The more teachers, coaches, or any important adult can help children feel safe, seen, cared for, the more those kids will feel safe enough to ask for help, take safe risks, learn, be curious, be brave, learn, grow.

The research is so clear on this. Students who genuinely feel cared for by their teachers do better at school. This is because when children feel relationally safe, the learning brain opens wide up. Without that felt sense of relational safety, the brain will focus on getting ‘safe’ rather than learning.

Brains are here to keep us safe. They aren’t here to keep us happy, for relationships, learning, play – unless that matters right now for our survival. The priority for all brains is safety. When we talk about ‘safety’, this isn’t about what is actually safe or not safe. It’s about what the brain perceives. It’s also not just about physical safety. Relational safety (feeling cared for, welcome, seen, validated, free from humiliation, shame, judgement) is just as important to the brain. 

When the brain registers any form of threat, even if ‘threat’ is unlikely or teeny, it will hoard all available resources in case it needs them for survival. Only when brains feel truly safe 

Any ideas that behaviour at school should be managed with separation-based discipline, shame, star charts or behaviour charts or anything that publicly ranks students (someone is always on the bottom – usually the same someones), or overly-stern voices are outdated and are not at all informed by science. Fear does not motivate. It shuts down the learning brain and makes it impossible for children to learn. It does the same to adults. It’s also why we need to steer away from suspensions and stand-downs. None of these fix the problem long term. They’re the biggest ‘you’re not welcome’ signs children can get and will only contribute to the problem long-term. Of course, none of this means ‘no boundaries’. It means building relational safety and setting and enforcing boundaries in ways that don’t tear it apart.

Unless you’re one of the ones anxious kids feel safe with, you’ll only see the tip of what they are capable of. School and learning were never meant to be about how outgoing kids are or how confident they are in initiating contact with an adult. Greatness is built bit by bit, and the foundations are strongest when it’s safe.

What parents can do.

• Know that whatever you decide, they will follow. Do you believe they are safe and loved at school? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Building relationships that feel safe and loving for children takes time. If you aren’t quite there yet, they won’t be either. What can help you feel more certain? Do you need a conversation? More information? Help to facilitate a relationship between your child and an anchor adult? Have a conversation with your child’s school. They want to be the best they can be for your child too, and you’re the one who can help that happen.
• Be the ‘glue’ that connects your child and their teacher. Whenever you can, let your child know you like and trust their teacher. To facilitate this, ask your child’s teacher to tell you something your child did well – maybe once a month or once a fortnight. Then, pass this on to your child. ‘Mrs Jones emailed me to let me know how hard you’re working in maths. I really love the way she noticed that about you.’ Or, incidental comments sprinkled around that sound something like, ‘I really like your teacher. I think you got a goodie with Mr Smith.’

What teachers can do.

• Let them know you’re their person: ‘I’m going to help you do the very best you can this year. ‘Being my best’ will mean different things to different people. I’d love to know what this means for you and how I can help. What matters most to me is that you try hard, make brave choices, be kind, and know that you can come to me any time. The more you can help me understand what you need and what doesn’t work for you, the more I can help you have a great year. I’m so pleased you’re in my class.’
• At the start of the year (or any time), ask them to write the answers to the following questions:
  • What does ‘doing well this year’ look like for you?
  • What might make this hard?
  • How can I help?
  • What are three things teachers have done for you in the past that have helped you have a good year?
  • What are three things that teachers have done in the past that have made it harder?
  • I wish my teacher knew …
• Build the connection. Micro-moments matter. Whenever you can (and you might not be able to do this all the time, and that’s okay), connect when they walk into the room. Let this be verbal or non-verbal. As soon as kids walk into a room, they’ll be looking to the adult in the room for, ‘Do you see me? Are you happy I’m here? Are you ready to receive me today?’ They’re looking to answer the big relational safety question: ‘Am I welcome here?’

And finally …

Good teachers change lives. They really do. So much of a young person’s experience at school isn’t about what teachers teach but about who they are. When children feel seen and safe, learning will happen. The brain will surrender safety resources and allow those resources to feed into curiosity, learning, connecting, and growing in all the vibrant ways we know they can. 

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An anxious brain can’t learn. The thinking brain (the prefrontal cortex) can only be ‘on’ when the whole brain feels safe: physically safe (free from hunger, pain, exhaustion, sensory overload/ underload) and relationally safe (seen, welcome, cared for, connected to).

Of course we want to support academic progression, but if we shortcut the opportunity or time for teachers to be able to build relational safety in the classroom, learning won’t happen. Without relational safety, there will be anxiety. It can be easy to overlook these kids or assume that they are giving everything they have to give, but too often, they will fall short of their potential.

Let’s not make the mistake of thinking we’ve seen everything these kids have to give or that we know what they’re capable of. They don’t even know what they’re capable of yet, but we know they can do hard things and surprising things – they just need to feel safe enough first. They need us to stay curious about their potential until they feel safe enough to let us uncover that potential.

Children can only learn when they feel relationally safe: when they feel cared for, connected to, and noticed by their teacher. When we talk about ‘safety’, we’re talking about what the brain perceives. Being safe doesn’t mean feeling safe. Children can have the world’s warmest, most loving teacher, and be a part of the safest, most caring school, but this doesn’t mean the brain will feel safe.

Relationships take time, and learning can’t happen without them. Yet, our teachers are under more pressure than ever (as are our children!) to show academic results. Some kids will excel no matter what’s happening in the room, but too many won’t. This isn’t because they aren’t capable, but because they don’t feel safe enough – yet.

Until children feel safe enough, we will only see the fringes of what they can do. We don’t need to change them – there is nothing wrong with them. What’s wrong is the world that thinks all children should feel safe with all adults, even ones they don’t know yet. This idea is ridiculous.

These kids don’t want to be ‘indulged’. They want to feel safe. We all need that, so we need to be kind to our teachers too. We need to give teachers more time and opportunity to build the relationships that let them do their jobs. Building relationships isn’t a distraction from teaching. It’s the vital foundation of teaching.

The teachers that get the importance of relationship are magic-makers – they change lives – but learning might take longer at first, while the relationship is building. When the relationship is there, these teachers have the most profound capacity to lead even the most anxious kids into learning, brave behaviour and discovering their rich potential.

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For sure, anxiety can really intrude into a young person’s life, but the more we talk about anxiety in terms of breakage or deficiency, the more this will become a part of their experience. Especially for young people with intrusive anxiety, there is nothing to be served in pathologising anxiety.

What we focus on is what becomes powerful – so let’s shift the focus. Let’s stop talking about anxiety as a ‘disorder’, breakage, or deficiency, and towards normalising it. We won’t get rid of it, so let’s turn it from a scary beast of a thing, to an ally. This starts with the way we talk about it.

Anxiety does not come from a broken brain. It comes from a strong, powerful brain that is doing its job – protecting them from danger. All brains sometimes work too hard sometimes, and instead of protecting, they overprotect.

Brains can’t tell the difference between things that are scary dangerous, and things that are scary safe (new, hard, brave, important things).

Let them know: Anxiety is a ‘just in case’ response. Just in case you need to run away or fight, I’m getting your body ready – just in case – but you decide: ‘Is this a time to be safe? Sometimes it will be. Or is this a time to be brave?’

Anxiety shows up to check that you’re okay, not to tell you that you’re not. It’s your brain’s way of saying, ‘Not sure – there might be some trouble here, but there might not be, but just in case you should be ready for it if it comes, which it might not – but just in case you’d better be ready to run or fight – but it might be totally fine.’ Brains can be so confusing sometimes!

All young people need to know …

Your anxiety is there to check that you’re okay, not to tell you that you’re not.

You have a brain that is strong, healthy and hardworking. It’s magnificent and it’s doing a brilliant job of doing exactly what brains are meant to do – keep you alive.

Your brain is fabulous, but it needs you to be the boss. Here’s how. When you feel anxious, ask yourself two questions:

– ‘Do I feel like this because I’m in danger or because there’s something brave or important I need to do?’

– Then, ‘Is this a time for me to be safe (sometimes it might be) or is this a time for me to be brave?‘

And remember, you will always have ‘brave’ in you, and anxiety doesn’t change that a bit.

And finally.

Words are powerful. They drive thoughts, feelings, responses. The more sting the words have, the more sting the experience will have. The way we talk about anxiety won’t be the whole story, but it matters. It has to be part of any response.

The post Anxiety is … a feeling, not a disorder. appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

Perfectionism is a form of ‘flight’, as in, ‘What if it’s wrong?’ ‘What if I’ve made a mistake?’

Of course, we want them to recognise their potential and go after that, but mistakes will be part of that.

Mistakes are part of learning, not a disruption to it. There’s a part of the brain that is only activated when we make a mistake. We’ll remember the word we got wrong in the spelling test or the feedback from that thing we did that we cared about.

