http://blogs.psychcentral.com/stress-better/2016/03/49-phrases-to-calm-an-anxious-child/#.Vt9ppb1gnHM.facebook
Articles like this are always interesting to me, because I've lived with untreated anxiety so long. I guess I no longer qualify for that category since I started LENS and various supplements, but I still clocked over two decades prior to that. I still experience plenty of anxiety, especially over major life events like, say, buying a car. More on that next week.
I like a number of the ideas in here. Changing "let's take deep breathes" (#3) into "let's blow up a giant balloon" and making silly noises to complement that strikes me as something that, while childish sounding, might still work on adults. It's something my fiance would do, if he had to work me through panic attacks.
I'm not sure how useful asking the "why" of something is (#5). If a child or adult is having a panic attack, their likely answer is "I don't know augh everything is terrible and I'm gonna dieeeee!" I guess for less episodal anxiety, like mine, asking the why of the anxiety isn't quite as pointless. My particular brand of anxiety doesn't really have a specific cause... it's right in the name. Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In plainspeak: everything makes me anxious.
Asking "what happens next after this thing that makes you anxious" is probably pretty good advice overall. I personally just try to keep in mind the phrase "this too shall pass."
I think #9, drawing a picture of the monster-feeling, kinda got permanently disrupted by seeing some well-made artistic renditions of different mental illnesses. You can find the ones I mean here.
A few of the other options are visualization options, or having the child talk through their thoughts. Those can be very helpful options for parents (and perhaps for kids, too), since it can be very hard to get inside an autistic child's head.
Many of the other options are emotional support. I... guess I don't necessarily identify strongly with the need for those, but most children didn't try to be Spock (without knowing they were trying to be Spock, or otherwise) when they grew up. So I'm going to guess that those affirmations "I love you; you are safe," "you are not alone," "I am proud of you already," "I know this is hard," etc, are pretty helpful.
Articles like this are always interesting to me, because I've lived with untreated anxiety so long. I guess I no longer qualify for that category since I started LENS and various supplements, but I still clocked over two decades prior to that. I still experience plenty of anxiety, especially over major life events like, say, buying a car. More on that next week.
I like a number of the ideas in here. Changing "let's take deep breathes" (#3) into "let's blow up a giant balloon" and making silly noises to complement that strikes me as something that, while childish sounding, might still work on adults. It's something my fiance would do, if he had to work me through panic attacks.
I'm not sure how useful asking the "why" of something is (#5). If a child or adult is having a panic attack, their likely answer is "I don't know augh everything is terrible and I'm gonna dieeeee!" I guess for less episodal anxiety, like mine, asking the why of the anxiety isn't quite as pointless. My particular brand of anxiety doesn't really have a specific cause... it's right in the name. Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In plainspeak: everything makes me anxious.
Asking "what happens next after this thing that makes you anxious" is probably pretty good advice overall. I personally just try to keep in mind the phrase "this too shall pass."
I think #9, drawing a picture of the monster-feeling, kinda got permanently disrupted by seeing some well-made artistic renditions of different mental illnesses. You can find the ones I mean here.
A few of the other options are visualization options, or having the child talk through their thoughts. Those can be very helpful options for parents (and perhaps for kids, too), since it can be very hard to get inside an autistic child's head.
Many of the other options are emotional support. I... guess I don't necessarily identify strongly with the need for those, but most children didn't try to be Spock (without knowing they were trying to be Spock, or otherwise) when they grew up. So I'm going to guess that those affirmations "I love you; you are safe," "you are not alone," "I am proud of you already," "I know this is hard," etc, are pretty helpful.
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