As a parent, you want to do what you can to help your child with their anxiety. Counseling will help dramatically, but there are also activities they can do at home to help them curb their anxiety and learn techniques that will benefit them throughout their entire life. Below are a few things you can do at home with your children to teach them coping skills:
1. Mind Jars – This is a simple and quick craft you can do with your children that helps them have a concrete amount of time, and something to focus on as their anxiety is striking. You will need:
-Plastic jar or water bottle
-Glitter glue, or hair gel
-Food Coloring
-Glitter
The idea here is that when your child feels anxious, they flip the sealed jar/bottle upside down (like a snowglobe). As the glitter settles your child can practice their deep breathing techniques.
2) 54321 Grounding Exercise
This exercise is done as a way to look around your surroundings and remind yourself of the present. You will use your 5 senses to recognize and list things you see, feel, hear, smell and taste.
-Name 5 things you see
-Name 4 things you feel
-Name 3 things you hear
-Name 2 things you smell
-Name 1 thing you taste
3) Alphabetical Animals
This is another distraction exercise that allows you to remove your thoughts from your present anxiety and focus on a task. To perform this exercise, simply name animals alphabetically starting with A. For example:
Alligator
Bee
Cat
Dog
Elephant
etc.
At Insight Child & Family Counseling, we work with many children who are suffering from anxiety. While the above exercises may be good for your children, there may be other techniques that work better. With specialized anxiety counseling, we can teach your child the coping techniques that work for THEM. For more information about anxiety give us a call today at 972-426-9500 or visit us online for some free resources and tools. www.j9n.83e.myftpupload.com