Allison Edwards's Blog, page 8

Tip of the Week: Your Child Wants to Quit a Sport? Give them “3 Times to Decide”

It’s that time of year for sports sign-ups and many kids are super excited about playing. They can’t wait for the first practice or game, don’t want to take their new jersey off and want to practice to get better. Then, there are those kids who don’t. They went to the first practice and it wasn’t quite what they expected. They didn’t make a goal, didn’t have any friends on the field and ultimately decided they wanted nothing to do with it. And their parents are left making some tough decisions…

Should I let him quit?

Should I make her play even if she doesn’t want to ?

Is making him play going to leave a bad taste in his mouth for future sports?

Let me start by explaining why early experiences with sports can be difficult for kids: The IDEA of playing sports is very different than the REALITY of playing sports.

Kids envision themselves as being instantly successful. They dream of hitting the game winning shot, having their teammates rally around them and being the most valued kid on the team. When this doesn’t happen, kids often want to quit. They stress about going, worry about missing a shot and start isolating themselves from their teammates. Many kids cry all the way to the field, begging their parents to turn the car around and take them back home.

If you are currently in this situation or can even FORESEE this situation, a good strategy is saying, “Let’s make a decision after three times.  You can go to three practices, games, etc. and then decide if you want to continue to play.”  When your child starts to complain after the first practice, remind him/her that we’re going to wait and make a decision after three times.  (*An exception to this rule:  If your child signs up for a SEASON and is expected to play the whole season, then he/she should complete the season without the obligation to ever play the sport again.”) If there is no obligation then use THREE TIMES TO DECIDE.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND:

Within 3 practice or games, many kids will end up liking the sport. They will have been successful, made a friend or feel valued by the coach. If you pull the trigger too soon, this may have not happened. So give your child a chance to like a sport or activity, even though he may not have gotten off to a good start.

For more tools about how to navigate difficult situations with kids, discover Why Smart Kids Worry.

‘Why Smart Kids Worry’ Can Ease Kids’ Anxiety: A Featured Article on Parents.com

When our young school-age kids worry, we parents worry, too. Some are scared to get on the bus, some have a terrible time falling asleep and others might hit themselves in the head when their homework stumps them. In our fast-paced world, anxiety relentlessly attacks whoever it wants to.

 Enter this great expert: Allison Edwards, LPC, has been working with anxious adults and their offspring for many years. As a registered play therapist who has seen hundreds of clients, she decided to put all of her hard-won tips and information into the new book, Why Smart Kids Worry.

One of her tips is to help the child label her anxiety. If she can’t sleep, say that Sleepless Sally is visiting again. Talk about it, and kick Sally to the curb. The crazier and sillier the name, the better. That helps the child diffuse her feelings and  recognize when they’re present and when they’re gone. Need a few more tips? Read my Q&A with Allison below.

KK: Why do smart kids worry?
AE: Smart kids worry because their minds take them places they aren’t ready to go emotionally.  They worry about going to college in third grade and about dying in kindergarten because they know these events will eventually happen. Intellectually they can understand these events, but emotionally they can’t process them, thus they worry.

KK: How early does anxiety start with kids?

AE: Anxiety can start as early as three-years-old. Some parents describe having a fussy, impatient, hard-to-soothe child that has always been difficult. These parents generally see anxiety a lot earlier.  Other parents describe having a happy-go-lucky child until around 7 or 8 when their child suddenly becomes worried. These parents are more caught off guard because they see a such a sudden change in behavior in their child.

KK: How do you know if your preschooler/early elementary kid is becoming a worrier? Are there warning signs?
AE: You know your child is becoming a worrier if he/she talks about worries on a consistent basis. You may also notice your child becoming more distant, clingy or irritable which may also be signs that your child is worrying.

KK: What are three strategies for helping an anxious child?
AE: Three strategies to help an anxious child are:

1) Don’t get caught up in your child’s anxiety. Stay objective and supportive without getting wrapped up in what your child is worrying about. The calmer you can be, the calmer your child will become.
2) Have your own tools. It’s not enough that your child knows how to calm himself down. You need your own tools to use during times when your child’s anxiety is heightened.
3) Track your child’s anxiety. Take 30 seconds each day to record how anxious your child seemed throughout the day. Using a scale of 1 to 10, write down your child’s level of anxiety and then use the information to reflect on the past days, weeks and months. This will give you a better idea of what triggers your child’s anxiety and how long it generally lasts.

KK: What inspired you to write this book?

