We had a great turn out on Wednesday at Managing Student Anxiety with Resilient Health. There was quite a bit of helpful information shared, and we will be sharing some helpful facts and tips with you each week.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a mental and physical reaction to perceived threats. In small doses, anxiety is helpful, protecting us from danger. But when anxiety is too severe, or occurs too frequently, it can become debilitating.
How to support your student:
Don't try to eliminate anxiety. The best way to help kids overcome anxiety is to help them learn to tolerate it as well as they can. Over time the anxiety will diminish.
Anxiety can be a useful emotion, notes Grace Berman, LCSW, a licensed clinical social worker at the Child Mind Institute. For example, when we're crossing the street and a car comes, speeding toward us, anxiety is what gets us out of the way. For kids with anxiety disorders, it can be important to realize the difference between helpful and unhelpful anxiety. "I'll often use the metaphor of an overactive fire alarm - sometimes they go off when there actually isn't a fire," she explains. "Treatment is about recalibrating our anxiety alarms so that we're listening to our anxiety in dangerous situations, and also learning when anxiety isn't helpful and ways to manage this."
(childmind.org/article/10-tips-for-parenting-anxious-kids)
