Controlling Anxiety
Hey Nicholeen,I am just coming into a question that I believe you can help me with. It is regarding the feeling of anxiety that you talk about all children (people) having. How can I help my child through those feelings, especially when she uses them against other members of our family. I have talked with her (the pre-teaching) about it not being appropriate, and we have tried to examine some other alternatives to her current choice. But, I am not seeing her put into practice any of them.Should my focus be on what is causing or what is inflaming the feelings, or just that they will not be acceptable and thus on consequences, or on the alternatives?My feeling is that the causes should NOT be the focus. Especially because in talking with her, I have felt that they are not rational.I have a hard time finding an appropriate consequence here because often she just takes them out on whoever is closest, and the actions do vary. Most of the time it occurs several time before I notice what is actually going on. Most of the time, she self-reports and I then have to figure out why she is telling me, and then what is most appropriate to do about it. I have had a hard time finding a ‘one-size fits all’ consequence. If you can make any suggestion in that area, I would be appreciative.What can you offer here?
I think the kind of anxiety you are talking bout here the kind that feels like a ball of fire in your stomach. It feels like if you give into it and hurt someone or get angry then you will feel better. And most poeple do feel an emotional release for a few minutes. Even lots of parents don’t know how to control this kind of anxiety. An emotionally healthy person can learn how to control their anxiety, or impulse to hurt or get angry when under stress. Try to think about how you stop yourself from yelling at the children when you are stressed, trying to get eveyone out of the house on time, and nothing is going “right.” This will help you know how to help your daughter control her fire ball too.
My initial thought, without knowing how old she is, is that you need to probably have a counseling session with her about her anxiety issue, and then tell her what her consequence will be each time she chooses not to control her anxiety. Talk about what her body actually does when she is anxious, and what she should use as a body cue to stop herself from lossing control.Oh, be sure to give her the steps to control her impulse to…………what ever you call it.
As soon as she reacts to her anxiety, instead of controlling it, then she needs to earn automatic negative consequences. Cause and effect. NO second chances. She will only learn how to govern this behavior if she knows she has to stop the anxiety before it controls her. As soon as you see her start to look anxious say, “Sally, you are clenching your fists.” (or whatever she does) Try to say this before she has a problem if you are around to notice.
You are right not to worry about the causes of the anxiety. Anxiety is often a choice and can be controlled no matter what has occurred to a person. She will have anxious moments her whole life, so she needs to know how to control herself. If she doesn’t learn this basic skill, she will feel out of control, probably make a habit of excuse making, and end up rationalizing other negative behaviors she might have, out of habit, as well.
When I worked with the foster youth in my home for 4 years, most of them had severe anxiety. One youth didn’t like change, one youth got anxious in new social settings, and almost all of them were anxious about getting negative feedback about behaviors when they first came to my home. Luckily, they soon saw that I wasn’t going to get angry at them. They felt safer in my home, so they were able to slowly learn how to master their anxiety about possibly being wrong or, making mistakes.
Important! Reward her in some way for her self reporting. Make sure the positive consequence is something that motivates her, so that even though she has to still follow through with the negative consequence earned, she is highly motivated to self report. This is a good self government skill. Also, teach her to come tell you when she chooses to control her anxiety. Have some positive consequence for that too. Praise her a lot for any effort to control the force that she has let control her for a while now. She needs to feel she is doing something in the hard process to control herself. It really is a battle. Don’t focus as much on the negative moments as the positive moments. I have made this mistake before, and found that I took away all the inspiration for my child to master the skill. Show almost no emotion when a mistake is made, and be very energetic when steps toward self mastery happen.
We all feel stressed, misunderstood or anxious from time to time. Think about how you calm yourself and then teach your child to do the same. 
Usually, what I found with my foster children, and over the years, with my own children, is that anxiety becomes a habit. And, if a person doesn’t learn how to notice their own anxious feelings and control them they become ruled by them. To be free from anxiety, a person has to recognize their feelings, and learn how to calm themselves down so that the problem can be calmly addressed.
Anxiety often leads to anger, which often leads to loosing control of your actions. This is why anxiety has to be controlled.
Please help! My 7-year old girl has temper tantrums that I think are caused by anxiety. They are pretty bad tantrums: she doesn’t even notice what’s going on around her while she is giving in to the anger. What usually sets her off is a change from what she expected, or not getting her way. She manages to control them mostly at school, so I wonder why can’t she control them at home? What can I do? We put her in her room or in time out. But the tantrums continue on and on. My husband thinks she needs counseling. She will scream and wail for a good 40 minutes or so because we’re not having hot dogs for dinner. Please help! This is really a big problem in our home.