A deep breathing tactic for when your child is freaking out (either pain or emotional)

[Twiglett]

I'm a big believer in deep breathing to help yourself calm down or redirect your head from a 'hurt'

(as an aside .. both my children are generally ignored when they fall over / hurt themselves with a quick 'get up / rub it better' normally being sufficient and unreasonale tantrums get ignored)

But sometimes they need help calming down / redirecting their emotions to a point where they're back in control

so I teach them to breathe deeply

when they're young sit them on your lap facing you and get them to try to 'blow you away' .. they need to take a deep breath to blow out hard .. in the early stages blow on their face first .. it gets their attention .. pretend they're blowing you away when they do it back

from about 2.5 to 3 they can be taught to breathe deeply and blow out to a slow count of 5

I find it helpful

so I'm sharing

We've found this useful too Twiglett. Dd has had many blood tests and such and like you we've used it from quite a young age. She also uses it to cope with panicky feelings.

we do 'smell the cake and blow out the candles' here
works a treat

Great idea. Not used that (will probably give it a try now ) I have done the getting eye contact thing though and also holding close and speaking calmly. They seem to work quite well.

I saw a teacher give a panicky, upset child a glass of water and tell her to drink it. It worked better than I imagined it could - and it must work most of the time or else the teacher wouldn't have done it. As glass is involved only to be used when they don't want to be upset - but are.

I can understand why glass of water would work with anxiety

I like the breathing because its immediate and can be done anywhere (no props)

I think it's a great idea. We used to have "magic cream" for all those toddler bumps and scrapes - again brilliant because it needed no props. My friend who gave arnica got really stressed when she forgot it one day, before she even needed it.

Well done Twiglet. The old respiratory tricks work very well, and serve to equip the little ones with ever-more tools to use in their journey of life, especially when dealing with complex or confusing emotions. A glass of water has the wonderful two-fold affect of being both a placebo, and also a time buffer to allow the child to pause for a short while, and calm down. A soft toy can be a good emotional outlet for younger children, (especially if they are still at the stage where they have some regard for inanimate objects), and can whisper their feelings to it post-trauma!