking your child to rate their anxiety level again. You might say something like, "Let's see how big Spike feels now. Can you give me a number?" Ideally, you'll notice a decrease in their anxiety level. From my experience, when using these strategies with my own children, anxiety levels almost always decrease, albeit not always completely.

If their anxiety has decreased to a comfortable level, that's fantastic! You've successfully helped them manage their emotions. But if it hasn't decreased enough, don't worry. That's where step 6 comes in.

Step 6: Repeat if Necessary

Here's where you circle back to step four and repeat the same regulation tool. Repeating allows your child to become more familiar with it, potentially enhancing its effectiveness with each repetition. Encourage your child to engage in several more rounds of the chosen technique, aiming to further reduce their anxiety level. If they seem tired of the same technique or you feel another strategy might be a better fit, feel free to mix it up a little until the desired lessoned state of anxiety is achieved.

The goal here isn't to eliminate anxiety entirely. Instead, the focus is on empowering your child to recognize that they have tools at their disposal to cope with anxiety.

CONCLUSION

In wrapping up, I sincerely hope that the strategy we've delved into today leaves you feeling more empowered as a parent of an anxious child. Building a strong foundation of connection and attachment with your child serves as a cornerstone for numerous aspects of their well-being, especially when it comes to co-regulation.

These steps aren't just theoretical; they've been tried and tested in the trenches of real-life parenting. I've witnessed firsthand how they've made a difference in my own children's lives. Take, for example, my child who struggled with stomach issues due to anxiety. The vagus nerve massage became her go-to technique, offering relief even in school without drawing attention to herself.

Then there's my other child who found solace in box breathing during times of stress at a new school. Not only did she use it for herself, but she also taught it to her peers, spreading calmness in her surroundings.

What's remarkable about these strategies is their portability. While initially introduced with your guidance, children often internalize them, using them independently when you're not around. They become the tools your child carries with them, empowering them to navigate and endure their experiences with anxiety in the future.

I want to express my gratitude for joining me on this episode of the 3D Parent Podcast. As you embark on implementing the Six-steps to Co-regulate with your Anxious Child, I encourage you to share your experiences with me. Let me know which strategies resonate most with your family and any additional techniques you've found effective. Together, we can continue to learn and grow in our journey of supporting children experiencing anxiety!

Episode Resources:

Episode #50 “Parenting an Anxious Child”

Episode #87 "Parenting with Deep Connection"

Article: “When to Seek Additional Support for Your Child’s Anxiety”

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Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to episode number 93, six steps to calm your anxious child. So in my parent coaching practice, and as I've already stated in previous podcast episodes, I don't typically encourage parents to start with questions like, what do I do when my child does blank?

for tuning in. And I make the suggestion because I want to encourage parents to go deeper, not to be focused just on solutions and controlling behaviors, but instead to tap into their sense of direction, to get curious and observe what might be going on with their child, to make sense of what's driving behaviors, and then to do the work at that deeper level.

Today's episode is going to be a little bit different because I am going to provide you with some answers to a question of, what do I do when my child is experiencing anxiety? I'm going to be giving you some specific strategies that you can be using in those moments.

The reason why is because what is driving behaviors that are associated with anxiety is not rational, and it's not something that is easily solvable in the moment. But instead, something that requires you as the parent to kind of weather and navigate and make sense of over time, but to support your child in the moment you as the parent and caregivers are providing a sense of safety so that they can endure this experience of heightened anxiety and become more resilient.

I wanted to mention that I previously covered the topic of anxiety on a previous. Episode of the 3d parent podcast on episode number 50. Titled Parenting an Anxious Child. This is a great companion to the episode that I am rolling out today. On that particular episode, I gave an overview on anxiety. I covered some do's and don'ts for parents of anxious children, and I gave some practical, simple solutions, tips, and some perspectives for parents to follow.

Today, I'm giving you a specific strategy. So again, like I said, it's a really nice companion, but you may want to go back and listen to episode number 50 as well. If anxiety is something that you are struggling with in your parenting of your children. Anxiety, it gets a bad rap. We talk about it a lot as this big negative thing that we need to get rid of.

