5 ways to support your anxious child at home

Being a young person nowadays is tough. Expectations are high and social media provides little opportunity to children and teenagers to escape this. But there are some things you can do to provide support for young people experiencing worry or anxiety. These don’t take a lot of energy or money, but with a little effort, can calm the insecurities a child may have.

1.       Routine, routine, routine.

As parents, it’s drummed into us that getting babies and toddlers on a schedule gives you the golden ticket to a contented baby. This isn’t quite the case for children and teenagers. But offering as much predictability as possible is key to calming anxiety. If a child knows that on a Tuesday, they are collected from school by Mum and on a Saturday they have running club, they have things they can take for granted. These mainstays offer children the security that things won’t suddenly change and this allows them to feel they have a level of control over their lives. It reduces the cognitive load of ‘what is going to happen?’ and gives space for them to pay attention to other things.

Tip: A whiteboard split into days is a great reference point for a child. This allows them to be independent in seeking reassurance about what will happen when, and reduces the repeated questions to you. If your child isn’t able to read just yet, you can buy or download editable timetables/planners that will help you do this visually.

2.       Consistency

Similar to routine, consistency offers children a certainty to feel secure with, reducing anxiety over what outcomes could be. In part, this is a parenting style; being consistent with your reactions to behaviour, emotions and situations. But it also comes into things such as if you say we’re going to have chilli for tea, chilli it is! If we’re a phones away at 9pm household, it’s 9pm every night, no exclusions.

Though sometimes framed as inflexible, or strict, even, consistency is so important to all people, especially those with anxiety or neurodiversity. Humans are creatures of habit and our brains learn based on cause and effect. By giving your child predictable patterns of behaviour or reactions, you’re giving them comfort and security that they can cope with what’s coming.

3.       Planning

Despite numbers 1 and 2, change is inevitable and we’d be doing our children a disservice if we left them totally unequipped for it. Involving your children in the planning of things that are different helps them conceive of and cope with change. Going on holiday can be a nightmare for some families, because the structure of home is what holds everything together. Giving your child lots of warning about the upcoming change is very important. This, in isolation, is likely to cause more anxiety, because change, alone, feels unknown. Involving your child in planning this change helps them to build a picture of what the new situation will look like.

Let your child help you map out the activities for a holiday. When thinking about a trip to Grandma’s, give them a map so they can see which places they’ll pass and look out for on the motorway. Before going to a restaurant, offer them the chance to browse the menu, so they feel secure they’ll have something enjoyable to eat. Before a trip, show your child pictures of the location, so that it feels familiar before the day. Don’t forget to show them pictures of things such as the toilets, the car park or the café. These things we take for granted can be hugely anxiety-provoking for children. Having a mental image of it offers them a sense of familiarity that calms worries.

4.       Choice

We can’t let young people dictate every decision. Unlimited choices and numbers of variables will increase anxiety, as outcomes are totally random and there’s no sense of predictability. However, giving your child a choice, wherever it’s feasible to do so, will help them to feel in control of outcomes. This is psychologically proven to increase independence and raise self-esteem, as the brain gets the message that in can meet its own needs and be self-reliant. Knowing that they have a voice is a very important for all young people; it helps them safeguard, it raises autonomy and it helps them distinguish themselves from others. In a world where blending in feels easiest, it gives them courage if they stand out.

The key is to offer limited choices and ensure either choice works for the young person and the family, and that you can deliver either choice. For younger children, it might be choosing between peas or sweetcorn at lunch, which colour hair bobble to wear or whether they go on the swings or the slide first. For older children, you might let them choose the Saturday night movie, what kind of school bag they’d like or whether they want to join you on your trip to do the food shop.

5.       Space

I mean physical space, mental space and time. If your child or teen using their bedroom as a hibernation zone, it might mean this is their safe space. This sanctuary is important to allow them to decompress, regulate and process what is going on for them or the experiences the day has brought. We’re all used to the clichés of teenagers living in a hovel, only coming out for food and grunting at anyone who dares come close. But actually, knowing you have a stable, secure base to retreat to when you need helps people feel more resilient in the moment. That’s not to say you can’t agree ground rules around the space such as an expectation that your child comes down for meals, no screens in there after a certain time, dirty washing must be brought down once a day – see points 1 and 2 on routines and consistency. On the whole though, try to respect that having a space that is theirs is really important in your child’s life, and will support good mental health.

Thinking about mental space leads us to think about the cognitive load a child carries. Your child’s life might be packed full of extra-curriculars and that’s what makes them tick. That’s great for them! Others may find themselves saturated with the expectations of school (workload-wise but also keeping track of the rules and systems that differ to anywhere else in their life), leaving little space to process much else. Think carefully about the personality and behaviour of your child before committing to things outside of the school day – do they have the mental space to hold a different set of expectations in their mind or could they do with a few evenings to rest and digest? Remember, understanding and following the social norms of their peer group and following the systems at home means that our young people are always carrying some level of cognitive load – what can we do to lighten that for them?

Finally, time. Most people feel a little anxious when they know there is a time pressure, so allowing plenty of time for transitions can really help those who worry. Importantly, though, thinking about processing time can be transformative in supporting an anxious child. Think of processing time as the time between planting a seed and allowing it to grow. If you ask something of a child (let’s use a simple example of what they would like for lunch), give them a couple of minutes to think this through before expecting or prompting an answer. Even better, propose an outcome and after a minute or two, ask them (genuinely) what they think about it. Asking an anxious child a question and demanding an answer immediately is likely to force them into a stress response. This is unlikely to reflect a measured answer and increases the likelihood of conflict. Over time, feeling pressured to give answers with little ‘take-up time’ can mean that children start to avoid communication and shut down. Giving processing time means giving time for the seed to grow; when you come back for the answer it’s likely to be much more authentic, organic and calmer. Of course, this isn’t possible with all questions or communication, sometimes you just need to know which day they need their swimming kit for! But give it a go… it’s a sure fire way to improve communication in your house.