How to Care for an Anxious Child

As a parent or caregiver, it can be very difficult to see your child struggling with anxiety. We often think of anxiety as an “adult” condition. But it affects kids and teens, too. The sooner you’re able to recognize the signs of child anxiety, the sooner you can take steps toward helping your child.

Consider what your child might have to feel anxious about. Major life changes can be a big trigger. Things like divorce, moving, going to a new school, or the death of a loved one can all contribute to anxiety at an early age.

With that in mind, let’s dive deeper into some of the common signs of anxiety in children and what you can do to help your child if they’re anxious.

What Are the Signs of Anxiety in Kids?

It’s not uncommon for kids to experience fear and worry from time to time. The world is new, and they’re experiencing things for the first time. Occasional fears can typically be assuaged quickly. But there’s a difference between those fears and anxiety.

Anxiety, even in children, is persistent. It is an intense feeling of fear over everyday situations. Often, anxious thoughts about those situations are unwarranted, but they can’t be helped by the person dealing with them.

Anxiety impacts everyone differently. However, some of the most common signs of anxiety in children include:

●      Difficulty concentrating

●      Sleep troubles

●      Fidgeting

●      Getting angry or quickly irritable

●      Changes in eating habits

●      Constant worrying

●      Negative thoughts

If your child has been exhibiting one or more of these symptoms for a while, it’s likely they’re dealing with more than just “normal” worry. Again, no parent or caregiver wants to see their child struggle. Thankfully, there are things you can do to support them and help them fight back against anxious thoughts.

Validate Their Feelings

Let your child know that their feelings are valid and that you understand where they’re coming from. Everyone deserves to be heard, and when you assure your child that their emotions matter, they’ll be more likely to open up.

Do what you can to empathize with them. Put yourself in their shoes and talk about some of your own fears and how you’ve overcome them. Most importantly, be a listening ear. You’ll end up learning more than you might realize.

The better you understand your child’s anxiety by listening, the easier it will be to help them challenge their negative thoughts. You can serve as a support system to help them see past the fear so that they’re more likely to overcome it.

Practice Deep Breathing

Anxiety can take control of the mind quickly. If your child is struggling with fear, teach them how to come back down and regain control through deep breathing exercises.

Things like mindfulness and meditation are great ways for your child to center themselves and re-focus their mind. Practice deep breathing with them. Consider downloading a guided meditation app that can help them relax, and don’t hesitate to meditate with them!

Build Their Confidence

Because anxiety tends to thrive on the unknown, do what you can to build your child’s confidence. It’s especially important in areas where they might struggle with uncertainty. Praise them when they’ve done something difficult or overcome a challenge. Encourage them to focus on their strengths and skills. The more confident your child is, the less likely it will be for them to fall victim to fear.

Finally, don’t hesitate to reach out for professional help if your child is still struggling. The good news about anxiety is that it’s often very manageable — with the right treatment. Feel free to contact me for more information or to schedule an appointment for your child soon.

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This One Hack Allowed Me to Enjoy the Toddler Years

Parenting during the toddler years can be quite the rollercoaster ride. One moment you’re enjoying a snuggle with them on the couch, the next you’re navigating a full-blown temper tantrum because you handed them the wrong color cup. It’s a challenging season of parenthood, to say the least. It’s easy to get caught up in the hard moments, allowing a meltdown to overshadow the good moments.

Read Full Article.

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Beyond Pencils and Paper: Preparing Kids—and Parents--For a Vastly Different School Year

We are mere days from the start of an unprecedented school year. Summer’s end, and the start of a fresh academic year, always bring about a range of emotions—excitement, angst, anxiety and anticipation—for parents and kids alike. How do we prepare ourselves and our children, both pragmatically and emotionally, for a school year on the horizon that is fraught with such a lack of definitiveness?

More than anything else, our children depend on our direct communication, candor and emotional attunement. Let’s have open conversations with them in these final days leading up to September that help normalize their experience, and provide room for them to share their concerns without fear of our reactivity. You may wish to prepare them for a re-entry adjustment period; after so many months of family and home-time, children and parents alike will need to adjust to being apart, and being back in brick-and-mortar structures, for stretches of time. It may also be healthy to go over the possibility of school beginning and then returning to virtual, should the virus return, and to discuss the many steps being taken to reduce the probability of that taking place. Speaking about emotions and situations we are likely to experience in advance builds connectedness, reduces anxiety, and helps our children to understand that they are not alone with their big feelings. We can be transparent about our own difficulties confronting uncertainty. 