And that is not the case. Anxiety is a very necessary and it's a fundamental human emotion and something that every child, teen and adult experiences. We need to feel anxious at times. It's what moves us to find caution and safety. We should be feeling heightened anxiety around certain circumstances.

However, sometimes a child experiences an overwhelming amount of anxiety or frequent amount of anxiety. And at times that don't seem to be connected with something that necessarily warrants feeling this heightened level of anxiety. And that leaves both kids and their parents and caregivers perplexed and concerned.

About their child's health, emotional health and well being and parents oftentimes feeling at a loss of what to do. It's been well documented, well documented that today children and adolescents are grappling with. anxiety at an increased level and children and youth are being diagnosed with anxiety disorder at an unprecedented rates, creating an even more pressing need for parents to understand how they can support their children.

Throughout their experience with this very challenging emotion. Before I go forward any further, I do want to highlight the importance of parents understanding the necessity at times to seek additional support. This podcast episode is not meant to be a replacement. from the help and support that you could receive from your child's doctors or mental health professionals.

So you need to know when it's time to perhaps seek professional help and support for your child. You want to do so if you feel like your child's experience with anxiety is worsening or becoming more frequent, and it is starting to kind of impact multiple aspects of your child's or your family's life.

It's impacting perhaps your child's experience in going to school and participating in social activities, participating in activities that they want to do or previously liked to do, and perhaps impacting the family as a whole. Perhaps one child's experience with heightened anxiety is affecting everybody in the household.

So it seems like it's a more increased heightened topic that needs to be dealt with. for that child so they can get the support they need. Also, even though it might feel like it's still somewhat manageable, it is important to note that high levels of anxiety left untreated can become more difficult to treat, to treat over time.

So you do not want to wait too long to seek the advice of medical and mental health professionals. We also know that prolonged high levels of anxiety if left untreated can develop into other forms of mental illness or behavioral disorders. So you want to start off first by checking in with your child's pediatrician and then go from there.

I've included in the show notes, a link to an article entitled when to seek additional support for your child's anxiety, it will give you even more details on how to assess if. additional support as necessary. And if you decide it is, there's also great suggestions in the article on how to broach the subject with your child at an age appropriate level.

So all that said, even if it is determined that your child does need some additional tools and support based on where they are with their experience with anxiety, you are still going to be vitally important, even if your child is getting some more outside help. Because therapy, unless your child is in an elevated treatment program with more intensive treatment, they're probably going to be working with their therapist, if it is suggested they do so, maybe one hour a week, every other week.

So it's not a lot of time comparative to the amount of time that you have to support your child. So that's why today is one of the rare times that I will be answering, What do I do when In this case specifically, what do I do when my child is experiencing a moment of heightened and overwhelming anxiety?

We're going to start off first before I get into my six steps. We're going to start off first by going a little bit more upstream and thinking about holistically how you are showing up as a parent. And I have my 3D parent model. And as I talked about a lot on episode 87, Parenting with Deep Connection.

Your most powerful tool as a parent is your relationship, and hence building a secure relationship that is deeply and securely connected is vital. Developing and sustaining and nurturing that deeply connected relationship with your child is also going to be the most important part of you being able to provide support to your child with their anxiety.

Not only is this secure attachment with at least one significant caregiver, hopefully more, but at least one essential for a child to reach adulthood with the highest chance of optimal emotional health and maturity. It's also going to make guiding them a lot easier. A key example of how A deep connection makes it possible for a parent or caregiver or teacher or significant adult in a child's life.

It's the deep connection that makes it possible to be able to come alongside a child and their experience with difficult emotions such as anxiety. And it. Helps for a child to understand that their parent or caregivers understand the feeling and emotions that are stirring them up. Another essential role that the secure attachment.

This deep connected relationship provides is the ability for the parent to co regulate with the child when the child is unable to self regulate. Okay, what is this? What is co regulation? Co regulation is the ability to use one's own emotional state to help another person regulate their difficult or overwhelming emotions.

