How do you handle children's anxiety?

[jennifersofia]

My child can get extremely anxious, and I am not sure how to help her with it. For example, before going back to school she was up in the night two nights worrying about it. Couldn't sleep well, couldn't eat breakfast before school, crying about it, and generally miserable. She likes school, likes her teacher, does well, has friends, and when she came out after the first day back was absolutely fine. It is just the thought of it being the last day of holiday, and what if she cried at school, or felt upset at school, etc.
My general response is 'It will be okay' or 'remember to breathe' but this doesn't really help her much. It is clear (to us, not to her) that she is generating a lot of the anxiety, (she was worried about being worried last night!) but also feels very victim to it. I don't know how to help her recognise it and move beyond it.
Any tips?

Me too. I have an anxious child. She seems to create her own anxiety, too. It's probably tied up in other things going on. But I await anyone's response to this, to see if there are any tips for children's who's lives are otherwise perfectly fine.

This is a good book.

www.amazon.co.uk/Talk-Kids-Will-Listen-Child/dp/1853407054

It gives effective commuication skills so you can get your kids to talk through their worries

Or protective behaviours may help.

www.protectivebehaviours.co.uk/resource.php?resourceid=4

youngminds.co.uk

Thanks for those links, I will check them out. Any other suggestions?

DS1 is like this and has been sleeping much better since I gave him a notebook beside his bed. We have a rule though, for every 'bad' thing he writes he has to write one 'good' thing too. He reads back on it quite often and is now able to see that a lot of his worries and concerns either never materialised or weren't as bad as he thought and that also, he enjoys a lot more than he remembers.

I used to feel like that. Not helpful sorry. I would have liked a lot of cuddles and reassurance that my parents would be there to talk when I got back, I may have felt like it because I rarely did my homework though.....

Writing things down can help enormously. If you can encourage her to think about the specifics, get her to split her worries down into things that are likely to happen and things that are unlikely to happen, and then for each one decide if she can do something about it or can't do something about it.

It helps to see that sometimes the things we worry about the most are unlikely to happen and you can't do anything about them anyway OR are likely to happen but easy to have a plan to stop.

I like those suggestions about writing things down, we will definitely try that. DH was just saying that often when she feels anxious, she can't say exactly what she is anxious about, almost more like an anxiety attack. Do you have anything specific that would be good to do in that circumstance?