Perfectionism can be a sly little beast. It can hold kids back from taking safe risks that will grow them. They’ll be less likely to try new things or hard things unless they know they’ll do them well. Or they might procrastinate (also flight) and leave things until the last minute.

For these kids, mistakes or failure will trigger a felt sense of relational threat. ‘What if I’m humiliated?’ ‘What if my teacher or my parents think less of me?’

To support children through perfectionism we need to build as much relational safety as we can.

Focus on effort over outcome: ‘What matters more than the mark is the work you’ve put into it. There will be more tests and assignments, but what’s going to matter isn’t the mark you got today, but that you’re willing to try/ have a go.’ Or, ‘Whatever happens, I couldn’t be prouder of you. You’ve worked so hard and that’s what matters most.‘

Shift the focus from the ‘threat’ (the mistake) to the ‘opportunity’ (the learning). ‘I can hear how much the mistakes matter to you, but I’m really interested in what you’ve learned.’

Perfectionists will put more pressure on themselves than we ever can. Any anxiety they feel from us will add to the pile-on.

Don’t tell them you can handle imperfection – show them. Share, with strength, your own stories of failure or mess-ups – the littles and the bigs.

Most importantly, don’t protect them from mistakes or failure. Our job isn’t to protect them from the discomfort of imperfection but to make space for the experiences that will show them that they (and we) can handle their imperfections.

The truth is, it’s the vulnerability that comes with imperfection, and our willingness to embrace that, that we tend to love most about each other.

The post Let’s Talk About Perfectionism – Why it happens. What do do. appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

We are having to adapt in ways that are completely new, and the unfamiliarity of this can bring anxiety for us and our children. Unfamiliar things do that.

For the children and teens in your life, the antidote to their anxiety is you – your words, your presence, your warmth and wisdom. Whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or other trusted adult, you have a profound capacity to bring comfort to their world. They need the same things we all do at this time, radical tenderness, play, sleep, exercise, to be held close and loved big. If schedules or routines fall away in favour of this, that’s okay. If screen time gets a little longer and bedtimes get a little later, that’s okay too. These are such extreme circumstances, and there is no formula for how to move through this. We do what we need to do, and if playing, and telling stories, and watching movies together takes the place of schedules and routines, and if that’s what makes them (and you) feel more held through this, then that is what needs to happen.

There will come a time when we will return to normal. It will be a new normal, perhaps, but it will have more of the safety, predictability, and familiarity that comes with a version of normality. The task then will be getting kids back to school, but that will be easier if we can provide a bridge for that before then. There is no hurry for this to happen, but it is something to keep in mind. That bridge might look like online catch-ups with friends, or building an association between something (a music playlist, mindfulness meditations), and feeling calm. Then, when it comes time to return to school, they will have something they can tap into to that can help activate those feelings of calm in the brain. For now though, the focus is on keeping each other safe, and doing what we can to make the world feel safe enough for our children. 

For us, the adults in their world, it’s about coming back to the things we know to feel safe and certain. This might look different for all of us – reading, playing, walking, getting outside into nature, exercising, sleeping, playing, cooking, but maybe not tonight, watching movies, or taking warm baths. If you’re not sure what it is, what helped you feel safe when you were little? Can you go back to that?

We have to do what we need to take care of each other. For the moment this means those of us who can stay home, need to stay home. For those who can’t – our teachers, nurses, hospital staff, doctors, supermarket employees, paramedics, police, and many others – we need to stay home for them too. They are the heroes, and it’s the least we can do for them and for their families. This is important, and it’s what we have to do, but it has consequences. People will feel more isolated, or lonely, perhaps more anxious or sad. Don’t underestimate what the little things might mean to the ones in your life who might be missing you, or who might be feeling more separate from the world, or maybe more anxious than usual – phone calls, messages, video chats, social media tags with ‘this reminded me of you’ in the message. Let’s not take the little things for granted. They matter. As it turns out, the little things will be the big things that will get us through this.

Yes, we need to physically isolate ourselves, but let’s not isolate ourselves socially or emotionally. We need each other more than ever – not only to get to the other side of this on a global scale, but individually. Let’s be more like the people we need to be, and the people we were called to be. Let’s leave judgement and comparison and righteousness well behind. They have nothing for us anyway. They never did. And let’s replace them with radical kindness, compassion, and open-heartedness. Let’s do that.

We will get through this, and we’ll do it together x

The post When That Which Isolates Us, Unites Us – Connection in the Time of Corona appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

There are two important reasons for this. The first is because our children deserve so much more than to be growing up feeling hopeless, helpless and frightened. The second is because we can’t solve the environmental crisis without them. They are powerful and important, and everything they do matters. When anxiety gets too big though, it will steal their capacity to realise this – but as the important adults in their lives, we can change that.

We can help them realise that eco-anxiety is not a prediction of doom, but a call to action – a call to that important, powerful, brave part of them that can make a difference. We can help them realise that their anxiety does not speak of the hopelessness of it all, but of something meaningful that needs their attention. Even more importantly, it speaks to their power to respond to this meaningful, important thing in a way that can make a profound difference.

Shifting the mindset. ‘That feeling you’re feeling – it’s anxiety, and it’s there to give you what you need to do powerful, important things.’

Our children can be change-makers, and everything they do will matter in the fight to save our planet. First though, we must offer them an antidote to fear and helplessness. This comes by giving them hope and direction. Hope to build their sense of safety in the world, and direction so their anxiety can do its job and mobilise them towards meaningful action.

We need to help them see this crisis is not an ending, but an opportunity for humanity to lead a more balanced, more compassionate, more respectful way of existing. But first, let’s bring eco-anxiety back to small enough, so they can feel brave enough and powerful enough to discover the difference they can make.

Eco-anxiety fuels three options – fight, flight or freeze.

Anxiety is a call to action. It’s energy. It is the brain mobilising the body for fight or flight – either away from danger or towards something meaningful. We want to soften their feelings of being in danger, and breathe life into their power to do something meaningful.

As with any anxiety, the energy fuelled by eco-anxiety will drive three potential responses – fight, flight or freeze. The most intrusive way anxiety shows itself is through freeze. This happens when the brain considers that neither fight nor flight is possible. We don’t want this for our children. To be ‘frozen’ with fear is to feel helpless and hopeless. This is when anxiety comes with teeth. Any anxiety that drives despair is painful and crippling. ‘What’s the point of doing anything if it’s too late?’

We can steer them away from this by putting anything fearful they’ve heard into context. This might sound something like, ‘For some people, this is how they feel as though they can make a difference. It is not too late to take care of our environment. I promise.’

As much as you can, limit their exposure to any hysteria or hopeless pessimism around climate change. People are entitled to their opinion, but it is too easy for children to ingest the opinions of others whole, without chewing them up and coming to their own conclusions in a way that feels safe. As children get older they will increasingly be able to add their own wisdom, learning, and experience to the opinions of others, hopefully ending somewhere informed and balanced, but while children are young, there is absolutely no good to come from them being exposed to dire warnings or predictions about our planet. It is less likely to mobilise them to action and more likely to cripple them – freeze them – with fear. 

But flight is not an option.

Flight is also not an option. We can’t deny the problem and we can’t run away from it. We don’t want to gloss over the fact that our environment is in distress and needs our help. This will not ease eco-anxiety. Our children are aware and they and they care. They know the unsettling truth of it all is that the planet is hurting. We can’t run from that truth, and we don’t want our children to freeze in the face of it. What we can do is give our children what they need to fight for the environment, for the planet, and for the lives that can’t fight for themselves. 

So that leaves one option – fight. Let them know that their fight for the planet will make a difference.

The fight for our planet is going to be a big one. We – humanity – have what it takes to fight for the environment, and our children and teens are a vital part of this. Hope and empowerment are the greatest antidotes to helplessness and fear. When we give our children these, we shift the focus away from an overwhelming sense of danger, and towards their capacity for meaningful action. Anxiety gives them the energy, we give them the hope and direction, and they start to realise that they are an important, powerful part of the solution. 

Hope and direction turn eco-anxiety into empowerment. So let’s give them plenty of both. 

Before we do anything brave or meaningful, there will always be anxiety. It’s just how it is. Throughout history, the biggest changes our world has fought for have had anxiety as the catalyst. The fight for peace, civil rights, equal rights for women, the end of Apartheid, gun control, gay marriage – they have all started with anxiety about what might happen if things were to stay the same. The more intolerable the ‘same’ was, the bigger the anxiety, and the bigger the energy and the drive to fight for change. 

When our children speak to us about their anxiety about climate change, they are giving us something important. They are giving us their messy, confusing, overwhelming feelings so we can help them bear the load. But we can give them something even better. We can hand those feelings back to them in a way that makes sense and gives them hope and direction.