Like anxiety, another way you could think about co regulation is relational regulation. This is possible between parents and caregivers and their children when there is this sense of safety resulting from a secure attachment within the relationship. And this is a very helpful tool for a child who doesn't have the ability to self regulate right now due to either their stage of development, their temperament, or the nature of their current circumstances.

So if you have a child who is 5 to 7 or younger, they may just not have developed enough consistency in their ability to manage the emotion of anxiety, of heightened alarm. It might be too much and overwhelming for them, so they need your help to co regulate. Or it might be that your child's temperament is very highly sensitive in nature.

They feel their emotions really, really much greater than their peers. In those cases, if your child is highly sensitive and perhaps 7 to 9 years of age or younger, or maybe even older, and they still just really become overwhelmed when they experience this high anxiety, this heightened alarm or fear, they may need your help to co regulating, or like I said, it might be the nature of their current circumstances.

Maybe in general, they do pretty well with heightened alarm, heightened anxiety experiences, but right now, whatever the current circumstances are, overwhelming and they need your help to co regulate. The added benefit of co regulation is the capacity to model tools and strategies for children. That they'll eventually be able to access independently in the future at a time when you're not present.

So it's a really helpful thing to understand that co regulation is not enabling a child, that they're not going to be able to regulate on their own. But it is building towards that ability by modeling and building in some strategies and tools that they can draw from at future times when you're not around.

The next proactive tool that I want to mention before we get into the six steps is a way to support a child who is frequently anxious outside of a moment of heightened alarm. And the strategy I'm going to talk about right now, or the tool that is proactive, you're going to talk about outside of these moments of high anxiety.

The strategy is called name it to tame it. So before your child's next experience with anxiety, I want you to help them. Literally name and personify their anxiety, a name like Spike, Bob, Sheila, Nancy, it doesn't matter. Spike is actually the name for my third born child's anxiety. Bob is the name of my youngest anxiety.

I have done this with my children and found it to be very, very helpful. Here's why. This separates the anxiety from your child's core identity, and it is a great first step towards them feeling a sense of control over their anxiety versus feeling like their anxiety is controlling them. The strategy also helps kids view their anxiety as a part of them, but not all of them, which again can help in reducing a sense of overwhelm.

Borrowing a bit from the family systems, psychology or therapeutic approaches. Where you're thinking about parts of yourself, there's a part of me that feels anxious right now. And when I can separate that part of myself, I don't feel quite as overwhelmed by it. I already feel a little bit more in control.

And it's helpful to do that again, through naming to tame, name it to tame it. So in this case, I mean, Help your child determine a name for their anxiety. So maybe you've actually talked about anxiety, the actual technical term, anxiety with your child, or maybe you've just talked about their worries or feeling worried about something.

However, you've discussed this in the past, you want to have a conversation with your child and say, Hey, you know, sometimes you get really, really worried or you get that feeling in your stomach, you get that really uncomfortable feeling that's called anxiety. Or you can just say. That feeling we want to give a name to.

And so the next time you're feeling it, we're going to talk about that feeling by its name. So let's go ahead and come up with a good name right now. And then you could brainstorm and make it be fun, but just remember what this name is because it's going to be a part of the six steps that I'm going to go on and introduce now.

So I'm going to be starting with the six steps one by one, the six steps to co regulate with. Your anxious child step number one, your child is experiencing some heightened anxiety and alarm. It is time for them to go to their first karate class and they, Oh my gosh, they wanted to take karate so much.

They talked about karate with their friends, their friends said, Oh, we're going to. We are taking our class over here. You should join your child's like, I want to do it. You're like, absolutely. You sign them up. The day comes and your child is overwhelmed with anxiety and just like, Nope, not going to go. Step one, center yourself.

Before you can co regulate with your child, you need to be in a calm state yourself. It's a very common experience for children who have heightened levels of anxiety to also have parents who tend to run a bit more highly alarmed or anxious in nature. So this is a familiar experience for you and your family.

