How I am helping my son tackle his anxiety

Topics mentioned: anxiety, school anxiety

Keep asking questions to try to understand the cause of the anxiety. What are they feeling worried about, why, what do they think will happen?

Here’s an example. Last year, my son was getting very anxious on a Sunday evening. I started to ask him various questions. Asking ‘what’s worrying you?’ led to me understanding that it was about going into school. Questioning ‘why?’ led to him telling me that school swimming was making him anxious. I continued to question. ‘Why does school swimming worry you?’. I learnt that he felt pressured to jump into the pool out of his depth and worried he might drown. I then asked him what would happen if he got into difficulty. He replied that the swimming teacher would jump in and save him. So, we concluded that he wouldn’t drown.

We’re not quite there yet. My child still gets anxious about jumping in the pool and is slowly working towards jumping in further out of his depth. But at least now I understand why he feels anxious.

A great piece of advice that I received was to take time out each day, just you and your child, and give them 15 minutes or so of worry time. The idea is to dedicate a certain amount of time for talking about their worries, so that the whole day isn’t consumed by discussing their anxieties. It’s still important to acknowledge a concern if your child raises it outside of worry time, but also to encourage them to wait until later to discuss it properly. This dedicated time is for thrashing out their anxieties and then, hard as it can be, parking them.

If your child has a particular anxiety that you can pinpoint - separation anxiety in my child’s case - try creating and implementing a step-by-step chart with them. Step one could be to play in a local park with their parent or carer watching from a safe distance. The following steps should be something that they find a little harder and will cause a bit of anxiety. The final step could then be for them to spend a couple of hours at a club or unfamiliar setting.

This one-step-at-a-time approach has helped my son grow in confidence and overcome some of his anxieties. He recently tackled the final step which was to attend a party without me staying. My husband and I were his cheerleaders throughout this approach. Keep cheering them on, it really does work!

You never know who’s going through the same thing and can offer valuable advice. Remember, you may need support too. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I did and without the support that I have received, I wouldn’t be able to write this post and share what I have learnt.