Like me, you have probably spent much of the summer asking yourself the “million-dollar question”: To send, or not to send? Perhaps you are now questioning that decision or experiencing self-doubt in your choice. That yellow bus, rambling down the road around September 1, whisking our children away for a year of social, emotional and intellectual development and scholastic achievement has always been something we can count on. Eek! Scratch that. No wonder so many of us have experienced tension, decision fatigue and stress. A steady and reliable system of infrastructure has been stripped down, tossed around, and reassembled in a way we don’t recognize. As parents, we are managing our own grief, frustration, fear and projections, while trying to model composure and instill confidence in our kids. 

First, I think we all could use a hug. We are each doing our best to ensure a safe and smooth path for our children, in uncharted waters, and therefore it has never been more important to be gentle with ourselves and each other. Second, I would like to suggest a courageous way of looking at this unusual school year. What if we attempted, both individually and collectively, to lean in to the uncertainty of these times? If I had to call out essential qualities for an effective life, I would use three words: Adaptiveness, flexibility and resilience. If I asked you to reflect, you would likely tell me that your biggest obstacles were what cultivated your character, and ultimately, produced your greatest results. I think we all theoretically agree that challenges force us to take a step back to examine what is working or not working in an objective way. In fact, I’m certain that, for you and I both, this recent reflection has already bred creativity and resourcefulness beyond what we all thought we were capable of.

While there are questions that no one can yet answer, we can focus on aspects that we can control. We can also remind our kids that unknowns are a part of life, and that while we don’t always like them, we do need to regulate through them. Be it in-person learning, distance learning, homeschooling pod, private tutor, or a hybrid model…we will each rise to the occasion this academic year. We’ve got this. We’re equipped. 

Originally published in "Greenfield Hill Neighbors Magazine August 2020 issue".

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A letter to my child, on the day of receiving your first phone

By Mary Dobson, MA, LMFT, CEDS

After speaking with parents of Burr and Dwight Elementary Schools in Fairfield about safe media use and teens, I was inspired to write a letter that may be used as a jumping off point for parents to start a conversation around phone usage.

My child...

I present to you, your very own phone.

This phone is a great tool. It can be used to connect you with your family and friends. It can be used to play your favorite music, to share funny memes with friends, and to take photos of the people and things that you love.

This phone also comes with a set of guidelines. These guidelines were carefully thought out, to protect you, and the people you communicate with, from harm.

It may come as a surprise to you, but many kids your age have gotten into big trouble because of behavior exhibited on this seemingly harmless little device.

Some of these behaviors feel uncomfortable to even speak about with you, because you are such a great kid, with a wonderful, kind, caring heart. I can’t picture you engaging in these kinds of behaviors, ever. But, I have come to learn that speaking with you about these dangers beforehand can help you to be better informed and also to hopefully avoid terrible problems.

Here are the guidelines I have set forth, and how we will prevent problems from becoming an issue in our family.

1.) We will not permit you to use your phone as a weapon.

I have learned that these phones can be used to bully and exploit others. Exploit means, trying to hurt someone by taking their image and using it against them. This can be done in several ways. Kids take pictures and videos of others without their permission, and post them. Other kids may comment on these images. Taking pictures and videos of others without their permission is unacceptable and also has legal repercussions. If we, your family, discover that you have done this, your phone will be taken for four weeks time.

What is even worse, and this makes me very uncomfortable to mention, is that sometimes, boys request pictures of girls. Girls can feel pressured and confused by this and provide those pictures to boys.

My son, I want you to imagine that your sister or cousin were put in this difficult position by a peer at school. Could you imagine how painful it would be for her if she sent a photo of herself and others saw it? Son, doing this and getting caught WILL result in legal action taken against you by your school, or the girls parents. Doing this and getting away with it could permanently erode your value system, sense of self, and how you see and interact with women in the future. We know you are curious and that this can be a confusing time in life. But, requesting or sharing pictures of women is explicitly prohibited and if we find you are using your phone in this way, we are prepared to remove your phone for three months, as well as have you apologize to the girl in question, and her family. We hope to never be put in a position of having to have this conversation with you. We also hope that if you learn of doing anything of this nature, you will let us know immediately, so that you can help to protect the girls in your class, as well as the boys who are doing this from getting in terrible criminal trouble down the line. We will not punish you for turning someone in.

