{"id":10975,"date":"2018-11-19T08:31:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-19T08:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/?p=10975"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:33:29","slug":"3-steps-to-overcoming-child-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/3-steps-to-overcoming-child-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Steps to overcoming child anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There are three simple steps you can follow to deal with anxiety in children.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Anxiety is not uncommon in children with school learning difficulties, disabilities or differences.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, I have just successfully gone through this 3-step process with my own daughter, so I thought I would share it with you.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cSupporting a child with anxiety takes time. The problem which caused the anxiety didn\u2019t happen overnight, it has been building up over time, but eventually it bubbles up and the symptoms become obvious, so time is needed to resolve it.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n\n

The first step starts with sitting down with them and having a conversation, this may be easier with girls than with boys.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you want to have a deep and meaningful conversation with your son, you might try doing a physical activity with them. This can include; going for a walk, doing the dishes side by side, doing a job or working on creative project.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Once they are relaxed and you feel that they are ready, start with the first step.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Write down how they are feeling<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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“Step 1 – Write down how they are feeling.<\/strong> If your child is old enough, get them to write their own list. If they can\u2019t do it for themselves, you can do it for them. This helps to develop their
emotional intelligence.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n\n

Things they might be feeling may include; sad, frustrated, angry, not understanding the way they feel or thinking there is no solution.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In the beginning, don\u2019t worry about why they are feeling the way they do, just concentrate on how they are feeling, the WHY comes later.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

2. Identify their number one issue<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

There may be a whole range of things that are affecting them. They might say; \u201cI feel dumb and stupid, no one will play with me, the teacher doesn\u2019t understand what I need to learn, the kids at school tease me, my big brother or sister doesn\u2019t get me, or everyone is faster than me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you have made this list, you need to find the number one, most pressing issue, that is affecting them at this time. This is your child\u2019s number one issue. This may be different to what you think it is. It is important to identify what your child sees as their number one concern.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n
\u201cStep 2 – Narrow down their anxiety causing issues, going from broad to specific.<\/strong> Identify the one thing that is causing your child the biggest issue right now, so you can address this first.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n\n

Try and make sure that you talk through these issues and define exactly what it is, that is upsetting them. Just saying \u201cI hate school\u201d is too broad, get your child to be more specific, what is it exactly that they hate about school. It might take some time and lots of questions, but to address the issue you need to know specifically what is it about school that they hate?<\/span><\/p>\n

Put some strategies in place to help work on this area of concern first. Ask others for support and possible solutions; teachers, psychologists, your child and family friends. Find proactive ways to address this area of concern.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Create a happy list for your child<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This might be hard at first because of how they are feeling, but persevere until they start to come up with ideas. You can prompt them with things you know make them happy or make them smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

For my daughter; she is happy playing sports, playing with our dogs and having someone prepare her yummy food to eat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Make a big list and make this your child\u2019s \u2018happy list\u2019. When they are feeling sad or anxious, this gives them a go-to list. Get your child to incorporate the activities on their \u2018happy list\u2019 into each day or a number of times each week.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n
\u201cStep 3 – Make a \u2018happy list\u2019 for your child<\/strong> and get them to do something from their list every day to help them get their balance back.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n\n

I really hope this 3-step strategy can help your child, just like it helped my daughter. It\u2019s simple but effective and works for all age groups. If you would like to see a video on Facebook where I talk about this further go here<\/strong><\/a> and if you would like to watch it on YouTube go here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are three simple steps you can follow to deal with anxiety in children. Anxiety is not uncommon in children with school learning difficulties, disabilities or differences. In fact, I have just successfully gone through this 3-step process with my own daughter, so I thought I would share it with...
Continue reading...<\/a>","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":15504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellbeing"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10975"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11027,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10975\/revisions\/11027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dyslexiadaily.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}