Kids and anxiety — it’s about coping
Anxiety isn’t new — and it isn’t going away. Yet these days, it can feel overwhelming — almost like an epidemic. In many ways, the parental instinct is to protect our kids from anxiety, protect them from what may be traumatic. But by protecting them, we are not helping them, says Lynn Lyons, a licensed clinical social worker based in Concord, NH and co-author of the book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children.
Lyons, who specializes in helping kids deal with anxiety, argues that we need to teach kids to “lean into anxiety” rather than run away from it — or ignore it.
Why it matters:
Anxiety seems to become an epidemic, Lyons said during the fall speaker series hosted by the Parents Council of Washington held October 22 and 23 at the National Presbyterian Church in conjunction with National Presbyterian School.
“Why are Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” The New York Times asked in October 2017. “Parents, therapists and schools are struggling to figure out whether helping anxious teenagers means protecting them or pushing them to face their fears.”
Some highlights from her presentations:
- Anxiety isn’t just about kids. It becomes part of a family’s ecosystem. Lynn notes that she doesn’t meet with kids alone. Her rule is that you can drive to the session by yourself, she will meet with the person by themselves.
- Our kids speak English… because we teach them English; Our kids eat with a spoon… because we teach them to eat with a spoon.
- One of my favorite quotes: “For parents — if it’s nature, it’s you; if it is nurture, it’s you.”
- “Embrace it. Don’t try to eliminate it.”
- The more you try to eliminate anxieties, the more you get caught in the cycle, and anxiety gets more powerful. And, again, anxiety knows how to be overwhelming. And it gets better at its job with practice.
- Anxiety serves a purpose — to keep us alive. Fight or flight — the challenge is that our amygdala can’t tell the difference if we are being chased by a bear or whether we are afraid of monsters in the closet. Anxiety’s tools are also effective so they aren’t ignored. Anxiety knows how to be overwhelming.
- Anxiety is not complicated. Anxiety is the voice that says, ‘Blah, blah, blah… and you can’t handle it.’
- Focus on the how, not the why — the why will always exist. We can’t argue the facts. The facts don’t matter. The WHY changes — in the end, the WHY doesn’t matter.
- The context trap — anxiety cannot be satisfied with data. She spoke about one kid that was anxious about monsters in the closet. The parents opened the closet and told the kid, ‘See, there are no such thing as monsters.’ To which the child responded: ‘Then why did you look?’
- It doesn’t just happen. Parents need to teach children how to handle and deal with their anxiety.
- Don’t try to deal with anxiety in the moment; just work to get deal with that moment.
The skills we need to teach our kids:
- Tolerate — and even normalize — discomfort;
- Externalize/react differently to anxious thoughts;
- Learn by doing, failing and succeeding;
- Handle the uncertainty of life;
- Be more flexible — malleability;
- Problem solve (vs ruminate).
- How do you manage when things don’t go as planned?
Skills to deal with anxiety when it arises:
- Externalize it — even given it a name… talk to it. Know how to identify it
- ‘That sounds like worry to me’
- ‘Let’s listen to it, but let’s not believe everything it says’
- Experiment — do stuff.
- Exercise and sleep help.
- The brain learns by doing, and anxiety is strengthened by avoidance.
Resources
- Fact-sheet handed out at the session… via Dropbox (downloadable)… via Scrib
- Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children
- Lyons’ other book: Playing With Anxiety: Casey’s Guide for Teens and Kids
- Lyons on Twitter: @lynnlyonsmsw
- Mentioned by Lyons: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?: [The Atlantic, October 2017] More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.
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