Five Steps to Reduce Childhood Anxiety

Anxiety is a growing problem that affects children and adults.

Mental health has become a significant issue as a result of conditions imposed by prolonged isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of children, the situation of uncertainty and enclosure caused could be playing an essential role in the increasing number of cases of childhood anxiety.

A recent study by Save the Children, has found that one in four children suffer from isolation anxiety derived from the coronavirus. The study involved more than 6,000 children from Germany, Finland, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

In previous articles, we have written about anxiety, why it is different from stress, and how to detect it in children. However, it is also important to know what steps we can take to alleviate it down at home and discern when and how it would be necessary to seek the help of a professional.

Helping children maintain low levels of stress so as not to generate anxiety is not as easy as it reads, especially with the schools closed, many extracurricular activities suspended, and restrictions on leaving home. Nevertheless, there are measures that mothers and fathers can take to encourage open dialogue and be consistent with their accompaniment that lessens the symptoms of anxiety while in quarantine.

Five measures to reduce childhood anxiety

1. Stay calm and assume a support role

The first step is to review your anxiety levels and use the right mechanisms to keep yourself calm. Children tend to copy the behavior of their parents or people close to them. They are also perceptive and could not only notice the stress in their environment but replicate it.

It is necessary to be aware of our behaviors and the emotions that we project when we are close to the children in our care. Also, we should establish times for conversation when we can communicate our feelings empathetically and positively so that children can follow the example when they talk about how they feel.

2. Design a routine (but be flexible)

In a situation of uncertainty such as the pandemic, routines can be an emotional refuge that helps create a safe place for children. Having a plan and a set of activities keeps their minds active; it gives them structure and a resource to stay positive after completing their assigned tasks.

In addition to schoolwork, household chores, and exercise, it is advisable to allow kids to participate in the selection of activities. In this way, the routine will include things to their liking, and they will feel like they play a significant role in family life.

Similarly, it is important to consider that the purpose of a routine, both for parents and children, is to create an environment of stability, a safe space. But no routine, plan, or schedule is written in stone; if there is something that does not work, it is crucial to be open-minded and have the flexibility to change it, either for a day or permanently. The routine, in this case, would exist to meet the psychological and emotional needs of the family, not the reverse.

3. Help the children maintain their social connections

One of the most severe problems for the psychosocial development of quarantined children is the lack of instances when they can socialize. With the schools closed and meetings canceled, it is necessary to use technological resources to help the children procure contact with their schoolmates, teachers, family, and friends.

Using Facetime, Zoom, and other real-time communication platforms help children maintain their virtual socialization. While not as good as face-to-face encounters, this technology still functions as a necessary resource to support their mental health, communication skills, and social life.

4. Encourage times for personal care

In times like this, it is essential to teach children about the value of taking care of themselves. Simple actions such as taking a moment for themselves, attending to their hygiene, playing, watching, or reading something they like, meditating as a family, and talking could be effective self-care measures.

Both children and adults need to do auxiliary activities to care for their mental and physical health. It is crucial to guide the children to find and adopt the self-care activities that help them most.

5. Understand the “new normal.”

One of the variables that makes it more difficult for children (and also many adults) to adjust to the isolation period and preventive measures is the conception that this is for an extended period. The problem with seeing it this way is that the arrival of a deadline for these measures is assumed, but it never comes. This situation not only extends the period of confinement, but our resistance to it, and this becomes even more complicated for children, who do not have the same tools to navigate and understand their environment in the same way as adults.

Children do not perceive time in the same way as adults. So continually telling them that we are in a finite situation can affect them more negatively than adults when they see that the finish line moves farther away every time they seem to reach it.

In simpler terms, to give children the tools to cope emotionally with the quarantine, we need to stop telling them that the pandemic and confinement will end soon. For them, the word “soon” means something much more immediate than for adults, especially if they do not have all the information that the adults possess about how the virus has developed and how it has affected both economic structures and social dynamics.

Perhaps, adapting to this “new normality” as adults, and understanding that it is temporary does not mean the end is near can help us find the stability we need to support the children in our care to understand the same thing. Then, we can come to admit together about the pandemic’s end in the future and its permanence in the present.

If the child continues to show symptoms of anxiety after applying these measures, it is advisable to solicit help from a professional. A psychologist has the tools to support a child whose anxiety problem is more severe. It is crucial not to skip this measure because an unattended anxiety problem can lead to more serious disorders such as depression or chronic stress.

Do you have children at home with anxiety? What methods
have you used to lessen their symptoms? Tell us in the comments section below.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Sofía García-Bullé

Share

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0