Our children are powerful and they have a huge capacity to make a difference. One of our very important roles is to help them realise this and gently guide them towards how. What they need is for us to align ourselves with that part of them that wants to make a difference and that part of them that holds hope. Those parts of them will be there. If eco-anxiety is big, they might not know how they can make a difference or whether it will be worth it. Their hope might feel a little battered and their direction might feel a little foggy, but the great potential for both will be there. 

When we give them hope and direction, we turn anxiety from something that feels overwhelming to something that has a job to do. We shift the focus from something scary (the end of the planet) to something meaningful (their power to heal the planet). Here are some words that might help.

First, acknowledge the feeling:

Validation lets their anxious amygdala (the ‘anxiety’ part of the brain) know that there is somebody who understands things as they do. For a moment, we need to feel what they feel and see what they see, and we need to do this in a way that feels real and reaches them. But this has to happen from a position of strength – ‘I see you, I feel you, and I’ve got you.’ Validation soothes the nervous system by registering in the brain that support is here.

‘I can hear how worried you are about our planet and the environment. Everything you are saying makes so much sense. That feeling you have is called anxiety. I can hear how helpless and frightened it’s making you feel, and I want you to know that we are safe. The planet needs our attention, but it is not too late. I promise you. There is so much we can do, and there are so many people working to put things right again. We’re going to be okay. There is something really amazing about that anxiety you’re feeling – it’s giving you what you need to be able to make a difference too.’

Then, let them know they aren’t alone:

‘It’s easy to think that one person won’t make a difference, but if you hear nothing else, hear this, my love, – there are so many people who feel exactly the way you do, and who are moving to heal the planet. You aren’t alone – I promise. I feel anxious about what’s happening too, and so do so many other people. This is a great thing because it means there are so many people who are doing things to put this right.

Your anxiety can make you feel scared and helpless, but it’s there to give you the energy and the passion to care enough to make a difference – and I know you can make a difference. You are important and powerful, and this anxiety you’re feeling – it’s like that planet is saying to you, ‘Hey, there’s a problem here and I really need your help. I know you can make a difference.’ You are so strong and so powerful, and we can fix this before it turns into something unfixable – I know we can do that.’

Make sense of their eco-anxiety:

When feelings make sense, they are less unpredictable, less intrusive, and less overpowering. Eco-anxiety might still be there, but in a way that is less frightening and less crippling.

‘Anxiety can make you feel helpless and scared, but it’s actually showing up to give you what you need to do something important and powerful – to help heal the planet, and to make it safer and more liveable for us and for the other lives we share it with. Anxiety is energy – it might feel like worrying thoughts or worrying feelings, but it’s energy. If you stop and notice, you’ll be able to feel this energy inside you. It might feel like a racy heart, butterflies in your tummy, wobbly arms or legs, or your mind getting busy thinking about all the bad things that could happen.

This can feel scary, but it’s actually a really amazing thing your body does when it has something important it might need to do. It’s called fight or flight, and anxiety is your brain getting your body ready to run away or fight. Sometimes running away from trouble will be exactly the right thing to do, and sometimes it will more important to fight for what you want. With climate change, we need to fight for our planet – and we can do that. The things you do will make a difference.’

Now, give them hope:

‘I know with everything in me that we can fix this. We have the solutions and we’re putting them in place – renewable energy (such as solar), reducing carbon pollution, replanting and rehabilitating forests – there is so much happening in the world to heal our planet.

Now that you’re aware of what’s happening with climate change, the next step is to decide where to put your energy. Anxiety about climate change has brought people from all over the world together. You are one of those people, and you are so incredibly powerful. It’s true, we’ve made some mistakes, but we’re learning from those mistakes and we’re putting things right. It is not too late. I promise you. The things that are happening on our planet now have made us realise that we have to be kinder to our planet and to the lives that we share it with. People from all over the world are coming together to put things right, and you are an important part of that.’

And give them direction:

Now, we help them take those feelings and that energy and direct it into something actionable. By helping them mobilise towards action, we’re helping them use their eco-anxiety as it was intended – to give our bodies the energy and means to mobilise for action and fight for what’s important.

‘Everything you do matters so much. Don’t ever think that because you’re ‘just one person’, you won’t make a difference. All big change happens with one person, then another, then another. It doesn’t happen any other way. Let’s talk about some ways that you can make a difference. Here are some ideas:

•  reducing single-use plastics (straws, cups, plastic water bottles, plastic shopping bags, cling wrap, take-away food containers);

• recycling whenever we can;

• reducing waste by using our own bags and containers;

•  reducing our carbon footprint (by turning off lights or power points you aren’t using them, unplugging devices when you’re done; hanging up your towel so you can re-use it to save water and energy, recycling and re-using bags and containers);

•  walk or ride your bike when you can instead of taking the car;

•  planting a tree;

• planting our own fruit and veges, then using scraps to make compost and a happy, healthy home for soil creatures;

•  saving water when you can;

•  be open to trying food that is locally grown and in season – it saves on storage and transport and it’s delicious.’

There are lots of ideas on the internet. Would you like me to help you come up with a plan? Our whole family can get involved. You’re a change-maker. You really are.’

And finally … 

More than ever, our children need us to lead the way with hope for our planet and for their future. It’s the only way to counter increasingly crippling levels of eco-anxiety that are undermining their will or their capacity to make a difference. By ‘hope’, I mean real hope. Hope with substance and direction and the kind that believes in itself. Not something that delivered as hope but which can feel like an overdressed dismissal – ‘Don’t worry – we’ll be fine.’ Our children won’t buy that. What they need is for us to make sense of what’s happening around them, and to steer anxiety to do its job – to help them to realise their power to do important, meaningful things that will make a difference.

Our children and teens have incredible empathy and compassion for the planet and the lives we share it with. They are starkly aware of their vulnerability in the face of our hurting planet, but they are ready for the fight. They are brave and they are powerful.

When they speak to us about their eco-anxiety, they are asking, ‘What can I do to put this right?’ As the adults in our lives, it is for us to align ourselves with their courage, and their will to fight for our planet and the lives we share it with. We can help them by nurturing the mindset that their anxiety is an ally, not something to be frightened of. It is not there to scare them about climate change, but to mobilise them to take the very meaningful, sometimes small steps towards living a more respectful, compassionate, sustainable life so that they may help our planet. This action starts by calling us – the adults in their lives – to make sense of it all and to give them hope and direction. ‘Yes, climate change is real. Yes, the planet needs our help. And yes, my love, you are powerful and you are mighty, and we are with you. We’ve got this.’

The post How to Talk to Children and Teens About Eco-Anxiety. The words that will turn anxiety into hope, courage, and direction. appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

It’s hard enough for us as adults to make sense of catastrophic trauma, especially when that trauma is at the hands of other humans. Many times we just move forward, knowing with full certainty that we will never understand some things. But what about our children? They might have a new normal to adjust to, or questions or fears that were unthinkable before now. As the important adult in their lives, the power you have to strengthen them and move them through trauma is profound.

Anxiety after news of a catastrophic trauma. What happens?

Emotional experiences – ones that come with fear, helplessness, humiliation, grief, pain – often contain information important to our safety. Standing on broken glass, for example, comes with plenty of information about what broken glass feels like against our skin and the damage it can do. We don’t want to have to keep learning that broken glass hurts, so those emotional experiences lay themselves down in the brain as powerful memories. The amygdala, the part of the brain involved in anxiety, holds these memories and uses the information in them to identify potential danger and steer us away from trouble. Once an emotional memory is stored, it can drive behaviour without us realising.

Here’s the rub. These ‘memories’ don’t have to come from our own experiences. Hearing about an emotional experience through the news, a friend, a movie, or social media, can be enough to influence the amygdala. The information contained in the emotional memory can generalise to more specific, personal situations. News of war, or a natural disaster, or a school shooting, for example, might contain information about school or separation from a parent being unsafe. Your child’s amygdala, which has the very important job of keeping him or her safe, might then initiate a powerful instinctive drive for the child to avoid school or separation from you.

What might anxiety look like?

Anxiety can show itself as avoidance, fear of separation, lots of ‘what ifs’ (‘because if I have the information, I might be able to control what happens’), or trouble sleeping (an anxious brain likes to get busy when things are quiet). Physical symptoms might include a sick tummy, nausea, headaches, sore muscles, or butterflies. These can feel awful, but they are evidence of a strong, healthy brain working as it should to get us ready to deal with threat – just a little too much.

Children might also show increased anxiety around bedtime. Sleep is an extended separation from a parent. According to the amygdala and the information it might have stored about the trauma, when kids are separated from parents, awful things can happen.

You might also see increased fears about things from a fantasy world – monsters, witches, ghosts. These seem completely irrational, but they will often be driven by very rational fears. When a fear is too big to put into words, children might turn that fear into something else.