My daughter, I want you to understand something. Your body is a precious gift, and it belongs to you and you alone. Please talk to us if you are being pressured to share pictures of your body. We will discuss how to handle it appropriately. Please never feel obligated to share an image of yours with anyone. Sharing a compromising image of yourself will not make you more popular, but it might ruin many years of your life. Imagine an image of you being seen by your principal, or the police. This is what can happen and will happen when someone is caught for this behavior - and they almost always are. I promise you that this behavior will only make your life very difficult in the future. Furthermore, if we learn that you have shared images with anyone on the internet, we will remove your phone for three months time.

2.) Parental oversight.

We will monitor your phone regularly. Texts are not to be deleted, and we will reserve the right to retrieve deleted texts from the carrier database, as well as remove your phone for one month for deleting texts.

3.) The following apps are permitted: ———. You are not to download any apps. We will maintain the iCloud password to ensure that you are not able to download apps addition to the ones we have set up on your phone.

4) The phone can be used at the following times:

When homework and chores are complete

Before 8:30pm

Never during school hours

Never during mealtimes with friends or family

5) If we feel you are experiencing personality changes after getting a phone, we will remove your phone, out of concern for your wellbeing. The jury is out on how having phones this young will impact young people. We want to keep you healthy, happy and safe above all else.

We hope you understand these conditions.

We love you and congratulations on your first phone.

Love,

Mom and Dad.

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Extreme Picky Eating In Kids: What Is It, and What Can Parents Do?

Extreme Picky Eating (EPE) is a selective eating disorder that doesn’t fall into the category of Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), namely because it hasn’t been sustained for long enough. So, who qualifies for this diagnosis, and what can we do to help prevent it from progressing into full blown ARFID?

In my practice, where I have treated children with EPE and ARFID for over a decade, I have found children commonly susceptible to this disorder tend to possess the following characteristics: generally tuned into parents’ agenda and pressure, cautious, and prone to shyness, emotionality, and irritability.

When informed about nutrition and variety, children suffering from this condition tend to appear nervous and admit that they don’t like to eat. They also have a genuinely hard time identifying any foods that they do like. They may appear wary when the topic of food is broached; as, by the time they are presenting to therapy, food intake has likely become a point of contention and a topic of regular debate at the family table. Overwhelmingly, children presenting with these conditions do not report any discomfort with their size or stature, or acknowledge difficulty with body image. In fact, they’re frequently as baffled about why they are so adamantly resistant to certain foods as the rest of us. They’ll go to tremendous lengths to avoid acquiescing to foods they admonish, but, when push comes to shove, are unsure why.

In my experience, when a cautious temperament is combined with sensory issues, feeding can become particularly hard, with landmines for parents at every crosshair. It is commonly known that taste and tactile processing issues are linked to eating difficulties. In cases where these issues are known, we commonly engage an occupational therapist to work parallel in our efforts for best results.

So, what are the underlying issues behind EPE? A cocktail of traits, one would find, including sensory preferences (bland/strong repetition, taste/smell, visual, ie, the look of food, tactile, ie, the feel of food, auditory, ie the volume of room/stimulation. We have had patients who cannot eat when their sibling is making loud chewing noises, and patients who are ‘grossed out’ by food appearing slimy, mushy, or too spicy/exotic.  

As I mentioned, often, extreme picky eaters possess underlying sensory issues, or, just as frequently, anxiety or inattentive ADD. If a child has experienced an oral trauma such as choking, they may project that this occurrence will happen again should they consume the same, or a similar, food.

With this said, you can easily see how sensory seeking or avoidance children would experience similar difficulties relating to mealtimes. In childhood, we begin the process of encouraging self-regulation: helping children to learn to eat appropriately based on hunger, fullness, appetite, and teaching them to tune into hunger and satiety. For sensory seekers or sensory avoiders, this is challenging.

Ultimately, there are many factors to face before diagnosing a child with Extreme Picky Eating. Are they emotional at mealtime (crying or feeling  bad around food?) Has their physical growth been impeded? Have there been social repercussions (has the child been teased, or has excessive attention been paid to the problem? Does the child’s limited menu prevent social functioning? If so, it is likely that the child qualifies for a diagnosis of ECE, and they (and caregivers) will require help.

Due to the complex nature of this topic, I will address tools and interventions in a blog to follow next week.

If you are concerned about your child suffering from EPE, you are welcome to email us at mary@liftupwellness.comfor an assessment.

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