AE: I wrote this book because I struggled with anxiety as a child. I spent the majority of my childhood worrying about things like death, natural disasters, terminal diseases and what I was going to be when I grew up. When I became a child therapist, I found that the kids I was working with worried about the same things. When I couldn’t find any resources that addressed the topic directly, I compiled the information and tools that I had discovered and made it into Why Smart Kids Worry.

by Kristen Kemp

The First Ever “TIP OF THE WEEK” – Give Your Child’s Anxiety a Name

Parents sit in my office every day looking for tips on how to help their anxious child. “What do I do when…?” is what I hear hour after hour, day after day. They may finish the sentence with “…my child won’t stop talking about his worries,” or “…she won’t get out of the car at school” or even “…he won’t stop hitting himself in the head when he is mad.” So I decided to come up with a “TIP OF THE WEEK” to share with parents who are looking for a little advice. These tips have been offered to large numbers of parents so don’t worry…they have been tried before. So here goes…the first ever TIP OF THE WEEK!

TIP OF THE WEEK: GIVE YOUR CHILD’S ANXIETY A NAME

What is anxiety? Well, frankly, it is an abstract word that adults have come up with to identify unrealistic fears about everyday events. Try to explain that to a child and they’ll look at you like you’ve grown two heads. Anxiety to kids is butterflies in the stomach, headaches, fear of going to school, being unable to sleep or feeling sick when they’re away from you. Anxiety to kids is something that shows up then goes away, but what is that something? As adults we understand it’s this abstract thing called anxiety but to kids (who are concrete thinkers) it is difficult, even impossible, to understand.

Q: What makes anxiety easier for kids to understand?

A: Kids can better understand anxiety if you give it a name

It’s so much easier for kids to understand that”Worry Walter” showed up right before the test or that “Scaredy Sally” always comes around at bedtime. What’s even better is to MAKE your child’s anxiety out of clay. Come up with a fun, crazy name and make your child’s anxiety so he or she can actually SEE it. This helps kids understand that while “Worry Walter” may show up during certain times of the day, he will always go away again. This tip takes the power out of your child’s anxiety and makes it more manageable.

For more tips on how to help anxious kids, discover Why Smart Kids Worry.

 

 

 

Why Kids Shouldn’t Watch the News

It’s after work and you have the t.v. on for just a few minutes while you cook dinner. Or maybe you’re trying to catch up on what’s happening in Syria, the stock exchange or even the latest happenings in Hollywood. You click the television on, go about what you’re doing and maybe catch a little here and there. You hear what’s happening, may react or not react, but go about your day BECAUSE you realize that what’s happening on television is not happening directly to you. You understand that Syria is a long way away and that people in our country don’t treat each other that way. You also realize that the bomb that went off in Egypt is something that will probably not happen on your street and the shooting in the L.A. strip mall will likely not happen in your local mall.

But your bright, intuitive child walks by and he sees something very different. He sees what’s happening on television as happening to him. I like to call this the SNOW GLOBE EFFECT and describe it as: A child’s world is like a snow globe in that whatever happens inside the snow globe happens to him. The bomb he sees on television is in his snow globe; it just as soon be happening down the street. The shooting, the fire, the tornado is also in his snow globe and is also happening to him. Directly to him.

The SNOW GLOBE EFFECT is not by choice but where kids are developmentally. They don’t have higher level thinking skills (the pre-frontal cortex and corpus callosum are not fully developed) and are concrete thinkers without the ability to think abstractly. It’s no wonder that kids hear a story on the news and worry about it for the rest of the day and when they hear a scary story about monsters at a sleepover, they are still thinking about it months later.  When something scary enters their snow globe, it sticks around for a while.

That’s why it’s best to keep your kids away from adult information. This article is targeting the news but any information that is not kid-friendly, such as adult conversations about money, job stress, marital issues, conflicts with your mother-in-law, etc. should be kept away from children. You can’t guarantee that your child won’t worry but you can sure lessen his load by keeping the scary stuff out of his snow globe.

For more information about how to protect kids from adult information, discover Why Smart Kids Worry.

“Why Smart Kids Worry” Released Today!

“You teach best what you need to learn.”   -  Richard Bach     

I was a typical four-year-old kid. I was full of life, energy and always had a smile…but later that year my whole life changed.  It wasn’t that my parents divorced or that my grandmother died or even that I was abused.  What occurred was that I overheard a conversation about how babies are born and how women get these “huge shots” that “ hurt very bad.”  As I listened, my body felt sensations it had never felt before.  I now know those feelings as fear and that experience as anxiety.

For the next week, I worried about having a baby.  As my mother recalls, I was distant and not myself, but wouldn’t talk about what was bothering me.  One week later, at 2:00 in the morning, I finally wanted to talk about it.  While it was not an ideal time for my mother, she got up anyway, led me to the kitchen and poured us each a glass of milk.

