Okay has anyone got any questions?
I'm just wondering about separation anxiety, but in this case for younger children
I know a little person who gets really really upset when she's separated from her main person
and we've tried everything, so we'll explain to her ahead of time
"Mum's going, and here's what you'll be doing" so she knows exactly, so it's
what's the word for that?
When you're...
There's no unknowns and then she'll be coming back but most of
the time, as soon as you mention her mums going she'll get really distressed
and she is really young, so I know that's normal but
are there any other coping strategies you can use in those situations?
A couple of main ones, the main thing is to always make sure that children when they're
in that situation are handed over to someone who essentially
picks up where the parent left off so by that I mean handing over to a person
rather than an activity so often say for example at childcare dropoffs,
parents will think that a child needs to be engaged with an activity when they leave
but it's actually more important that they have connected with their next go-to person,
their educator so making sure that you hand over to a person
rather than an activity, or to a table or a task
and then when you provide that connection and empathic understanding as a parent and
say: "I understand I wish I didn't have to leave, I'll be back this afternoon, I'll give
you a cuddle now and then I'll hand you over to your teacher" for example
"who can give you a cuddle and stick with you until you're feeling better"
then it's the educator's role, or whoever it might be pickup up thereafter,
to essentially pick up and say, and take the child, and to continue to meet that need for
comfort until it's no longer required so the educator, or the other significant
adult would say: "I understand, you wish mummy didn't have to leave, I understand, you can
stick with me until you're feeling better" so there's that consistency in how that need
for comfort is met across both the person leaving and the person stepping in
and the second thing to mention is to allow children opportunities to practice
when they are feeling playful and connected with you, and they're wired to learn,
that's when you can practice these situations, and particularly role-play practice with little
children can be really helpful in these situations actually practicing goodbyes, which I've done
with my own children before and say: okay so when I leave, this is how
we're going to do it, I'll give you a cuddle, we'll say our goodbyes, and then you can have
a cuddle with whoever it is that you're being left with
let's actually have a practice because when children are wired to learn and
have opportunities to practice then they're more likely to be successful
when that situation next comes around Is that where distraction doesn't actually
work in those situations?
Yeah I mean, distraction can mean different things
to different people so if you're saying: okay you're upset, check
out the plane, I'm about to leg it!
That's not helpful for children, that's just going to invoke panic every time you even
look like you might be about to leave and they feel like they need to monitor you
all the time to make sure you don't do that point and dash thing again
distraction, if you're moving a child on to an activity that you need to move on to,
is entirely reasonable, as long as you're first providing that connection and empathy
so if you say: I understand you're still feeling sad and you want to stick with me, that's
fine but I need to go and check on your friend
over there who has fallen down so let's stick together
and we can both check on your friend so moving along is fine, provided you first
meet that need for connection and empathy that children really need when they're distressed
in that situation What's sort of the top general advice that
you'd give someone around stress management with their children?
For younger children, so I've got a two year old, so around that age
how do you - what's the top advice, and where would you go to find out more about that?
So in terms of the parent being stressed or the child being stressed?
So you mentioned stress management techniques, so what's your go-to stress management techniques,
that you would tell people about?
And how would I find out more about that sort of thing and other techniques?
So stress is really helpful for children to experience provided it's manageable for their
developmental age, and provide you're available as their sort
of buffer to be able to help them to manage that
so children throughout everyday are experiencing stress, stressful situations,
so even negotiating bed time, or falling over in the playground, or having a toy snatched
off them at playgroup all these situations can be stressful for
a child having to be told that they have to wear a
hat outside when they hate wearing hats, all these situations can be stressful to an extent
for a child but are all really good learning for children
they learn that certain things happen that might not always go their way
and they learn that they have to manage those situations, even when those situations are
really disappointing for them so the main thing is to encourage parents
not to dismiss their children in those situations, but to provide that connection and empathy
so say: I know you're disappointed that we couldn't buy that toy in the shop, I know,
I wish I could buy everything in the shops too
providing that connection and empathy, and putting words to their experience
so that ultimately children can put their own experience into words, is really helpful
and allowing children to feel disappointed, to feel challenged, to feel bored
because they are gaining practice and valuable stress management skills, as they tolerate
those situations, that will obviously bode them well for life
I mean so that certainly ties them into the topic of resilience, which we cover in the
other Mat Time episode but which I also cover in a lot of detail
in my A Dose of Awesomeness advice packs which parents are welcome to access online
anytime I have a question, you talked about two other
types of anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress and panic disorder
what's panic disorder?