The fear of something happening to you, for example, might be too big for them to think about so it might become anxiety about witches outside their window, or monsters under the bed. If this happens, speak to the feeling rather than the fear, ‘That sounds really scary. It can be hard settling into your own bed when there are frightening things have happened in the world, but you are safe here in your room. I would never leave you if I thought you weren’t safe.’ (See here for more ways to help children at bedtime.) 

What if they don’t show any response at all?

Some children and teens might show no outward signs of anxiety at all. This might be because they are completely okay, or because they are still processing what’s happened. We all deal with things in our own way, and our children are no different. There is no right or wrong way to deal with news of world trauma. Some children might seem completely indifferent about the trauma.

Some might spend more time doing things that lock out the world for a while (gaming, screen time, solitary time, time with pets). The brain has really clever ways of making sure it doesn’t have to deal with more than it can handle too quickly. This is an adaptive response and in the short-term, it can be a healthy one. When there has been a catastrophic trauma, the reality of that and the feelings and thoughts connected to it (‘What if this happens to me or someone I love?’) can feel too big or too unacceptable to process all at once. By distracting themselves, or deflecting away from their feelings, the brain has ‘breathing space’ to absorb what’s happened and what it means to them.

When the feelings can’t be pushed down any longer, they might come out as a big reaction to the wrong target or to something that seems fairly benign. A way to support them is to make a safe space for their feelings and words to come out. It’s important not to push them to talk though. It’s about laying the path in case they want to. Try, ‘It seems you have some big feelings in there. I really get it. There have been some big things happen that have been upsetting and frightening. I feel really upset about what’s happened this week too. I just want you to know that if you need to talk, I’m here.’

How do we help them feel safe again?

Here are some ways to help them through.

1. Limit their exposure to stories or reports of the trauma.
   
   Media coverage of world trauma can create emotional ‘memories’ that drive anxiety. The reports often bring us face to face with the fragility and unpredictability of life. When reporting about the unfathomable breakage of lives, it can be no other way. As adults, we might feel helpless and frightened. We might feel grateful for our own lives and deeply saddened that others have been stolen. Our children have less capacity to make sense of these feelings and what’s happened. The more information they are exposed to, the stronger those emotional ‘memories’ will be, and the more power they will have to drive anxious thoughts, (‘What if this happened to us?’) and anxious behaviour – flight (avoidance), or fight (anger, tantrums).

2. Load them up with the good.

   We’re wired to give more power to negative information than to positive. Whenever you can, give them positive stories that have come out of the trauma. This will help to dilute the salience of the frightening ones. Tell them about the heroes and the stories of survival, kindness, and compassion. Show them how much the world comes together and holds each other a little tighter when something like this happens. They need to know that people are more good and kind than they are scary. They need to feel held by a loving humanity, because they are – not a cruel, unpredictable one.

3. Be mindful of their age, and what they already know.

   It’s easier to manage the flow of information with smaller children, but older children and teens will have their own access to the news. Check in to see if they need to talk and answer their questions as honestly as you can while giving only as much information as they need to feel safe.

4. Try to get the thoughts and images from inside of them to outside of them.
   
   Whether it’s through talking, playing, drawing or writing, anything children do to get their feelings and thoughts out will be a good thing. Children learn, heal and explore through play, so you might find their play is influenced in unexpected (though maybe not surprising) ways after news of a world trauma. They might use sticks as guns, or they might play hospitals or chase ‘baddies’. There is no need to shut any of this down. Instead, let it guide the conversations you have with them. Play can be a powerful insight into what’s happening for them on the inside. It’s also the way children practice staying safe and explore their own power. They can try things out and be whoever they want to be. Then, whenever they want to they can take off the costume, step out of character, and come back to the safety of their own world.

   Face-to-face talking is especially healing. Let them talk as much as they need to. Talking connects the emotional right side of the brain to the logical left side. It helps to give context and shape to feelings, which lets those feelings soften. Know that you don’t need to fix anything and you don’t have to have all the answers. Most importantly, don’t let the fear of saying the ‘wrong thing’ get in the way of saying ‘something’. Even if that ‘something’ lands differently to the way you expected, you can clean it up once it’s out there. What’s important is opening the space for conversation. Try, ‘I’m wondering how you’re doing with everything. Would you like to talk?’ Having a conversation will always be better than having no conversation at all.

5. It’s okay if the words don’t show up.

   Some children might not want to talk at all, and that’s okay. The important thing is letting them know you’re there if they need you, even if they don’t know what to say. Sometimes words can get locked inside big feelings. It can be that way for all of us. Open the door to you a little wider by giving them ‘permission’ to let you know they’d like to talk, even if the words are messy or not there at all. ‘You know I’m always here for you, and you can talk to me about anything at all. Sometimes the hardest part of talking to someone is knowing where to start. If you ever want to talk to me, but you’re not sure of where to start, maybe just start by telling me that you’d like to talk but you don’t know what to say. This will let me know that something is up and I can take it from there for you. We can figure things out together.’

6. Sometimes, they might just need you.

   When our children are hurting, the drive to do ‘something’ to lift them over the heartache of it all might feel monumental, but sometimes they might just need us to sit with them for a while. Maybe they’ll talk, maybe they won’t – but it’s not about that. It’s about letting them feel the warmth and safety of you. Touch, warmth and physical closeness can be profoundly healing. Don’t underestimate the power of you. Sometimes, for certain, it will be everything.

   When the world is fragile, they need us to be the guardians of their safe space in the world in ways that are meaningful for them. This might mean more talking, more playing, more just ‘being with’,  and more moments of connection. Sometimes, that will be everything. Sometimes those meaningful moments are what we adults need too. 

7. And when they ask questions you just can’t answer.

   ‘But why? Why did this happen?’ It’s always okay to say, ‘I don’t know.’ There are some things even we adults don’t know. Sometimes we are confused, and scared, and brought to our knees by the unfathomability of it all. ‘I don’t know why people hurt people like this. I don’t think anybody in the world knows why. What I do know is sometimes people get angry or hurt, and they have really terrible ways of dealing with that. Sometimes people get so sad and hurt and angry about something that has happened, they want other people to feel that too. It’s never okay to do that and I want you to know that we live in a world where most people are good and kind and they know that. What I also know is that every time something like this happens, the people in the world come together to figure out how to keep the world safe, and people safe, and how to take care of the people. We can do that. We have to do that. It starts with taking care of each other and being kind to each other and the people around us. What can I do that would help you feel cared for and safe right now?’

8. Whatever they are feeling is okay.

   Sometimes the only way through a big feeling is straight through the middle. Let them know they have the right to feel whatever they feel – sad, angry, confused, or maybe nothing at all. When a big feeling comes to the surface, acknowledge this and hold the space for the feeling to be and to fade when it’s ready – ‘I can hear how sad and confused you are about this. I really get it. I know a lot of people are feeling that way.’

   Then if you can, cut through the helplessness that can come with big feelings and nurture a sense of commonality and empowerment – ‘When lots of people feel sad like you do, the world comes together to look after the people who have been hurt,’ or, ‘I understand why this has made you feel scared. It’s a scary thing to happen. What I know is that you’re safe and there are people working hard to make the world safer and to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.’

9. Let them know their feelings are normal.
   
   Research has found that most children will recover well after trauma, but the children who seem to take longer are more likely to perceive their symptoms as being a sign that something is seriously wrong with them. After a traumatic event, children might have intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks. These are very normal for two to four weeks after a trauma, and it’s important that children understand this if they are experiencing any of these symptoms.

   The children who struggle to recover tend to be the ones who take their symptoms as a sign that something is very wrong with them and spend a lot of time – an excessive amount of time – trying to make sense of their trauma.

   Talking and thinking about what happened can be very healing, but like all things that are good for us humans, too much is too much. It seems that when children spend too long focusing on what happened and the reasons for that, they can get stuck.

   To help your young ones from ruminating and becoming stuck, let them know that what they are feeling is really normal. Let them talk as much as they need to, but also encourage them to talk about the good news stories, and wherever you can, remind them of their own resilience. Are they going to school even if it feels tough? Are they sleeping in their own bed? They might not realise that these things matter but they do – they speak to the courage and resilience that is in them.

10. Give them an opportunity to do ‘something’.

    After a trauma, we open our hearts and stretch our arms around the people who have been hurt. This is how we remind ourselves and each other that there will always be more good than bad, more love than hate, and more standing together than apart. That’s the humanity we want our children to know and to feel embraced by.

    Encouraging them towards their own acts of kindness will nurture feelings of connection to a kind and loving humanity. These acts might include laying flowers, writing a note, or doing jobs to earn money to donate to a charity that is looking after the people who have been hurt. This will help to replace feelings of helplessness with a sense of helpfulness and the awareness that they can make a difference.