My mother was no psychologist.  She hadn’t even gone to college.  She had a high school education, just like my father, and we lived way out in the country where therapists, counselors and psychiatrists were completely unheard of.  So my mother did the only thing she could do, and that was listen.  She asked questions and through my intermittent sobs she learned of the conversation I’d overheard.  Given my debilitating fear of shots, my mother understood how a story like that could make her little girl’s mind spin out of control.  We talked until our milk was gone and my mother sent me back to bed.

At some point I fell back asleep but that night opened a can of worms for me that I couldn’t figure out how to close.  Suddenly, I became afraid of everything.  I started worrying about things like:  death, the end of the world, growing old, money, careers, and how I was going to pay for college.  Some nights I would wake my mother and other nights I would lie awake alone, trying to figure out how to make my fears go away.  I taught myself tricks like counting to 100, staring out my bedroom window at the stars, and forcing my eyes to stay open in an effort to stop worrying.  Sometimes my tricks worked, other times they didn’t.

Years later, when I took my first college psychology class I was able to put a name to what I was feeling:  anxiety.  I learned about the amygdala (the fear center of the brain) and how it can misfire when taking in information.  And then I began reading everything I could get my hands on about how to manage it.  When I was out of self-help books and finished with college, I applied to the best graduate counseling program I could find.

In grad school, I finally understood why my childhood had been so difficult.  During a presentation that I was giving on anxiety, a classmate of mine raised her hand and said, “I felt the same way growing up.”  Then another classmate raised her hand and said, “Me, too.”  Before long, the whole class declared that anxiety was something they’d struggled with as a child.  At the time, I thought it was just random.  But now I realize that’s what I should have expected in a room full of smart people.

In 2005, I opened a private practice specializing in counseling children. Day after day, session after session, I heard the same stories.  Kids were worried about death, natural disasters, getting into college, pollution, the war in Iraq, and not having enough money.  And every kid I saw was smart, did well in school, and was completely debilitated like I was as a child. And so my journey began in helping smart and anxious kids.  I listened.  I created tools to help kids manage their anxiety.  And during my sessions with parents, I taught them about asynchronous development and how children can have successful lives with it.  I helped parents understand why their smart kids were worrying in the first place and gave them tools to help.

Why Smart Kids Worry is my passion.  Every time I share this information, I heal a little more from my childhood.  Those sleepless nights don’t feel so alone.  All those years of worrying now have meaning.  I am writing this book because I wish I would have had it.  I wish my sweet mother, living way out in the country, could have read it and that all anxious children will reap the benefits of it.

Click here to order your copy today.

 

 

3 Ways to Help Anxious Kids Sleep

Dr. Stanley Coren has written a book on sleep deprivation, Sleep Thieves, and says his research shows that “for each hour under eight hours of sleep, you lose one point in IQ. And for every hour below seven you can lose two points of IQ.”  Since children are required 10-12 hours of sleep a night, if your child isn’t sleeping, chances are he isn’t able to think very clearly. Sleep is not only responsible for thinking but studies also show it can lead to depression.  The point is, if your child isn’t sleeping well, everything else will be thrown off, too.

In working with parents, the first question I ask is “How does your child sleep?” If the answer is “okay” or “well”, we move on and talk about their child’s anxiety. If the answer is “not well” or “not much at all” we must address the sleep issue first. That’s because everything else is built on the assumption that children are able to rest at night. When anxious kids rest, they are able to hit the “reset button” and start fresh the next day. If they can’t, they end up with continual anxiety that is harder for them to manage.

If your child is having difficulty sleeping, follow the steps below:

1. Take the pressure off of your child.  Instead of focusing on bedtime, focus on helping your child become relaxed. When you put pressure on kids to fall asleep, it creates energy rather than removing energy. The extra energy causes kids to get ramped up again and they have even more difficulty falling asleep. Instead, create relaxing routines such as having story time, playing relaxing music and putting an eye pillow over your child’s eyes. Warm wash clothes are also useful as they help the muscles in the face relax. These routines help the body know when it’s time to fall asleep and remove pressure from your child to figure out how to fall asleep on his own.

2. Designate a “relaxing” area in the bedroom.  ”If you can’t sleep, get up.” This is a general rule of thumb for people who struggle with insomnia. This rule is the same for kids. If your child can’t sleep, instead of coming to your room to let you know, it’s better for him to stay in his own bedroom and try going to another spot to relax. The relaxing area should have books, paper for drawing, music, pillows, etc. *If these activities give your child more energy, remove them. The idea here is to help your child relax by getting his mind off of trying to sleep.

