Anxiety: a monster under the bed

Each of us has a small monster under the bed — Anxiety. Today, we will help your children make friends with him.


Children are more likely to face fears and anxieties than adults. Kids experience many situations for the first time and they are not yet familiar with the world with its causal patterns. In addition, children cannot find an adequate way to deal with such an emotion as anxiety. Where an adult finds a rational explanation — a child invents a terrible "fairy tale". Because their rational thinking is still not yet fully developed, and "magical" — it is flourishing in full force.

Anxiety is a normal emotion. However, if you do not cope with it, it will start to grow. This leads to such consequences as:

impaired attention;

impaired memory;

decreased ability to adapt to new life circumstances;

aggressive behavior;

sleeping disorders;

physical consequences headache, nausea, weakness.


So let's help your children become friends with their monster under the bed Anxiety.

  • First, tell your children that anxiety is normal. Everyone feels it, and so do you. Tell your child stories about what you have ever felt anxious about: a school concert, a first vocal lesson or a darkness. Anxiety is useful and important for our lives. It protects us, warns us, reminds us of something.

  • To overcome anxiety, you need to know the reason for it. Ask your child what frightens him or her and why he or she is worried. Try to refute the alarming situation - explain to your kid what is happening, show a lot of options for solving problems and conflicts. Try to overcome this fear together gradually. For example, if your child is afraid of thunder in the middle of a downpour, explain to your little one how it occurs and how safe it is. Tell it in a playful way, according to the age of the kid. Or if, for example, a child is afraid of dogs - first look at the pictures of dogs in books together, then more often pay attention to them on the street, then encourage the child to stroke a furry friend, supporting your kid.

  • Create a safe world for your child. Your kid should know that nothing is threatening him next to you, that he is always protected. His day should be filled with movements, games, joy, laughter, new, but not excessive impressions. In this case, the child will have less reason to worry.

  • Turn an anxious situation into a funny game. Together with a child you can invent a story, main characters of which will be the child himself and images of his fears. This story must have a good ending in which bad heroes remain defeated. To visualize the events of the fairy tale, you can use soft toys, dolls, cars etc.

Remember that anxiety is a normal reaction of the brain to stress. And you should not run away from it. It is necessary to learn to cope with it, to help a child to adapt and to learn to feel comfortable with this uncomfortable emotion.

As a mother of two, I know that the most important thing in dealing with kids’ anxiety is to stay calm and rational. In raising children parents should remember that first of all it is very important to work on themselves, their own emotions and feelings. I believe that you will be able to cope with children's anxiety. And I hope that my article, as well as the book "I am stronger than anxiety" will help you in this.


With love,

Elizabeth Cole