You're familiar with how it feels when your child is anxious, and you may find that your child's experience with heightened alarm and anxiety triggers your own anxiety. So step one, center yourself, take a moment to center your emotions and regulate your own nervous system. Try and make sense of where you're feeling this anxiety, this heightened alarm in your body.

Put your hand over your heart, do some deep breathing or other types of mindfulness exercises that you think can help you feel centered. You may want to go back and listen to episode 92, where there were some exercises introduced by my guest, Aparna, figure out what strategy is going to help you center yourself so that you will be able to effectively co regulate.

is identify your child's by name. So you've already named the anxiety at some other time. Now is the moment where you are going to acknowledge your child's anxiety by their chosen name. Something like, it looks like Spike just showed up. Today's that first day of karate. Spike came along for the ride.

That's interesting. So you're going to actually help your child now recognize, Oh, that feeling. Oh, oh, that's right. That's the part of me named spike. That's not all of me. That's a part of me. So you're now going to recall and identify the name your child gave their anxiety. Next thing you're going to say is, okay, so it looks like spike showed up where are you feeling

spike right now in your body. are you feeling spike hanging out? Where is he? Is he in your throat? Is he in your chest? Is he in your stomach doing these flip flops? Where are you feeling spike right now in your body? This right now is again helping your child feel separate that their anxiety is not all of them.

It's a separate piece. And it's also helping them bring some consciousness to where what's happening within their body and their brain. So they're starting to bring some understanding to, Oh, okay. Gosh, when spike shows up, I always get this nervous feeling in my stomach that makes me feel kind of nauseous, or I always feel it right in the middle of my chest or maybe my throat.

And then it feels like I'm going to cry. Helping your child identify where their anxiety is living in that moment in their body is also going to further help them go through these steps and be able to better endure and manage their experience with this heightened level of anxiety and alarm in the given moment.

Step three. Now you're going to ask your child to rate their level of anxiety. So ask your child. On a scale of 1 to 10, how big is Spike right now? How much of your body is Spike taking up right now? Is it, does it feel like 10? Like oh my gosh, Spike is taking over my entire body? Does it feel like 7? A lot?

It's feeling like almost unmanageable, but it's a lot. How big is spike right now from one to 10? This is going to help your child become more aware of their emotions and giving, also give both of you, both yourself and your child, like a baseline rating to work off of. It also is activating their thinking brain.

Remember when we're in a state of heightened alarm, we go into that reptilian. Brain, we go into that alarm response brain, that fight, flight, freeze state. When we're thinking about numbers and thinking about where I'm feeling things in my body, I'm already starting to get a little bit away from that.

fight, flight, freeze, alarm response, and back into my thinking brain. So this is yet another way that we're helping a child begin to regulate through co regulation. So we've just asked our child, okay, rate, how big is spike right now? Or how big is your anxiety right now? Whatever your child has named, they've given you a number.

Okay. Your anxiety feels like an eight. Wow. That's really, really big. Okay. So now we're going to go ahead and we're going to help you make. Spike smaller, and you're going to go into step four. Step four is to choose an emotional regulation tool. There are tons of emotional regulation tools that you can introduce and work through with your child.

I'm going to identify 10 of them right now. And when you are returning to this episode for more review so that you can do this with your own child, head over to the show notes so that you can. Pick whichever emotional regulation tool you think will most resonate with your child, will work best given what is currently going on, or maybe what you've tried in the past.

If some of these are things you've tried in the past and your child is not into it, skip that. Try one of the new ones. So these are the 10 emotional regulation tools that you're going to choose one to go with your work through with your child. So they just told you how big their anxiety is right now.

And now you're going to say, okay, we're going to try something right now and see if it helps make spike smaller and less room in your body. So here's the 10 regulation tools that I would suggest you picking one of these. Number one is a breathing technique called box breathing. And that's where you're going to coach your child through.

A method of breathing where they inhale for flow four counts. They hold for four counts, and then they exhale, exhale for four counts, and then they hold for four counts. And I want you to have them repeat this four times. It can be helpful to also draw kind of like the shape of a box as you're coaching through this so they have something visually to look at.

