Copeland Counseling Connection

September 2015

Anxiety-part one
What is it? What can we do about it?
According to the experts on anxiety, anxiety is a tense emotional state that occurs when one
cannot predict the outcome of a situation or guarantee that it will be the desired one. Although
all children experience worries and fears, it is when children exaggerate the risks of a particular
situation while simultaneously underestimating their ability to cope with that situation that it
becomes a disorder. The good news is that we can teach our children how to cope by teaching
them, in a nutshell, how to think differently about the situation, which is making them anxious.
In this newsletter, I am going to talk about the anxiety that comes along with change as all of our
students have experienced transitions this school year.

Transitions to a new school year

I always love the start of a new school year. I awake the morning of the students first day with much
anticipation. I love to see them come in with their new clothes, new haircuts, backpacks and lunch boxes.
I love to see their smiling faces, the sparkle in their eyes and listen to the excited chatter with friends. But
for some of our students, the start of the new school year has been accompanied by fear, worry and
anxiousness. Rest assured, parents, this is NORMAL and to be EXPECTED. Think about it. Our
children are uneasy with the transition from one teacher to the next. They worry about the new teacher and
what things will be like. Our role as a parent is not to take the uneasiness away, but to help normalize,
explain and contain the worries and to let them know that this feeling will not last; that it will go away. At
the start of a school year, children need time to grieve the loss of the security and comfort they felt with last
years teacher, the way the teacher did things, the rhythm of that classroom and find a NEW comfort level
with the new teacher, classroom, peer group and way of doing tings in the new grade. This takes time.
Adjustments and transitions can take a long time, but eventually our children find their place in the new
year, find their comfort zone with the teacher, new peers and new friends, and they no longer experience
the anxiety that comes along with change and the unknown. As parents, we can help ease these anxieties
by acknowledging the fears, normalizing them and giving them some relief by saying you may feel like this
for a little while, but once you get used to everything, you will feel better- put a time frame on it. Remind
them of previous successes with this kind of thing. Celebrate the good days. Finally, remind them that
emotions are not static. That some days will be better than others and it is OK.
Some other Tips for helping anxious children:
1.) Empathize with your child. Let them know you understand. Dont try to dismiss the fear or tell
them not to worry. 2.) Let children know that our anxiety/worry comes from the way our brain
makes us think about things. Label the brain or the worry. I like to use Tricky brain that likes
to play tricks on us and make us think we should be scared of something that we dont really need
to be scared of. Others like to call it the Worry Bug or Worry Monster. Naming it helps children to
think of it as something outside of them that they can control rather than something wrong with
them, over which we have no control. 3.) Help your child calm their body by breathing slowly and
deeply or by counting. Remind children that two things they already have with them that they can use when
they are feeling anxious is their breathing and their thinking skills. Help them to look at the FACTS, rather
than the emotions and finally, 4.) Remind them that just because they are worrying about something doesnt
mean it is more likely to occur. Just because I think there will be a tornado when it storms, doesnt mean it
will happen. Look at the factswhat must be present in order to think a tornado is imminent?

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