How to Help Your Child Handle an Anxiety Attack
A complete guide from a licesened mental health professional.
An anxiety attack can feel like you are completely out of control and without any kind of power.
As parents, this can be especially difficult, becuase we want to swoop and help our children.
Then, if we feel out of control, it just compounds.
If you feel like worry is consuming your child and they can’t get a grip, read on for tips.
These tips can also help if your child is experiencing a mild panic attack, however you should not hesitate to call emergency services if your child needs immediate assistance.
What is an Anxiety Attack?
Criteria for an Anxiety Attack
Defining an anxiety attack is difficult because there is no clear criteria in the DSM5.
What is the DSM5?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is like the bible for mental health. It is put out by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and is the system used in the United States to diagnose mental health disorders. Really, this is just the book that we use to bill insurance. Nonetheless, this book does not have a clear diagnosis for an “anxiety attack”
An anxiety attack for a child may look like:
Being unable to complete the task at hand and appearing to freeze
Feeling completely overwhelmed by any directive or conversation
The child expressing that they “can’t take it anymore”
complaints of pain in their stomach, head, or shoulders
Your child frequently needing to use the restroom
Your child appearing to have labored breathing {If they can’t breath - call 911!}
Your child often appearing frustrated and irritable over a worry
Unlike a panic attack, an anxiety attack may be harder to identify in a child. It can help to ask the child more about how they are feeling to assess if the symptoms are coming from worry or something else.
It never hurts to ask more.
A panic attack is when you experience such an intense worry you feel like you may need to go to the hospital.
A panic attack for a child looks like:
A child tembling and shaking out of control
A child reporting feeling like they cannot breath and / or their chest is tight
Describing ntense feelings of dizziness or nausea
Describing like they feel like they may die due to overwhelm
If these things are happening, it is again best to seek immediate mental health care or emergency services. If you are in the U.S., you can dial 988 to be connected to immediate mental health assistance.
How to help your child experiencing an anxiety attack.
First, help them get grounded.
The first thing you will want to do is ground yourself. This means you are intentionally planting yourself somewhere and connecting with the earth near you.
Then, you’ll want to invite the child to also ground. Because children learn so much about co-regulation from their parents, I encourage you to show them how to do this, and complete the exercise with them as opposed to giving it as a directive.
This can look like the following:
Sit down on something safe. This can be a chair, the floor or a bed. Try not to lean on something.
Place your feet flat on the floor. Take your choose off if that helps connect you.
Place your hands firmly out in front of you, or clasp them together. You may also want to give yourself a hug.
Next, try to convince the child they are indeed safe.
Everyone has a different sense of safety. Each person is comforted in different ways. Think about what brings on this feeling for your child, and what tends to calm them.
This can look like the following:
Saying over and over to your child “you are safe”
Having a song play that brings a sense of calm
Holding an item that brings you a sense of safety {this is often a deeply sentimental item}
Completing a grounding exercise to remind you that you are in a safe place.
Then, try to cool them down.
When we get overly worried, our body temperature literally rises. This then alerts our sympathetic nervous system that something is wrong, and produce adrenalynn.
We get ready to run from the tiger.
The problem of course, is that in today's world we rarely need this stress response. Very few modern humans find themselves needing to run from tigers — and ceretainly not your child!
Cooling down your core temperature can help signal to the body that you are indeed safe, and slow down the production of some of the stress hormones. Some ideas to do this are:
Getting near an AC unit and trying to get your face cold
Holding an ice cube, particularly to the back of your neck
Taking off a layer of clothing
Taking your shoes and socks off
End with trying to engage in deep breathing exercises.
While we know that taking a deep breath, and trying to practice a brief guided meditation can help us immensely - we rarely draw upon this strategy when we need it most.
My advice is to have a plan ready at all times.
Some ideas to prepare for this are:
Having a bookmarked meditation ready to go. There are tons of free ones on YouTube. Simply bookmark it on your phone. Having your child help pick this out can elicit buy in.
Practicing breathing exercises on a regular basis. This can include an ongoing practice of yoga or meditation. {Google princess or superhero yoga}
Practice your deep breathing during periods of transition. Try to practice while driving, while waiting at the grocery store, ect.
In case you are new to deep breathing, it’s really just exactly what it sounds like. It is connecting with your breath and taking a deep breath in for 1…2…3…4…5 and an exhale for 1…2…3…4…5. Placing your hands on your belly or your ribs can help you to find your breath.
Again, modeling htis for your child is the best way you can teach them. Calm bodies tend to head more calm bodies.
If your child’s anxiety attacks continue, consider getting more support.
While this blog has provided some resources that I hope are helpful in managing your symptoms related to an anxiety attack, these tactics are best explored with a mental health professional.
If you are on the fence about getting therapy for your anxious child, let me be the one to tell you: you both deserve it!
