Parenting isn’t easy. When you’re dealing with ‘mum guilt’ or trying to explain the mental load to your partner while juggling work, home, and taking care of your kids, it’s easy to lose your patience at bedtime, especially when your child says things like “I can’t sleep” or “I don’t know” in response to a simple question.
However, parent Melissa (@momtherapist) has uncovered the subtle ways children express anxiety—and it’s not as obvious as you may expect. After all, a youngster may lack the developed motor skills necessary to display the more obvious signs of worry, such as perspiration, shakiness, palpitations, or agitation.
RELATED: Is Your Child Showing Signs of Depression?
As parents, there are moments when we fail to completely get our child’s true meaning because we are not paying close enough attention. No one should take this personally since it is a common occurrence.
After a long day, we often just want to find time to ourselves and relax. Or we just don’t have the energy to get out of bed in the morning. We tend to misinterpret their nonverbal cues and accept their words at face value.
When we discover that their claims are unfounded, we simply disregard them. Stop and observe their behavior the next time we feel overwhelmed by our child’s words.
While some parents have seen similar statements coming from their own children, others have acknowledged that they can now identify these qualities in themselves from when they were youngsters.
As a mother of an anxious kid, one piece of advice is to provide a secure place where the child may let out all of their emotions. Establish a routine that is reliable, risk-free, and steady. Master the art of detecting them.
“My mom brought me to a million experts and put me on a variety of medicines for stomach issues when I was in first grade. I missed a month of school because ‘my belly aches’,” a parent expressed. “It seems my worry was the real issue.”
Other concerned parents have said, “I really appreciate this! Just before my kid started his online education a few weeks ago, I was attempting to sort things out. I wanted to know how he felt when he said he didn’t want to attend class. At least I know what else to keep an eye out for now.”
Melissa shared her strategies for helping her kids identify and name their emotions. “If children can identify and label their emotions,” she said, “Then we can cope with it correctly.”
A worry-timer, in which parents listen to their child’s concerns for ten to fifteen minutes at a predetermined interval, is something the therapist recommended as a means to “help them spend a bit less time on their fears,” she said. No, we will not provide answers or resolve issues, she stressed. We will just pay attention.
Additionally, she recommended that children wait until worry time to express their concerns and keep themselves “distracted by doing something entertaining or delightful.”
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