3. Go to your child, instead of your child coming to you. This is the hardest step because it requires parents to get up to take their child back to his/her bedroom. The hardest habit to break is your child sleeping with you. Kids love to sleep with parents and if allowed, many would never go back to their own beds. So before the habit starts, walk your child back to his bedroom and lay down with him until he falls back to sleep. Once he has, go back to your bed and try to get some sleep yourself. Although this is harder on parents, it is more helpful for kids to work out their sleep problems in their own bed rather than escaping them by sleeping with you.

For more tools on how to help anxious kids sleep, check out Why Smart Kids Worry.

Is Your Child Anxious? Make a Worry Jar

One of the most effective activities that you can do with an anxious child is to make a Worry Jar. Since children are concrete thinkers, they need to see their worries rather than just letting them spin in their minds. Anxiety is nothing more than spinning thoughts and once you get those thoughts out of your head, you feel much better.

When I make Worry Jars with kids, I use Model Magic, which is, in my opinion, the easiest clay to use and the clay that makes the coolest jar. Any type of clay will work but what’s important is that your child takes ownership of the jar. If he or she wants you to help, go ahead. It’s more important that your child enjoy the activity than it is for he or she to make it all by himself and feel frustrated.

Start the activity by saying, “We’re going to make a Worry Jar for you to put all of your worries in.” Then make a pinch pot, which if you haven’t made before, this is very easy: roll a ball out of clay and push your thumbs in the middle, almost to the bottom. Then pinch your fingers around the pot making it taller as you go. Once you get the jar high enough to hold strips of paper, you are finished.

Then, cut strips of paper and have your child write his or her worries on them. Explain that the worries can’t be in the jar and in your head at the same time. This is where being a concrete thinker is important because kids can physically see their worries in the jar. With each worry that your child puts in, remind him that the jar will hold it and that there is no need to think about it any longer.

Cut extra strips of paper and keep the Worry Jar going for as long as you need. Your child can add to it and also take them away once the worries are gone. Many of the kids I work with put their Worry Jars on their nightstand and have them for years. Having a Worry Jar on the night stand will also help kids who have a hard time sleeping as they can write down their worries before they go to bed and can sleep more peacefully.

For more information about childhood anxiety and for 15 Tools for Parenting an Anxious child, check out Why Smart Kids Worry.

Why Many Kids Don’t Like School

The beginning of school brings up lots of emotions for kids. Some of them are positive, such as excitement to see friends, meet their new teacher and get back into a structured routine. Some of them are negative, such as frustration with having to do homework, getting to bed early and sitting in a desk all day. When the dust settles (after the first month or so) you will find that the kids who like school are the kids who do well there. Whether it’s that they do well academically or that they do well socially, the kids who get affirmed at school, like school. The kids who don’t, don’t.

School is for learning, both academically and socially, and if kids do great in both areas, they often LOVE school. If they are really good at school but not so good socially, they may just LIKE school and the same goes for kids who do well socially but not that well academically. The kids who are good at school love report card day and those who are good at friendships love field trips because they can socialize all day!

To better understand your child’s reaction to school, it’s important to consider their area of intelligence. In looking at The Seven Areas of Intelligence below consider where your child excels naturally. For example, if your child doesn’t have to work that hard in math but still gets an A, he likely has a high level of Logical-Mathematical intelligence. If he works extremely hard for that A, chances are he doesn’t.

THE SEVEN AREAS OF INTELLIGENCE

Linguistic—the capacity to use language effectively as a means of expression and communication through the written or spoken word (example: Shakespeare)
Logical-Mathematical—the ability to recognize relationships and patterns between concepts and things, to think logically, to calculate numbers, and to solve problems scientifically and systematically (example: Einstein)
Visual-Spatial—the ability to think in images and orient one- self spatially (example: Picasso)
Musical—the capacity to use music as a vehicle of expression. Musically intelligent people are perceptive to elements of rhythm, melody, and pitch (example: Mozart)
Bodily-Kinesthetic—the capacity of using one’s own body skillfully as a means of expression or to work with one’s body to create or manipulate objects (example: Michael Jordan)
Interpersonal - the capacity to appropriately and effectively communicate with and respond to other people (example: Oprah)
Intrapersonal – the capacity to accurately know oneself, including knowledge of one’s own strengths, motivations, goals and feelings (example: Freud)

At school, the areas of intelligence are measured during different parts of the day. Linguistic is measured in english, Logical-Mathematical in math and science, Visual-Spatial in art, Musical in music, Bodily-Kinesthetic in P.E. and Interpersonal with friends throughout the day. The problem is (and why many kids don’t like school) is that Logical-Mathematical and Linguistic Intelligence are what schools and teachers spend the majority of their time focusing on. Kids with high Interpersonal intelligence get in trouble for talking, kids with high Visual-Spatial intelligence get in trouble for drawing and kids with high Musical intelligence get in trouble for drumming their pencils on the desk. While these things are all distracting to some extent, kids who have high levels of intelligence that are not being measured inside the classroom often feel unsuccessful and bored.