So you're gonna say. Inhale, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4, exhale, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4, inhale, 2, 3, 4. I'm going perhaps a little bit fast, but you get the idea there. So you're going to repeat that box breathing four times. That is strategy number one. Strategy two. a short inhale followed by a long exhale. So you're going to have your child take a really fast fill up their belly in inhale for one count and then exhale for a full two counts.

So they're going to try and control their breathing, exhaling. So that takes a full eight counts to release all the air and then do the same thing where they're going to do the quick inhale and then the exhale. And again, I would suggest that you have them try this exercise for four, maybe five times you decide what you think would be most helpful knowing that both of these breathing techniques that I mentioned are going to slow your child's heart rate down and reduce stress hormones.

If they are really, really, really extremely anxious, you may want to do each of these breathing techniques a few more times, or if it seems like it's mild tolerable, but still heightened, maybe four times. On either one of those will be sufficient. You can kind of gauge based on what your child is experiencing at that moment.

Okay. The third suggestion for an emotional regulation tool is the five senses mindfulness technique.

And that's where you're going to have your child name 5 things that they can see, 4 things that they can hear, 3 things that they can touch. Two things that they can smell and one thing that they can taste. This grounds them in the present moment and also helps reduce a sense of alarm. And again, it's activating that thinking brain again.

I always feel like the one thing they can taste, that one's always a little bit weird. Cause like. the air, but help them kind of think, okay, well, what does it taste like? Is it kind of salty? Or can you taste a little bit of the last thing you ate? Help them kind of figure out what those things are as they're naming those different things that they are sensing.

Okay. Emotional regulation tool number four, visualization. So for anxiety, that's stemming from a sense of overwhelm, your child just feels really overwhelmed by something that is just like, Oh, it feels too big for them. Ask your child to close their eyes and visualize. Feeling their sense of overwhelm, their spike as if they were wearing a thick, heavy, heavy coat when it is very hot and warm outside.

So have them close their eyes and like, okay. Feeling is like a thick, thick, heavy, hot coat and you're outside and the sun is beating down and you are so hot. Use a lot of descriptive language to help them create that sensation in their imagination. Then ask them, can you visualize it? Can you sense what that feels like?

Then say, well, that's kind of like what you're experiencing right now. And so now I want you to imagine taking off that coat, taking off that weight, taking off that heat and setting it aside. And now ask them to kind of imagine what it feels like when they take off that overwhelming weight and heat of the coat.

Then ask them to take a deep breath and then ask them to open their eyes. Okay, emotional regulation tool number five is the vagus nerve massage. So to do this with your index finger behind your ear and middle finger in front of your ear. Your child is going to slowly and with medium firm pressure, massage the bones, both in front of and behind both ears up and down, up and down.

This can be really helpful, especially for anxiety that induces a sense of an upset stomach or nausea. This is a big one for my kids. And I have introduced this Vegas nerve massage. To them to use at times when they feel like their stomach is upset. And then that kind of like creates more of a sense of anxiety and alarm because they sometimes have a big fear that they actually are sick or are going to throw up.

And so using this Vegas nerve massage technique can help reduce the amount of nausea and upset stomach that they're experiencing. And reduce the anxiety about whatever has stirred them up in the first place, plus the compounding anxiety about maybe I'm sick. So the vagus nerve massage is really, really helpful for those circumstances.

Emotional regulation tool number six, big belly laughter. So, after your child rated how big their anxiety is, you're going to now tell them a joke, tell them a funny story, watch maybe a humorous video. Maybe you can save some funny videos that you've watched on YouTube.

TikTok or Instagram for these purposes and see if it can trigger a big, belly laughter in your child that can be really effective in releasing tension and releasing stress and stress hormones. So it's not enough to kind of be like, it needs to be something that gets you really, really laughing.