Panic disorder is a disorder that tends to occur more often in older children and adults
which is why I didn't go into it in too much detail in this episode
it's a disorder in which the anxiety is felt really physically, so your heart rate speeds
up, your breathing rate speeds up, you can feel light headed or dizzy
and often people have an experience that they're either going to die, or they're going mad
that's often how it's perceived because these things, it can just sort of come on quite
unexpectedly and can be really really frightening for someone
now the problem is once you've had one panic episode that comes out of the blue
it increases your baseline level of anxiety because you're now very worried about having
another one, and because you've got that raised baseline level of anxiety, you're more likely
to be tipped over into another panic state so it's really about teaching children, or
older children or adults, how to manage their anxiety as soon as it begins
so that you can quell those episodes early and eventually break that cycle
With some of the disorders like OCD, and some that you get physically sick, are they hereditary,
do you just have those, or is it something that's been caused from a parenting style
or an experience?
That's a great question, so anxiety in general is considered (in terms of that problematic
anxiety we talked about, or those anxiety disorders)
tend to be multifactorial, and you know sometimes we can't point a finger at one particular
thing and say: it was that!
There's certainly a genetic component, so as an adult if you have an anxiety disorder
then your kids would carry a greater genetic risk of having an anxiety disorder
same as with many illnesses and conditions in life
for some children temperament plays a role, so we know that some children are just highly
sensitive souls, just by virtue of their temperament, the qualities
of their personality that they've been born with
so those highly sensitive souls who tend to think more deeply about situations and worry
about all the "what ifs" that can be a trait that's been with them
since they were born, and those kids are more prone to worry,
for other children they might have experienced really traumatic events in their life, which
has made them more prone to stress and for other children there's a learned component
as well, so for example, if you were to jump so high
you hit your head on the ceiling every time you saw a spider
then children will naturally learn that spiders are incredibly dangerous and fear-inducing
and that they should respond similarly so their can be a learned component to anxiety
too, which is one of the reasons I guess we have to... another motivation to
I guess get on top of our own anxiety as parents, both for ourselves but also for our children
You mentioned the importance of having scheduled or regular down-time for children, can you
talk about what that looks like?
You know, you said there's good down-time and then bad down-time
you mentioned screen time as often replaced, what does good down-time look like?
I think it's just providing our kids with opportunities to be bored and come up with
their own activities I think often we tend as parents now to fill
the gaps, you know those gaps that might have otherwise been used by the child to do anything
really: thumb through a book, or gaze at clouds, or
anything, or just be bored there's a tendency to fill the gaps with screen
time and allow a child to be passive consumers of screen time, whereas that's not the best
use of their time children need practice being bored, my kids
actually very rarely let me know that they're bored
and a couple of times that they have, I've just explained to them that boredom is just
those brief moments before you come up with another good idea of something to do
but teaching children that they are very capable of coming up with a game, or coming up with
an activity, or wanting to explore in the garden, whatever it might be
they can come up with their own activities that provides them with more than passive
screen time could ever offer my kids make so much out of boxes, it's always
boxes...
Well I was sort of wondering what happens in terms of--
cause Kora has a lot of down-time, Ange will be baking or something like that and Kora's
just playing around but she's got heaps of stuff, so I was just
wondering Oh, no that's okay, it's just you as a parent
not filling all the time no if they're playing, or they come up with
an idea to play eye-spy with you as you're cooking, or anything
anything that's led by them, that's down-time anything that's led by you, as in booking
them into back-to-back swimming-dance-soccer lessons, and then filling the gaps with screens
there's just no down-time for kids then, if they haven't been able to come up with their
own activities Do you have any idea of what, sort of, I mean
this is a very vague and hard question to answer,
but a rough idea, what does balance look like?
I guess for you specifically might be easier to answer, so rough schedule?