11. Gratitude – another way to load them with the good.

    Hearing about emotional experiences can create memories that drive anxious thoughts and behaviour. Research has found that gratitude can increase our store of positive ‘memories’ and make them more accessible, giving them a greater influence on thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. To nurture a gratitude practice, in the morning or before bedtime, ask your child or teen to name three things they are grateful for. Encourage them to write them in a journal, or write them down and put them into a gratitude jar. This will create a visual cue, as well as something they can go to when they need a reminder of the good in their world.

12. Could this happen to me?

    Significant trauma ignites our empathy and our need to come together with love and support for the ones who have been hurt, but it can also make us aware of our own fragility. People just like us, who love like us, have been hurt in unimaginable ways. We don’t see strangers and nameless faces. We see mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and sisters and brothers, and we wonder what would happen if those loved ones that were stolen, were ours.

    Our children will also be asking their own questions. ‘Am I safe?’ ‘What if something happens to you?’ This can be tough to respond to. Often we will often be grazing against the hard edges of the same fears, but we can give them what they need to feel safe enough. When their thoughts and beliefs are uncertain, they will be looking to rest in the certainty of ours. More than ever, our children will need to feel our belief they are safe. Just as they did when they bumped and scraped when they were little, when they are hurting they will look to us, then back to themselves, then back to us. They will be looking for answers to two questions:

    ‘Do you see me?’ The first thing children are looking for is, ‘Do you see me?’ as in, ‘Do you see I’m hurt/hurting?’ We can give them what they need by naming what we see, ‘I can see how confused you are by this,’ or, ‘That feels scary for you doesn’t it,’ or, ‘I’m wondering if you want to talk about what we saw in the news today. Is there anything you would like to ask me?’ When we acknowledge what they are feeling, it helps them ‘feel felt’. They know we get it. More importantly, it sends a message to the protective amygdala that support is here, which lets the amygdala step down. This is when their anxiety and any sense of ‘aloneness’ will ease. To do this, we need to see the world the way they see it. Only then can they feel as though us collecting them and comforting them and holding them safe from right beside them.

    ‘Do you think I’ll be okay?’ The second reason they look to us is for confirmation that they’ll be okay. Sometimes we might be dealing with our own anxiety about their vulnerability, especially in the wake of a seemingly random attack on humanity. Do we want to bundle them up and keep them close? For sure. Do we feel okay about sending them back out there? Maybe not. Do we feel safe enough? Yes. We might feel anxious, but we feel safe enough and sure enough that they’ll be okay. We wouldn’t send them out there if we didn’t. ‘I know there’s some scary things happening, and I want you to know that we are safe.’

    Let them see that you know they are safe to do what you are asking, whether it’s going to school, or perhaps being separated from you. They might not believe it for a while and that’s okay. Let them lean against you for as long as they need to, but at the same time, encourage them forward. This is important. The brain will do more of whatever the brain does most. If we support their avoidance for too long, the brain will wire around this and respond to the world as though the only way to stay safe is to stay with you. When there has been a scare, the only way an anxious amygdala can learn that something (the world/school/separating from a parent) is safe enough, is through experience. This might be tough for a while. It can be so distressing to move them forward when everything in you is telling you to scoop them up and hold them close, but we don’t want to shrink their world. We want them to know they are safe, and you are safe, even when the world feels fragile.

13. But how do you know it won’t happen to me?

    This can be one of the toughest questions. The truth is, we can never know with 100% certainty that the people we love will always be safe, but we can be certain enough. Explaining the differences between what happened in the world, and their world, can help. This might sound something like, ‘We live in a different part of the world, and that doesn’t happen here.’ If it’s something that theoretically could happen to anybody, such as a mass shooting, let them know what is different now. Maybe they caught the person responsible so that person can never hurt anybody again. Sometimes that won’t be enough though, because the response might understandably be, ‘But what if it’s a different person who tries to hurt us?’ If they ask this, speak about what we have learned. ‘Every time something like this happens, we learn how to stay safer. We learn how things like this happen, so we can stop it from happening again. There are people who are working really hard to make sure we’re safe, and I trust them.’

14. It’s okay if they need a little extra support.
    
    Some children might need extra support to help them through. Give them enough time to work through the trauma in their own way. There is no right way. If you feel as though the intrusion into their day-to-day life is causing significant problems for them, speak to a professional for support. The good news is that anxiety is very manageable.

And finally …

Children will respond to news of catastrophic trauma in their own way. Some children will respond with big feelings. Some with none. Some might have nothing to say. Some will talk and talk. Don’t underestimate the power of you to bring their world back to safe enough. When the world has spikes, it will always feel softer and kinder when they are next to you. The job for us as the important adults in their lives is helping them know they are part of a humanity that is loving, strong, brave, and kind, and one which will stand together with each other and for each other, so the world can be a safer and better one for all of us.

The post How to Strengthen Children & Teens Against Anxiety After News of a World Trauma appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

Part of walking the path to adulthood means that our children might sometimes feel as though they are falling through the cracks of the smaller, safer, more predictable world they have known as children, and the bigger, more demanding, noisier world of adulthood. Until they have both feet firmly on adult ground – which will be sometime in their early 20s – the ground beneath them might feel shaky, or barely there some days.

Anxiety During Adolescence. Because When They Know More, They Can Do More.

Adolescence comes with so many changes, challenges, demands, and responsibilities. As our teens become more aware of this, it’s understandable that a strong, protective brain would want to work harder to keep them safe from falling, failing, or scraping against the hard edges of their expanding world. In essence, this is what anxiety is – an attempt by the amygdala (the part of the brain involved in anxiety) to warn them that there might be danger and get them ready to fight the danger or flee the danger. Anything that comes with any risk at all of exclusion, separation, humiliation, judgement, failure all count as potential danger to a hardworking, protective amygdala – and adolescence is heavily set with all of them.

It’s understandable then, that anxiety can intensify during adolescence. Understanding the forces that might drive this can help your teen (and you) make sense of any changes that might feel frightening, or which heavy them with a sense of helplessness. 

One of the ways we can strengthen our adolescents against anxiety is to give them the information they need to make brave, strong decisions. Explaining what anxiety is, and what might contribute to it, can help them make braver, stronger, more deliberate decisions that will strengthen them against anxiety and generally. Here are some of the things that can inflame anxiety during adolescence.

1. Sleep. Brains love it. As much as happy things and a deep breath in.

The part of the brain most sensitive to a lack of sleep is the amygdala – the seat of anxiety and big emotions. The amygdala has the very important job of scanning the environment for threat. When it senses what might be a threat, it surges the body with a mighty cocktail of fight or flight neurochemicals. If there is a threat, this is excellent, but if there is no need for fight or flight action, the neurochemical fuel builds up and anxiety happens. This is where sleep comes in. A tired brain will struggle to tell the difference between a threat and a non-threat, so it will tend to hit the panic button more than it needs to. 

Here’s the rub. During adolescence, the hormone that makes us sleepy – melatonin – is released up to two hours later than it is in children and adults. Adolescents need at least nine hours of sleep (ten is gold) but they might not even feel like winding down until 10 or 11 pm. Combine this with early morning starts for school, and you can see where this is going to end up. The more tired they are, the more reactive their amygdala will be, and the greater the potential for anxiety.

What to do.

Chat about the link between anxiety and a lack of sleep, then ask your teen for thoughts on how to get more sleep. Here are some ideas:

•  The light from screens delays the release of melatonin, so try switching to a book, music, or mindfulness at least half an hour before bed.

•  Write in a gratitude journal as part of a bedtime routine. Anxiety is stirred by negative memories, but those memories don’t actually need to be real-life experiences. They can be from the news, tv, social media, or something a friend says. The brain does what the brain does most, so the more those negative memories are accessed, the easier they will be accessed in the future. Gratitude helps make positive memories more accessible than the ones that might stir anxiety. 

•  Try mindfulness before bed. Here’s one way:

Imagine your thoughts forming into clouds in front of you. Let them float around, then let them float away when they’re ready. Do the same thing with the next thought. Do this for 5-10 minutes. Don’t worry if your mind wanders during the exercise – that’s what minds do. Gently bring it back and keep going with the exercise. 

2. Friendships. The Changing Ground

One of the developmental goals of adolescence is to slowly establish independence from parents. They’ll still need you, but in a different way. As teens start to explore their independence, their peers will become more important than ever – but friendships during adolescence can be a roller coaster. They can be a source of enormous joy and comfort, but they can also be fertile ground for trouble – sometimes all on the same day. When friendships feel secure they will nourish, but when they feel fragile they can build anxiety around the threat of exclusion, rejection, humiliation, judgement or loss.

