Help parent tips for children with fear management

In recent years, they have encountered inquiries from families who were used to use the support for the management of technology, the entry of the 24-hour news cycle and adapt to life after the covidal as children who were through primary school during the pandemic parade. Evans is based in Los Angeles, where many children get ready with the trauma of the forest fires and lose their houses. Access to therapists is a barrier for so many people.

“Everyone seems to worry at the moment, and we really wanted something that was accessible, and that means accessible to everyone. We wanted a way for the people to get the tools we taught – of which we know that we didn't have as children, ”says Graber.

That was only: our generation of parents, who were probably grown up in the nineties, did not grew up with so much social emotional awareness. I only got a diagnosis for panic disorder. Until then, I only used problems (obsessive behaviors, my ruminations) to try to manage feelings that had no words.

In the meantime, “there is now so much more pressure, now the parents correctly correct,” says Evans and remembers the warning of the general surgeon of 2024, which framed parental stress as a decisive problem in public health. Gentle parenting, shareding, free class, who white-es is too intense if you just try to survive the day before you collapse at 10 p.m.

It doesn't have to be that difficult.

“We want parents to understand that they can create a feeling of emotional security in the relationship between parents and child, and it then means that their child feels calmer as a whole. The core of it is: “How can we help children feel safer and how can we fall ill in a way that achieves it?” Says Evans.

Graber and Evans use the “safer” frame to lead the parents through fear management and focus on what parents can do to make a significant difference at home, even if the outside world is unwieldy.

S is used to define the sound. “Quiet is contagious. Children are small sponges, ”says Evans. It may seem impossible to give a calm tone if you freak out inside. Maybe your child asks about death, school or a shootout or to get sick. We are people: these things are also scared.

So remember that you don't always have to be available immediately. Take a minute (or several minutes) for yourself instead of becoming reactive. This is the difference between children and adults: we have the most necessary to withdraw and work ourselves back, and we do not owe our children to an immediate answer. The parents don't have to compete all the time.

“If a child asks something that takes on fear, they can take a minute and say:” I don't have the answer, but I will come back to them, “says Graber. “Practice more slowly. Breathe in. Take a break. Certainly go into a conversation. “

She likes to say parents, they should visualize themselves as a mountain that is not rebuilt by everything that happens around them.

A serves to enable feelings to guide behaviors. Don't try to speak your children from your feelings. Let them feel what you feel.

Let us assume that they storm out of the door and their child complains that they are nervous because of basketball training. They pull. You won't put your shoes on; You will have to call a job in 15 minutes. Recognize your feelings instead of fighting.

“What you can tell you is: 'It's okay to be anxious. I know you are concerned. We can talk about it, but you have to make three deep breaths and go to the car to take us to school. 'You keep the feeling, but then you lead her [to a behavior]Set a limit and create a recommendation for creating what you can do with this fear, ”says Evans.

F is for the formation of identity. Giving your child a refuge at home is one of the best ointments against anxiety. Follow your interests, be it drums or dinosaurs; Make sure that the home is a place where you can express your true yourself instead of being controlled in certain directions.

“If your child knows that:” Wow, my parents are really in this thing “,”, “says Graber. On the other side of this coin, the community is building outside of home: make a reference to the people who pass on the way to school every day. Definition of strong routines, predictability and rituals that strengthen security.

“When children know who they are and where they belong, they can say: 'I really like me', they worry less. It calms the sound of doubts and fear, ”says Evans.

E is for the commitment. Bringing children to open is rough. Usually I ask my sons how school went and at best I will be “ok” and if it is a very special day, I could hear a juicy tidbit about Cafeteria drama. When it comes to what you are worried about? I really have no idea until everything goes out, usually before going to bed, when I am half my sleep and is completely unprepared to answer thoughtfully.

It is common. Evans and Graber often see parents who maximize (concerns and catastrophic); Minimize (brush fears to help but actually discount them); Or save (step in to fix the problem instead of hearing what I definitely do).

Your solution is: “Do not scare the cat”: Basically, do not come up with a lot of emotions and ask your child with a lot of emotions and ask, otherwise you will be away. Instead, try repeatedly: Repeat what you hear.

“When a child comes home and says: 'So and so I didn't talk to me with me at lunch today, and I'm so sad about it,' we often have the tendency to say something like that: 'Don't worry about it. You are two friends forever! 'What we recommend is to say: “Wow. She didn't talk to you today, and that made you sad. 'If you come to you excitedly, meet that. If you come to you sadly, meet it, ”says Graber.

Do not discover the stress or do not offer to write the parents of So-Sto to patch things (guilty). Simply reflect your feelings. This helps your child feel heard and seen, and makes it more likely to say more.

R is for model. Parents are not perfect. We are faulty with our own fears. We don't have to present an infallible front for our children, but we can model self -compassion.

“It is about taking a look at how they talk about themselves, how they think about themselves, what triggers their own fear or frustrations and only to understand and sharpen the awareness of their own actions,” says Evans.

Think about how you react to stress and how you subconsciously model it for your children. For example, if we had guests, I turned into a screaming mess for three hours. I would shout my children to collect their disgusting shoes and to have attributed my husband to live in a pigsty. I didn't want to be judged to have an untidy house, but it also came from a real place: I wanted to show the guests a home that I was proud of (and um, my family really does not share these values).

Now I send them out before we have people. To the shopping center. To the cinema. Where. I know that I have to scrub and spray desperately in peace; I show my children how to be divided without affecting my own feelings. I tell you that I get nervous before people come over and I know how I can handle it – alone.

“This shows the children that it is okay to be imperfect and that the growth of self -compassion arises instead of self -criticism. We see a lot of perfectionism in children and are hard for themselves. And we would love it if parents are generally less hard for themselves, ”says Evans.

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Kara Baskin can be reached at kara.baskin@globe.com. Follow your @Kcbaskin.