So if you know something that tends to always get your child laughing, go there. Think about something that you can do to get your child to laugh. And get to the point of the big belly laughter. That is a great strategy, emotional regulation tool. Number seven, crying. If your child is feeling a lot of that anxiety in their throat, crying might be really, really helpful.

Sometimes children naturally get emotional when they're anxious. That's a good thing. Crying. And making it safe for them to express their emotion and metabolize and move their emotion through crying can be really effective. A very healthy emotional release, which also releases stress hormones through their tears.

We know this scientifically. So if your child's on the brink of crying, I'm not going to suggest that you Make them cry in, in terms of do something that's going to make them cry, but rather you kind of help make it safe for them to cry. And if they're going to be able to find their tears and cry about whatever it is that has them stirred up with their alarm, that can be a really effective tool to use to help them manage their and release that stress.

The next emotional regulation tool, number eight. a quick exertion of energy. So engage in some type of brief physical activity like jumping jacks or taking a brief, quick walk around the block or up and down the stairs of your house or apartment four times, five times, or putting on some music and dancing to it.

Something that's really high energy, releasing that energy, getting that quick, First and release of a physical activity can help with their stress and anxiety.

Emotional regulation tool, number nine, creative expression. If you have some time, this may not be that helpful if you have to kind of like that karate class is starting in five minutes, 10 minutes, but if you have time and your child has been feeling a lot of anxiety, encourage your child to do something creative.

Drawing or writing in a journal or playing an instrument as a creative outlet, being able to kind of express themselves creatively can be a really effective way to address and manage experience of anxiety and now emotional regulation tool. Number 10, the 22nd hug scientific research has found that a sustained hug for 20 seconds or more is a very effective.

co regulation strategy to decrease cortisol or stress hormone levels, and also at the same time increase oxytocin or bonding hormones between two people. So it's a really wonderful way to physically co regulate with your child. It needs to be about 20 seconds or longer. You want to be both standing on your own two feet, kind of equally weighted.

So it's not like one person is carrying all the weight of one or vice versa, equally weighted leaning in for at least 20 seconds or longer. Your heartbeat will help regulate the other person's your child's heartbeat. And again, like I said, this bonus is it increases oxytocin, which is that bonding hormone.

So If you have this strong attachment between parent and child already working for you, this just makes it that much stronger. So initially, when you're going to choose one of these emotional regulation tools, one of these tens or another that you might know already, if you're going to choose one of these 10, you want to initially make the choice for your child.

You don't want to say, okay, what strategy should we use right now? Do you want to do the breathing thing? Do you want to do the 22nd hug? Do you want to do some drawing? You don't want to initially ask them because that pressure to make a decision. Might increase their anxious feelings. So you want to very much be in that nurturing alpha position that one who's taking the lead and guiding your child towards emotional regulation.

So you say, okay, I want to try this strategy with you. I'm going to teach you right now. And then you make the choice and you go ahead and you lead them through it. You know, eventually you might determine that your child has a few favorites that works really well, and it might be that they can request one themselves.

Or you might say like, gosh, I know that last time you really liked that box breathing. Let's give that a try, unless you want to try something new. And if they say like, oh yeah, let's try something new, then you could pull out something new out of your bag of tricks. Or if they are like, yeah, let's do that again.

Then you can just dive right into a strategy that you know works for your child. Okay. Now we've moved on to step five, which is. After you have chosen your tool of choice, your emotional regulation tool of choice, and you have led your child through it, step five is to reassess your child's anxiety level.

So you're going to say, okay, let's go ahead and rate your anxiety now. Let's say how big does spike feel now and have your child give you the number. Hopefully the number is smaller. In my experience, going through this strategy with my children who experience indiety, the number usually is smaller. It's never been completely gone, but it almost always, in fact, I can't think of a time where it did not decrease at least some.

If it has not decreased enough that it feels tolerable for your child or it's only decreased a little bit. Then you go on to step six and step six is to repeat starting again at step four, which is to choose an emotional regulation tool to walk them through it again. My suggestion at first is to do the same tool that you already used once before.