Friendships can be further complicated by the very real potential for adolescents to misinterpret emotional information from others. An abundance of research has established that the adolescent brain interprets emotional expressions differently to the adult brain. We humans are complicated. It isn’t always easy to read what other people might be thinking or feeling but this can be especially tough during adolescence. When adolescents read emotional expressions in others, the most active part of the brain is the amygdala – the impulsive, instinctive part of the brain that will tend to misread non-threats as threats. In contrast, when adults interpret facial expressions, they will tend to engage the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that plans, considers consequences, and calms emotional reactions for long enough to check things out. With greater importance on peers and a greater vulnerability to misinterpreting the social cues or emotions or intentions of those peers, the potential for conflict, exclusion, or friendships that break or cause breakage is heightened and can become hearty fuel for anxiety.

What to do.

•  If you can, encourage activities (sports, drama, hobbies) out of school so they can build friendships that might be more protected from schoolyard politics or a safe alternative when school friends are causing heartache.

•  Validate that adolescence can be a lonely, tough place sometimes, but that it won’t always be like this.

•  It can stir all sorts of things in you as a parent when your child is hurting, but whenever you can, let them speak without needing to ‘fix it’ or change how their feeling. Of course you might want to scoop them up and hold them close and change every messy detail about what they’re going through, but the risk with this is that they might feel a greater need to censor their words or the feelings to protect you from the harshness of it all.

3. ‘What do I think of me? Well, that depends on what you think of me.’ The ‘looking glass self’.

During adolescence, the sense of self gets a mighty workout. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to what other people think of them, or what they think other people might be thinking about them. Being sensitive to the opinions of others is an important part of shaping who our teens become. They will explore the adults they want to be, and along the way they will learn, adjust and grow according to the way the world responds to them. This can be a healthy, nurturing process, but not always. 

From early adolescence, children will be more likely to compare themselves to others. They will also become more aware that other people might judge or compare them, and they will tend to place more importance on these thoughts and judgements. This will influence the way they see themselves, for better or worse. The part of the self-concept that is fed by our beliefs about how others see us is known as ‘the looking glass self’, and it has a heavy hand during adolescence.

The looking glass self can feed joy, contentment, pride, embarrassment, shame or guilt. Research has shown that for adolescents, their self-concepts can be strengthened when they imagine that other people are thinking positively about them. On the other hand, when teens imagine (rightly or wrongly) that others are assessing them negatively, this can feed anxiety.

What to do.

•  Wherever you can, encourage (or support) your teen in finding the things that they love doing. Anything they are strong in – a language, sport, raising a pet, drama, music, art, cooking – will help to build their self-concept in positive ways.

4. Gut Health

The gut and the brain are profoundly connected. The brain in our gut, which is also affectionately known as our ‘second brain’, is made up of more 200-600 million neurons, arranged in the intricately folded tissue that lines the gastrointestinal tract. It sends information to the brain, but when the gut environment is out of balance (good bacteria vs. bad bacteria), the information that gets sent back to the brain can negatively affect mood, stress, anxiety and general mental health. 

Diet, sleep, and stress all affect the gut. Separately each of these can cause enough trouble, but adolescence is often the time when our teens will find themselves with less sleep, more stress, and turning more towards faster, processed foods and away from healthier options. It’s a perfect gut storm.

What to do.

Talk to them about the gut-brain link and the importance of sleep, lowering their stress (when they can), and healthy eating –  as in more fruit, vegetables, happy gut foods (fermented foods, probiotics, foods with live and active cultures), and less processed food. Researchers have found that people who eat more fermented foods (which contain probiotics) have fewer symptoms of social anxiety. 

5. What lights them up from the inside out? Has the focus on winning stripped the love from it all?

During adolescence, the focus on academics can intensify, and extra-curricular activities which started out as fun can become more competitive and geared towards a more important goal. Anxiety is driven by future thinking, and by imagining potentially disastrous consequences of failure, loss, or missing out on an important selection. Competition is great, but so is having space to do things for the love of it all not just for the win. The risk is that the very things that may have once replenished them, can be stripped back to bare and become a source of stress or anxiety.

What to do:

Adolescence is a busy time, but it’s important that they don’t become so over-scheduled or invested in an outcome, that they stop having fun. Their hearts, minds, and spirits all need to be nourished. Encourage them to make time for the things that make them happy – as in happy from the inside out, not just because they’re winning, kicking goals or passing the exam. It’s all about balance. 

6. Perceived pressure from school/parents/the world.

During adolescence, the focus can shift from what makes you happy now, to what are you going to do when you finish school/college/exams. Planning for the future is important, but when it happens too much it can feed anxiety. Anxiety is a sign of a brain that is spending too much time in the future. This is when the ‘what-ifs’ can start to circle, land too heavily on our teens and feed anxiety like it’s a ravenous thing. ‘What if I don’t get into university/college?’ ‘What if I don’t get a job – ever.’ ‘What if I let my parents down?’ ‘What if I let me down?’ ‘What if I fail at precisely everything?’

What to do.

Let them know they don’t need to have it all figured out. Often, it’s the redirects and the reroutes that are the reason we end up where we need to be. They just need to put one foot, and then the other. This is their time for learning. The ‘knowing’ will come in time – and it’s okay if this takes time.

7. Social media

Social media has a spectacular capacity to pull even the strongest humans out of their own lane. Social media gives our teens a constant source of information about what their peers are doing. This can flourish self-doubt like nothing else – Should I be more like them? Less like me? Should I be doing more? Should I be doing differently? Look what they’re involved in, and they look so happy – and successful! Maybe I should be doing something like that too. 

What to do.

The key is perspective. Remind them that a photo represents one single moment in time – a moment – not a day, not a weekend, and certainly not a life. Help them to understand that there is a massive filter across social media that tends to polish lives and people until they glisten. Boundaries are just as important in the digital world as they are in the real one. Too much of anything that causes a crumpling, is too much. Remind them that staying healthy and strong is about doing more of what nourishes not only our bodies but their hearts, minds, and spirits as well. 

8. Body Image

With the internet, our teens have the world at their fingertips every minute of every day – and it can be brutal. They are growing up in a world of selfies, filters, and photoshop. It is a world that can be relentless in its push to equate beauty with success, or beauty with happiness, or beauty with being important enough, powerful enough, wanted enough. All of this comes to them at a time when their bodies are changing. Our teens are being blasted with messages about how they should look, but for too many of them, the only message they’re taking is, ‘I’m not enough’ – not pretty enough, strong enough, important enough, powerful enough. 

What to do.

Call them strong, brave, powerful, intelligent – all of those things, but call them beautiful too – when they laugh, when they light up, when you see that spark in them. Just let them know that you see it. Absolutely, our children are so much more than how they look – absolutely – but these aren’t the qualities that are being called into question through their social media feeds, billboards, ads – almost everywhere they are. Somewhere along the way, the definition of  ‘beautiful’ became astoundingly inadequate, and it’s hurting our children. It’s making them doubt their worth and their potential, and we have to push back.

What we need to do is to redefine the concept of ‘beautiful’, and we can do this by making sure they hear a definition of ‘beautiful’ that includes them. Beauty is diverse and imperfect. ‘Beautiful’ isn’t the problem. The definition is. We don’t want to give our children the idea that how they look is any measure of who they are, but if we have the opportunity to strengthen them with a more empowering, ample, inclusive definition of ‘beautiful’, let’s take it. If we don’t acknowledge the beauty in them, the world around them will continue unchallenged to saturate them with a filtered, photoshopped, glossed up version of ‘beauty’ that threatens to diminish them. The more we can give them the message that ‘beautiful’ includes them, the more armoured they will be against the world that would have them believe otherwise. 

And finally …

It is likely that there will be times, maybe many times, during adolescence when our teens will feel sideswiped by anxiety. Adolescence can be hard and lonely and uncertain – but we get it because we’ve been there too. However tough things get, they have it in them to be tougher. Sometimes we’ll just need to know it enough for them.

Most importantly, don’t underestimate the power of you. It won’t always be obvious, but the presence of you has a profound capacity to help them feel safe, seen and soothed. You don’t need to have the words or the magic to make things better because sometimes, all they need is you.

The post Anxiety in Teens: Why Anxiety Might Increase During Adolescence, and What Parents Can Do appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

The amygdala’s job is to constantly scan the environment looking for threat. When it senses something that might be a threat – and separation, humiliation, exclusion count as threat – it will surge our bodies with a neurochemical fuel to get us ready to fight or flee the threat.

This is what strong, healthy amygdalae do, and they’ve been doing it since the beginning of forever. They are mighty masterful at the job – experts, actually – but sometimes they can work too hard to protect us, organising our bodies for fight or flight even when there is no need. When there is no fight or flight, there is nothing to burn the neurochemical fuel surging through us, so it builds up and creates the symptoms of anxiety. For our kids and teens – for any of us – this can feel awful, but there is a way to turn it around.

First though, about change …

The brain changes and wires through experience, so the more of something it does, the easier that something will be. This will happen for better or worse. Brave behaviour will lead to more brave behaviour, and avoidance will make avoidance more likely.

