My daughter hates having a loose tooth. Her anxiety increases every time she has one. She will not let my wife or I pull her tooth out. She truly hates the feeling. This is because the first time a tooth fell out it was a really uncomfortable experience for her.
So now when she has a loose tooth she begins to withdraw from activities, and stops eating crunchy foods because she doesn’t want to risk the discomfort of her tooth falling out. We have found a solution as a family, while not the most frugal approach, we learned that she trusts the dentist, and when her tooth is loose we take her to the dentist and pay to get it pulled. That way she can resume participating in her life.
While this is my daughters experience with anxiety, it is important to understand that everyone has experienced fear and anxiety at some sort of level. Fear is healthy, it is the body’s response to a threat. It is when the fear response happens when it shouldn’t, or when the response to the fear is not proportional, that it becomes anxiety.
When anxiety hits, the brain goes into its survival mode and responds with fight, flight or freeze instincts. This means that the ability to think, recall, and process information is limited. Some people even “black out” and can’t recall what happened during a highly anxious moment. It typically takes the brain and body 60-90 minutes to calm back down.
In the cases of children, they may not be aware of what is happening, all they know is that they are overwhelmed. The cerebral cortex, the brains captain, is no longer in command when the brain is emotionally flooded, so children need someone to act as their captain during those moments.
However, parenting a child that is anxious can be frustrating and difficult. As the child may be clingy, aggressive, and have sleep difficulties; this may result in school avoidance or withdrawal from activities.
As parents, the best way to help a child with anxiety is to create an environment that establishes and maintains safety. Typically this is done by having a stable and consistent routine, this way a child knows what to expect and what is expected during a day.
It is helpful as a parent to learn if your child benefits from mind to body or body to mind exercises to soothe. An example of mind to body is meditation, mindfulness or visualizations; whereas body to mind is yoga, hot baths or bilateral movements. Each child is different, and each situation may be different with which kind of soothing to do.
It is also important to note, as the Alcoholics Anonymous programs teaches, that being hungry, angry, tired or lonely, makes one vulnerable for relapse, and in this case, makes ones response to fear more likely.
But most of all, love your child, show empathy, and get into your child’s world to understand what increases their anxiety and what helps calm them.