So if you started off with a box breathing and said, okay, now how big is, how big a spike now? And your child was at a eight and they say, Oh, I think we're at a six. Okay, that's good. We made spike a little bit smaller, but I think we could get spike to get even smaller. Let's do four more. Inhale, exhale box, breathing rounds.

Let's go ahead and do it. So if your child's anxiety is still there, not decreased enough for your child's comfort level or your comfort level, repeat again a couple more times until they're level of anxiety as at a more tolerable level. We're not going to get rid of it altogether. Likely, especially not in a moment where your child already is experiencing heightened anxiety.

But you do want to be working towards your child, recognizing that, okay, I can use some tools, some strategies to make this feeling be not as big, not as overwhelming.

So you want to continue this process until your child's anxiety level and their discomfort lessens.

So in conclusion, I hope that this strategy that I have talked about today. is going to help you feel more empowered as a parent, recognizing that the strong foundation of connection and attachment that you are building and deepening with your child is this tool I keep on referring to that is really.

The foundational tool for so many things, but especially when it comes to co regulation. And when you have a child who is experiencing high levels of anxiety, I know what it feels like. I have been in that situation myself. I have a few children in my own household who at times have had very heightened, overwhelming experiences with anxiety.

And I know what it feels like to be overwhelmed. anxious about my child's anxiety, how I have felt at times, like, I don't know what to do. I'm scrambling. I'm trying to make things better, but I don't know how and developing these strategies and putting together in terms of these six steps is what I was able to do over some experimentation, connecting different strategies that I know have worked and I've gathered from different.

People, different folks who work with kids who are anxious with therapists, with people who help children, teens, and adults overcome high levels of anxiety. I've taken the best of the best and I have simplified and packaged it into these six steps to help co regulate your anxious child. Trust me, they work.

I have used these repeatedly with my children and they have come through a period of heightened anxiety and gotten to a place where they're starting to use these tools on their own when I'm not around. In fact, not so long ago one of my kids was having a lot of stomach issues driven largely by anxiety, but my child, this child also has a huge fear and phobia of throwing up.

So whenever she would feel an increase in anxiety, she'd feel it in her stomach. And then she immediately would go into a mode of feeling like, Oh no, now I'm going to throw up. So it would just kind of be like double the anxiety and it would get out of control. So for me going through this six steps strategy to co regulate with her, it was a game changer.

Her favorite strategy was the Vegas nerve massage. So I would talk her through it. I would co regulate with her. I would lead her through the exercises of how to massage on either side of her ear. Then lo and behold, I would check in with my child and say, gosh, did you feel that way at all at school? And she said, yeah, I did.

And I did that massage. I did that Vegas nerve massage at school. And what this child also told me was, and nobody knew I was doing it. So it was something that she could do privately without calling a lot of attention to it. Another great story. Another one of my kids who really likes box breathing. Last year, she was having a lot of anxiety in a new school environment.

And I taught her, I took her through this six steps to co regulate with her. And she really liked the box breathing. And I asked her, do you ever use that at school? And she goes, Oh yeah, I use it. And I actually taught it to the kids who stand next to me in line when we're lining up to go someplace. And I was getting everybody around me to do box breathing.

So adorable. But it's just to show you that these strategies, yes, maybe something that you are introducing initially and does require you to be a part of your child learning to regulate, but they do take these strategies and tools with them when you're not there and can help them find their own regulation and self regulate by pulling through these calming strategies.

On their own. So these, like I said, are building blocks to your child, being able to navigate and endure their experience with anxiety in the future.

I want to thank you for joining me today on the 3d parent podcast. I hope these suggestions are going to be beneficial. I want to encourage you to try the six steps strategy to co regulate with your anxious child and then let me know how it's going. Fill me in. What are your favorite strategies that you use with your child when it comes to those self regulation or co regulation, emotional regulation tools?

What's working for you? Let me know. Suggest ones that maybe I didn't mention that your family uses that your child likes so that we can all grow and learn together how to support our Children who are experiencing anxiety.

#93: 6 Steps to Calm Your Anxious Child

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