If anxiety has been around for a while, this is a sign that the amygdala is a strong, powerful, active one. This is absolutely not a sign of breakage. It’s a sign of a strong, healthy, powerful brain that has learned the fight or flight spectacularly well. It might take a little while to teach that amygdala to let go of that well-learned response, but absolutely this can be done.

For a while, moving through anxiety and towards brave behaviour might feel awkward and scary for your child, as any new behaviour does. When things feel awkward and unfamiliar, the temptation will be to go back to what’s familiar – for you and your child. This is how it is for all of us.

This might mean that when you encourage your child or teen towards brave behaviour, things might get a little worse before they get better – but they will get better. Just be aware of this, so you can give yourself and your small human some big love when you’re feeling mean for pushing them forward, or when they’re pushing against you with everything in them. 

Something to keep in mind – ‘Does my response support them, or their anxiety?’

Avoidance will strengthen their anxiety, brave behaviour will strengthen them. 

Anxiety can be a shady character. Sometimes it can feel as though our response is supporting our child, when actually it’s supporting his or her anxiety. This is a breathtakingly easy trap to fall into, and it’s likely that anyone who has a child who has been anxious at some point, has fallen into it. As parents we want to protect our children from harm. The thing is though, our role isn’t only to keep them safe, but to raise them to be strong, resilient and brave, so they can help themselves to safety. 

For this reason, it is important to begin with the mindset that your child or teen has everything they need inside them to move towards brave behaviour. Anxiety drives drives avoidance, and the more avoidance is the chosen response, the more the brain will wire around that. This will drive a fierce tendency to avoid, as it will feel like the only way to stay safe. 

The beautiful flip side of this is that the more our children and teens move towards a brave response, even when they’re feeling anxious, the easier brave behaviour will become. The right experiences can rework the neural wiring on two fronts. First, they can make an overprotective amygdala less likely to fire up unnecessarily. Second, they can strengthen the parts of the brain that can actually calm anxiety. No doubt about it, this will require patience and persistence. Understanding how it works will make it easier to move forward when everything in you or your child is telling you to retreat to somewhere that feels softer and less frightening.

Strengthening against anxiety is a process, and given that we are working with a strong, powerful, highly experienced amygdala that performs its job with fierce commitment, retraining it to be less active will take time and consistency – as all worthwhile things do.

There are three things that have been proven to change the structure and function of the brain to protect and strengthen it against anxiety. Mindfulness, exercise and gratitude can, quite literally, create new pathways in the brain that can support your child in being calmer, braver and less anxious. At the same time, they can work towards fading the pathways that have strengthened around fight (anger, tantrums) or flight (avoidance). Let’s look at how these work.

Exercise

Exercise is the wonderdrug-but-not-a-drug of the mental health world. The effects of exercise on mental health are profound. In the same way exercise strengthens the body, it also does amazing things for the brain. Research published in the Journal of Neuroscience has found that one of the ways exercise strengthens the brain against anxiety is by boosting levels of important neurotransmitters. One of these is GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid).

GABA has a number of functions, and having the right balance is particularly important for anxiety. Research has found that people with lower levels of GABA within the hippocampus (a part of the brain involved in memory) are less able to block unwanted thoughts. These include the ‘what-if’ thoughts that feed into excessive worrying and rumination.

GABA also acts as the brain’s calm down chemical. Some neurons are easily excited and quick to fire up. In the right amounts, they’re little gems. We need them to help us think quickly, act quickly and remember. When there are too many of them firing up though, anxiety can happen – but not if there is enough GABA to calm things down. GABA has the very important job of settling these neurons when they get a little too playful. If GABA is low, there is nothing to calm these over-excited neurons.

Mindfulness

A research analysis of 19 separate mindfulness/anxiety studies found that mindfulness was, ‘associated with robust and substantial reductions in symptoms of anxiety’. 

Think of mindfulness as paying attention to one thing at a time in the moment. Mindfulness trains the brain to let thoughts, feelings, sensations come and go. Thoughts in themselves aren’t the problem. The trouble comes when they stay for longer than they need to and fuel feelings and behaviour. With regular practice, mindfulness builds the capacity for children and teens to be with their thoughts and feelings, without reacting to them. Eventually, this makes way for anxious thoughts and feelings to be there, but without the intensity and persuasiveness that can drive fear and avoidance.

Here’s how mindfulness changes the brain:

• it decreases activity in the amygdala;
• it increases activity in the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that is responsible for calming our big emotional responses (such as anxiety, fear, anger);
• it strengthens connectivity between the reactive amygdala (‘oh no we’re in trouble’) and the rational, calming pre-frontal cortex (‘nah, all good here’). When this connection is strong, the pre-frontal cortex is more able to calm the amygdala and reduce anxiety. 
• it increases GABA (the neurotransmitter that also gets a boost with exercise);
• it decreases cortisol (the stress hormone);
•  it strengthens the neural connections that activate the relaxation response, which is a response that has been found to neutralise the neurochemicals connected to the fight or flight response;

Gratitude

Anxious thoughts are often driven by anxious memories, but research has found that these memories don’t need to come from actual experiences. When children hear about an emotional experience, such as through the news, a friend, a movie, or a story, this can be enough to influence the amygdala. These experiences don’t have to be big to have influence. Hearing about an experience that was embarrassing, confusing, frightening or confronting for someone else, can be enough. These stories might not always be in awareness, but they can sit behind the scenes and drive worries, fear and negative thinking.

Positive memories can push against the power of frightening or emotional memories, and their capacity to fuel anxious thoughts and behaviour. Thoughts and memories also create pathways in the brain, so the more a thought or memory is accessed, the easier it will be to access in the future. Research has found that gratitude can increase our tendency to recall positive memories. When positive memories more accessible, they will have a greater influence on thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Nurturing gratitude and building a store of positive memories can be done simply. Before school or at bedtime, ask your child or teen to name three things they is grateful for. Encourage them to write them in a journal, or on pieces of paper that get popped into a gratitude jar or box. This will create a visual cue, as well as a place they can go to when they need a little boost.

And finally …

We will never get rid of all anxiety our children feel – and we don’t want to. When there really is something to steer away from, the fight or flight response can be a lifesaver. What we want them to do is to read their anxiety, and to take charge. We want them to see that anxiety is a warning, and sometimes an unnecessary one, not a stop sign. Most importantly, we want to empower them to respond to anxiety with strength and courage, and to move towards brave behaviour whenever they can.

Any progress is great progress. Anxiety is difficult to deal with, but it is manageable. There will be steps forward and steps back, but over time the forward steps will become more and the backward ones will become less. Each one of these strategies will make a difference, and you don’t need to do all of them. Choose one to start with, and try to be as consistent as possible with that then, when they’re ready, introduce another. Be patient, and be kind to yourself. It takes time to nurture brave little people into brave big ones. And don’t underestimate the difference you’re making by being one of the people who believe in them, and who can see them for the capable, brave, magic-makers they are.

The post 3 Proven Ways to Strengthen and Protect Children and Teens Against Anxiety appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

The part of the brain that keeps us safe from threat is the amygdala. Since the beginning of humans, the amygdala’s job has been to scan the environment for threat, and make lightning-quick decisions about whether to avoid or approach. It does this brilliantly. In less than one tenth of a second, the amygdala will decide whether something is a threat, and whether we should approach it or avoid it. This is much faster than the time it takes our brains to create a conscious thought or feeling, and is why anxiety can feel as though it has come from nowhere. 

But what if there actually is nothing to worry about?

If the amygdala decides there is a threat, it will surge the body with fight or flight neurochemicals. This can send the ‘thinking brain’ offline, but there is a good reason for this. Brains are ‘do-ers’ before they’re thinkers (but they are excellent at both) so they’ll act first to get us safe, then decide later whether or not the response was actually necessary. The ‘thinking brain’ gets sent offline so it doesn’t get in the way of a quick response by organising a committee meeting about possible strategies. This means that the part of the brain that can receive rational information, such as ‘there’s nothing to worry about’, has been told by the amygdala to shush – so that’s exactly what it does.

By then, the fight or flight neurochemicals are surging through your child’s body as though they have nowhere else to be. The feelings that come with this feel awful and will fuel anxious thoughts, (‘I feel as though something bad is going to happen, so I think something bad might happen’), which will fuel anxious behaviour – avoidance (flight) or aggression (fight).

Humans … We’re wired to love them and be wary of them. 

The fight or flight response worked hard for us way back when our main threats were predators who wanted us to be dinner, or other humans who wanted to steal dinner. It would have been easier to make a call on which animals were best avoided. Our ancestors would have known just by looking that some animals that would be no threat at all, and some would be more dangerous. With other humans though, this would have been more difficult. The friendly ones and the unfriendly ones would have looked the same – like humans. It would have been sensible to be wary of anyone unfamiliar, but even the familiar ones would have posed a potential threat. In a small tribe, with a limited number of potential mates or social connections, the consequences of rejection or exclusion could have been potentially catastrophic.