Yeah, you know what, it often depends on your child as well, some kids can manage more than
others some kids are just, by virtue of their temperament
more physically active kids and are driven to do more
so my children are all actually quite different in how much they want to do, and how much
they can cope with and you know, that's the tricky thing with
being a parent is balancing the right amount for each of your very different children
my children to one after school activity a week and the rest of the time, they've chosen,
to have to be able to come home and play, or read, or just chill out, and that works
for our family but it will be different for all different
temperament types in different families Cool thanks
How do we know what a real anxiety is versus maybe just not want to go to bed?
Yeah Just can't find the right teddy, you know
So what do you mean?
In terms of why would you call it anxiety versus something else?
You know, if a child says I don't want to turn the lights off cause I'm scared of the
dark Oh, okay
But maybe the just don't want to go to sleep How do you know when they're...
When does an act of anxiety become attention seeking?
As an attention seeking strategy?
I think it depends if it's sustained or not so if it's, if it's a day when you've worked
a long day and you come home and your child is suddenly thinking of a thousand and one
reasons why you shouldn't leave them in their room at night because they want to keep connecting
with you and clinically in our conversations with parents
we would talk about "connection seeking" rather than attention seeking
because it's more helpful to think about that, because it's what it is, they just want to
connect with you and they'll think of a hundred and one reasons,
you know, ways to be able to do that you know, I guess you've got to consider the
context, whether this is a repeated theme, or whether it's a sustained thing
and again I guess if you are confused about it, then picking those times which are unrelated
to the event, when you're having a nice play throwing the
ball together the next day, and that's when you can have those conversations saying:
hey you know last night when you said you were scared of the dark, were you really scared
of the dark or did you just want me to hang out with you a bit longer?
That's the times when you can have those conversations,
unrelated to the event, where you probably
more likely to get a more helpful response perhaps
that can then guide you next time You talk about role playing as a good way
to help overcome something, what if they're eleven?
Do you still role play?
Yep, you can!
It depends on your child, yeah or at eleven you can just talk to them about
it and say: gosh it sounds like a pretty tricky
situation that you're in with your friend what options have you come up with, do you
actually just want to have a practice?
Like, if I said this to you, what would you say?
You can do it without the whole, okay lets now get up and role play, you can just play
it out in conversation If it's something that I felt should have
been dealt with years ago, and it's dragged out and now it seems ridiculous,
because it's about food, I think it's like a phobia now,
so are there techniques to deal with that?
Because it obviously is an anxiety I think in those situations where they become
a bit of a habit, and heals have been dug in, and it feels hard to break those habits,
one of the most helpful things I've found with children is to really align - make sure
you align with your child against the problem so what you don't want to do is align yourself
up against your child, because then you have those power struggles that never go well for
anyone so in those situations, it's much better to
be able to say: gosh you and I find mealtimes pretty tricky
and we both wish we didn't (so you're aligning with your child)
we both wish we didn't because we love hanging out together
and it's actually a really nice time to spend time together
So what can we do to make mealtimes better?
What are your ideas?
Cause I've got a couple of ideas and I'm just wondering if you have as well, and we'll both
work on those to make mealtimes a bit better But again, it's probably better to have that
conversation not at mealtime, at another time when you're feeling connected and on the same
page and you know, it might even being lying in
bed - you know, jumping in bed beside them one night and say: hey I just wanna talk to
you about something because you and I, you know, we're often apart
from each other during the day I love the time we spend together, I know
you and I both want it to be as good as it can be, so this is something that I was thinking
of that we could both work on What are your ideas?
And really aligning with your child against the problem
Good answer I know different things can induce anxiety
and my daughter, she's got two new siblings so that's created quite a bit of anxiety for
her how easy is it for that to say is it situation
specific, or is it likely to generalise?
So can you give me an example of how that's played out in terms of anxiety?
She'll have moments where she'll feel like she's not part of the family, she's had dreams
about being kidnapped or being taken by another family member to
live at their house and she'll wake up and she'll be quite upset
because she's like: but I don't want to live with them I want to live with you
and you know, we assure her, we're like that's not going to happen, you're going to live
with us, you're here as long as you want to be
and it's something that's very much started since the siblings have come home
so, I guess our concern with it is how likely is that to then start to induce anxiety in
other situations that aren't specifically related to that
How old's your daughter?