The next time your child complains about not liking school, take some time to think about where their heightened intelligence lies. If it is in music, make sure he or she takes music classes or lessons. If it is Bodily-Kinesthetic, make sure he or she can play plenty of sports and if it is Interpersonal, schedule lots of times with friends. If kids have plenty of opportunities outside the school day to do what they’re good at, school might not seem so bad.

Three Tools to Reduce Back to School Anxiety

In my new book, Why Smart Kids Worry, I share 15 tools that parents can use with anxious kids.  Many of the tools can be used in any situation but I am targeting three in this article that work well for back to school anxiety:

1. Square Breathing - Teaching your child this breathing method is useful in the early stages of anxiety. Breathing relaxes the body, counting takes their mind off fear, and it’s a simple tool they can take anywhere.  To do Square Breathing, breathe in for full four seconds (like you’re breathing in the smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies), hold your breath for four seconds, blow out for four seconds (like you are blowing gently to cool the cookies off) and rest for four seconds.  Kids should repeat the cycle three times and practice every night before bedtime.  This is a great activity for parents and kids to do together and will help the first day of school go by much easier.

2. Worry Time - Setting aside 15 minutes a day for a child to express their worries is useful for children who repeat the same fears or talk incessantly about their anxieties. Worry times gives anxious minds a boundary and awareness, while satisfying the child’s need to be heard.  If your child brings up a worry outside of Worry Time, redirect them by saying, “I want to hear what you have to say but let’s wait until Worry Time.” What you will find is that by Worry Time, many of their fears will have gone away.

3. Change the Channel - Anxious minds focus on the negative and when kids have something anxiety-producing coming up (like the first day of school) they often think of everything that could go wrong instead of what could go right.  Changing the Channel teaches kids that just like you can change the channel on a television, you can change how you think about a certain event.  You can help kids Change the Channel by choosing a positive thought such as “I can do this,” or “It’ll be okay,” to replace their negative thoughts. And who knows?  They may suggest that you Change the Channel when you get in a negative place yourself!

For more information about my book click here: Why Smart Kids Worry 

 

 

First Day of School Anxiety

Change is hard for anxious kids.  Whether it’s a change in schedule, a change in schools or a change in friend groups, anxious kids would rather things stay the same than for them to change.

The start of school creates an abundance of change for anxious kids.  After a summer of unstructured time and freedom, the start of school requires kids to adjust to a new teacher, a new schedule, a new group of classmates and a slew of new expectations.  Adjusting to these changes creates lots of anxiety for kids.

What is my teacher going to be like?  

Who am I going to sit by?  

Will my friends be in my class?  

Will my teacher be strict?  

Will my teacher like me?  

These are common worries for anxious kids around the start of school.  Your child may be talking to you about these worries (if he’s an Outward Processor) or he may keep them inside (if he’s an Inward Processor) but regardless, he will have a number of worries surging through his mind.  If this sounds like your child, keep reading.  These suggestions will make the first day go much smoother.

ADVICE ON HOW TO HANDLE 1ST DAY ANXIETY:

1.  Go by and see your child’s new classroom ahead of time.  It would also be great if he could meet his teacher, spend some time in the classroom and get a feel for how the classroom is arranged before the first day of school.

2.  Keep a busy schedule until the 1st day of school.  There’s nothing worse than days on end to think about how the new year will pan out.  Instead, keep your child busy so he doesn’t have so much time to worry.  Plan fun activities, sleep overs, play dates, etc. to keep him occupied until school begins.

3.  Do something fun the morning/afternoon of the first day of school.  This may include a trip to the bakery on the way to school and/or a stop at the ice cream shop on the way home.  Both serve as something to look forward to and are great ways to help kids get over the hump of the first day.  Instead of worrying about who he’s going to sit by, he’ll be picking out a donut.  In the middle of the day when he starts feeling anxious, he can think about the trip to the ice cream shop afterwards.

The goal of the 1st day is not for kids to be without any anxiety.  Most kids are a little apprehensive on the first day, anxious or not.  The goal is to create an environment where kids feel supported so that they’ll be able to settle into the the new school year as quickly as possible.