We have been learning to be wary of humans since the beginning of humans. Fast forward several thousand years, and it’s not surprising that for our kids and teens, social situations can fuel anxiety like nothing else. These can include school, social gatherings, soccer, art club, trying out for the school play, a sleepover – or anything else that comes with other humans and the potential for embarrassment, humiliation, separation, exclusion, or rejection. 

But their favourite people can make them braver.

Think of the brain as having three sections, back, middle, front. At the very back is the oldest, most primitive part of our brain. It’s responsible for our basic functions – blood pressure, heartbeat, breathing – the things that keep us alive. Next, in the middle, is the ’emotional brain’. This is where the amygdala lives. It’s the instinctive, impulsive part of the brain that is involved in anxiety and emotion. Finally, at the front is the ‘thinking brain’, the home of the pre-frontal cortex. This is the part of the brain that can receive rational information, plan, consider consequences, exercise self-control, problem-solve, and calm big emotions. 

We need the three parts of the brain to be connected and work together, as a team. During anxiety though, the amygdala pulls rank and takes over. It shuts down the thinking brain and hijacks the primitive brain, organising the body to increase heart rate, shallow breathe, increase blood pressure. When we are actually under threat, having the amygdala in charge is what we want, because it will be laser-focussed on getting us safe. The problem is when it takes over when it doesn’t need to. 

To bring back calm and to open the way to brave behaviour, we need to get the three parts of the brain connected and working together again. This has to happen from the back to the front. We have to respond to the primitive brain first, then the emotional brain, then the thinking brain. Think of it like building a bridge – there are no shortcuts and we can’t change the order. First we have to prepare the ground (reset the physiology), then we lay the foundations (open the way for brave behaviour with warmth, validation, connection), then we build the structure on top of that (encourage brave behaviour, plan, explore what’s needed). If we move to one stage before an earlier stage has happened, the structure won’t be solid, and will be likely to collapse. 

Often, when our children or teens are in the thick of anxiety, we respond to the thinking brain first with rational information such as, ‘there’s nothing to worry about’. This is completely understandable, but it just won’t work. The thinking brain needs the backing of the other two parts to do its job effectively. An anxious brain is a mighty powerful brain, so it’s important to work with it, rather than against it. Here’s how to do that.

First, respond to the ‘primitive brain’, at the back. 

Strong, slow, steady. ‘Breathe.’

Re-engage the primitive brain by encouraging strong, steady breathing. This will lower blood pressure and heart rate, and bring brain waves to a more relaxed state. Breath is our most basic and most powerful support. When breathing is strong and steady, so are we, but it’s the first to go when anxiety hits.

During anxiety, breathing changes from strong, steady breathing to short, sharp breathing. This is how it’s meant to happen, and a sign that a powerful, magnificent brain is working as it should. The brain wants the body to stop using energy on deep, strong breathing, in case it’s needed for fight or flight. When breathing changes to short sharp breaths, this begins the cascade of physiological changes connected to the fight or flight response. These changes are why anxiety feels the way it does. They include:

• feeling puffed and breathless (because of short breathing),
• dizzy and confused (because of the change in the balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen),
• a racey, pounding heart (because it’s pumping the neurochemical fuel around the body for fight or flight),
• tight, wobbly muscles (fuel is sent to arms so they can fight or legs so they can flee),
• clammy, sweaty (the body cools itself down in case it has to fight or flee),
• nausea, butterflies (digestion shuts down temporarily to save energy for fight or flight),

These symptoms are completely normal, and completely safe. Bodies and brains have been doing anxiety for a while, and they know exactly what they’re doing – but it can feel awful. Strong, steady breathing will start to neutralise the neurochemical surge and turn around the physiological symptoms. Something to keep in mind though, is that during anxiety, the brain is too busy to do things that don’t feel familiar. To make strong, steady breathing a more available response, encourage your child to practise when they are calm. Here are two ways to do that:

Hot Cocoa Breathing: ‘Pretend you have a mug of hot cocoa in your hands. Smell the warm chocolatey smell for three, hold it for one, blow it cool for three, hold it for one. Repeat three or four times.’

Figure 8 Breathing: This technique is especially good for teens because they can access it anywhere, anytime, and nobody else will have any idea. It combines touch and breath, which is a powerful combo. Anxiety feels flighty, and touch during anxiety can feel comforting and grounding. (It’s also something you can do to them if they like being touched.) Have them draw a figure 8 on their skin (arm, leg, back – wherever feels lovely) with their index finger. For the first half of the figure 8, ask them breathe in for three. When they get to the middle, hold for one. Then, for the second half of the figure 8, breathe out for three. Repeat three or four times. 

Then, the ’emotional brain’ in the middle. 

Touch, validation, warmth. ‘I’m here. I see you.’

Next, we need to tap into the emotional brain and help it feel safe again. As much as we have been wired to be wary of some people, we’ve also been wired to feel safe and connected with others. One of the things that influences the amygdala’s decision about whether to avoid something or move bravely towards it is the release of oxytocin (the bonding hormone) into the medial region of the amygdala. This section of the amygdala is heavily involved in our reactions to other people, specifically whether to avoid them or move towards them. Sometimes avoidance is exactly the right move – not all people are safe – but sometimes the amygdala can hit the ‘stay away’ button unnecessarily. This can drive anxiety in any situation where there are people – school, unfamiliar or new situations, anything social.

Oxytocin is released when we feel close to someone we care about. The amygdala has receptors especially designed to receive oxytocin, and when it gets a juicy dose, the amygdala feels safer and calmer – which means less anxiety, less avoidance, more brave behaviour. When our kids and teens are in the thick of anxiety, touching them gently, putting your arm around them, being physically close to them, holding their hand (as long as they’re ok with touch) can facilitate a delivery of oxytocin directly to the medial amygdala. This will increase the feeling of connection to you and calm the amygdala, which will help your child feel safer. We humans feel safest, bravest and strongest when we’re close to our favourite humans.

Another function of the feeling brain is to recruit support. If you’re the support, let the amygdala know that it’s done its job, and support is here. Do this by acknowledging and validating the feelings you see in your child or teen. ‘I can see this feels big for you.’ ‘It looks as though you’re worried about walking into school by yourself. Do I have that right?’

And hello ‘thinking brain’ – we’ve missed you.

Move towards brave behaviour. ‘You can do this, gorgeous. I know you can.’

Now that you’ve delivered a delicious dose of oxytocin to your child’s medial amygdala, hopefully your child will be feeling calmer. This reduces the drive to avoid, and open the way for brave behaviour. Speak to the logical, calming, thinking brain by reminding them why they feel the way they do, asking them what they need, armouring them with brave thinking, and encouraging them towards brave behaviour. Connect with them by looking them in the eye (this also releases oxytocin) and gently and confidently moving them forward, ‘I know you can do this, gorgeous. I know you can.’ 

When dealing with anxiety, it’s important to start with the absolute belief that your child or teen has everything they need to be brave – because they do. Sometimes though, you’ll need to believe it enough for both of you. There will of course be times to let your child take comfort somewhere warm and bundled, but there will also be times to push them gently towards brave behaviour. One of the things that can make this tough for any parent, is that the gentlest nudge forward by you might not feel that gentle, for them or for you. When anxiety hits, the need for our kids to avoid situations can be monumental, but our belief in them can always be stronger. The question to ask yourself in these times is, ‘Will my response build their courage, or shrink it?’ When avoidance becomes their go-to response, it will shrink their world more than it deserves to be. When the magic of them is kept hidden away, it is a loss for all of us.

Brains learn from experience. If your child’s amygdala has been working a little too hard and has become a little overprotective, it might take time to ‘re-teach’ the amygdala to approach instead of avoid – but absolutely this can be done, and it’s so important. When you take away the option to avoid, there has to be something else put back in its place. Otherwise, the drive will be to go back to what’s familiar, which will be avoidance. That ‘something else’ is encouragement towards brave behaviour, or towards whatever it is they want to avoid. 

And finally …

The move towards brave behaviour and away from anxiety is a process, and not always a smooth one. Our children and teens need us to see them and to hold a strong, steady space for them, but they also need us to believe in them and to sometimes lead the way. Because we can see around the corners that they can’t. And we can see their strength, and their resilience, and their courage. When their anxiety is screaming at that maternal or paternal need in you to keep them safe, ask, ‘Do I believe in them, or do I believe their anxiety?’ And always, of course, go gently. Building brave, beautiful humans takes time – and that’s okay, because they have plenty of it.

The post Anxiety in Children and Teens: How to Find Calm and Courage During Anxiety – What all Parents Need to Know appeared first on Hey Sigmund.