From the Counsellors
When anxiety strikes, help your child set their brave in action
We regularly write articles that talk about helping you and your child to manage anxiety.
This week we would like to draw your attention to an excellent article posted on the Hey Sigmund website. Below is an extract. To read the whole article, click on the link provided.
Remember Hey Sigmund can be accessed through the Your MindMatters Website/Parent Matters. It is a great site to follow on Facebook too.
'Anxiety in children and teens can shrink their world more than anything should. Sometimes anxiety will do what it was designed to do, and show up in response to a real threat. Most often though, anxiety will show up, not in response to danger, but to something meaningful or important. This is when anxiety can really get in the way for our young ones. Instead of holding them back from something life-threatening, it just holds them back.
Anxiety doesn’t weigh up the pros and cons of anything – just the cons. It does this to keep us safe. We’re more likely to run into trouble if we miss the potential risks than if we miss the potential gains. This means that anxiety will swell just as much in reaction to a real life-threat, as it will to the things that might cause heartache (feels awful, but not life-threatening), but which will more likely come with great rewards. When it comes to anxiety, dangerous things, important things, or meaningful things can all feel the same.
Anxiety always exists with courage. It’s important for our children to know this because anxiety can run a convincing argument that as long as it is there, brave behaviour isn’t possible. But here is the shimmering, powerful truth of it all – even with anxiety, they can do amazing things. They can feel anxious AND do brave. They can feel anxious AND move towards that important thing. They can feel anxious AND get the job done.'
Gai Bath and Andrea Maver
SMC Counsellors