She's four Four, I think, you know, hearing that I guess
the thing that I would think about is that your little one's feeling like she's becoming
less and less part of your family I would wonder whether that's - and obviously
that's not the case and she's well loved - but that might be playing in her mind
is that her family is now irrevocably changed and that she's not feeling as much a part
of it as she once was perhaps so I guess if that's the case I'd be less
inclined that the anxiety is going to generalise and more inclined to think about it as a period
of adjustment in which your main role is really to connect
with her and bring her in as much as you can so that she feels like, even though her families
changed, she's still very much part of it so taking opportunities to connect with her,
to touch her, you know even at breakfast if you're reaching
across to get the breakfast cereal, popping a hand on her back
each time you go past a kiss on the head say things like: gee our family is so much
better with you in it, we love you being part of our family
or aren't your little brothers and sisters lucky to have you as a big sister
taking those moments to connect with her, really highlighting all the wonderful qualities
that she brings, not sort of external stuff like gee I like
your shoes, but: isn't it so wonderful that you're so kind, and gee you're funny
or you're so imaginative, whatever it might be
really take time to delight in her, let your face light up, your eyes light up when she
walks in so that she feels very much drawn in and part of your, albeit now different,
family and take the time too to foster that bond
between her and her siblings one of the ways I did this with my children
when each of - you know - when there was a new addition, each time there's a new addition
was having my older children do smiling practice with my babies
because we all know it takes a while for babies to learn how to smile, so one of the things
I would say to my older child was: hey can I get your help?
Because babies don't actually know how to smile, it's one of the many things we have
to teach them and you're a really good teacher, and you've
got a beautiful smile, so can you sit her with me and actually do
some smiling practice with our baby?
And it was a really nice way for the sibling and the baby to connect
and inevitably it's rewarded because the baby, pretty soon after, starts smiling back at
them and it's really reinforcing for that bond
but just bring in - I guess you've got to think creatively about lots of different ways
you can bring her in so that it's not a situation where you're
taking her away and leaving mum with babies, or whatever it might be, albeit to give babies
or mum a break think about things you can do together to
bring her in as often as you can Yeah, it's a tricky time, how old are your
babies?
They're about six months Yeah, so just making sure she's in as much
as possible, that delight is really important they say, so delight is communicated non-verbally
and it is the way your eyes light up and your face lights up and your body turns towards
someone when you're with them it's thought to be the basis of self-esteem
development for children so if she's - even if she gets up in the morning,
if she's delighted in, that's a beautiful way for her to start coming into the room
and seeing that her parents absolutely still delight in her being there, even though the
families a little different now, even though you will have zero sleep and it's
hard to delight in anything other than coffee but you know what I mean, it's just taking
- making sure those little moments of connection with your daughter happen because they really
add up to a lot As parents and teachers, how do you support
children who are suffering from anxiety with something that you are also feeling,
for example like if you were in a big earthquake, or a car accident, you have to look after
yourself as well but if your fear is genuine, do you hide it?
What do you suggest?
No, I think there's value in that, there's value for children to understand that it's
normal to feel anxious about things like that it is absolutely normal to feel anxious about
earthquakes if you've just been through one and it was scary
and it's helpful for them to know that the grown-ups are a bit scared
but don't just leave it at that, it would be more helpful to say: gosh I found that
earthquake scary too, did you?
Yeah, we both did, in fact everyone did, it's normal to feel a bit scared in an earthquake
but you know what?
We're all okay you know, provide some sort of context and
story around it, and provide some personal examples about what you did
to help yourself to manage your anxiety, if you can
or if not you, then draw on someone else's experience
Say, I know someone who went to talk to someone about it and realised that everyone just felt
worried but it passed you know, lots of scary things happen in life
but it passes you might find, if it's too much to have that
conversation, you might find bringing in story books about
are a more helpful way to, sort of, discuss that topic without drawing on your own experience
if you're finding that too challenging and there are lots of story books written
about anxiety, or various situations that children might find anxious that might help
in that situation, yeah
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