My Brain Team Book: Mindfulness for Children

My Brain Team: What To Do When Emotions Run High is a therapeutic resource that teaches emotion regulation and mindfulness skills to children ages 6 and up.

My Brain Team: What To Do When Emotions Run High

Liv is a fun and creative 10-year old girl who explains how the brain works through the different imaginary characters in her brain team. We learn how the ‘amygdala feelers’ serve to protect us from danger while the ‘prefrontal cortex thinkers’ help us to calm down, solve problems, and relate to others.

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How can I help my child with emotional self-regulation?

A pretty common concern I hear from parents is that their child loses control over their emotions and can go from 0 to 100 very quickly. That is, they see that their child becomes overwhelmed, upset, anxious, and/or angry both easily and often over seemingly small things or situations. It is as if their child’s emotions have taken over (or have essentially hijacked their thinking brains) and there is no way to rationally talk to or reason with them. Parents often want to know how to help their child calm down and regulate their emotions.

My clinical approach is to first help parents and children understand what is happening in their brains. When our emotions, such as anger and anxiety, run high and feel overwhelming, we tend to react impulsively (as a way of coping) and without thinking things through. That is, for both children and adults alike, the same “fight-flight-freeze-faint” (4Fs) response is triggered when faced with any possible threat and danger (whether the threat is real or imagined).

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Could My Child Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?

OCDIn my clinical practice, I have seen a number of children and adolescents who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Here are different examples of how OCD presented in 3 of my clients:

(1) A 15-year old teenage girl reported that she had an uncomfortable feeling inside telling her something was not okay or not quite right. She had developed all kinds or rituals to get rid of that feeling so that she could continue on with her day. worried_teen_girl_at_homeFor example, she had to flush the toilet handle multiple times and repeatedly turn the faucet sink handles, turn the lights on and off repeatedly, check and re-check her hair iron to make sure it was off, do certain things an even number of times only, and perfectly align and order her clothes in her closet and in her drawers.

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What to Do About My Child’s Fears and Phobias?

Fear_courageNot too long ago, a friend asked me for advice about how to help her 9-year old daughter who has developed a fear of death. This young girl expressed repeatedly to her mom that she was afraid her mom and dad were going to die and then what would happen to her. Her fear seemed to stem from her grandfather’s recent minor surgery but it was becoming an issue that was affecting her mood, behaviour, and sleep. My friend was concerned about how to approach this topic with her daughter as well as how to reassure and help her.

It is common for children to develop fears at different ages and the types of fears generally change over time. Importantly, fears are not necessarily bad.

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Feelings Thermometer: A Helpful Tool for You and Your Child

cartoonnursebyiosphereWhen do you traditionally pull out the thermometer to take your child’s temperature? Perhaps when your child does not seem to be behaving like themselves, such as when they are more lethargic, irritable, or when your child feels hot to the touch, looks pale, or when they express they are not feeling well.

Depending on what the thermometer reads, your reaction will likely be different, right? Suppose you find your child has a high fever. As a parent, you may decide to immediately call the doctor, give medicine to lower the temperature, have your child take a cool bath, and rest. If the temperature is ‘slightly above normal,’ you may monitor the situation and take the temperature again. You may still keep your child home and give medicine but you may not feel it is necessary to call the doctor. Finally, if your child’s temperature is ‘normal,’ you may decide to simply continue with your child’s regular daily routine and reassess later in the day.

It is clear that the thermometer is a useful tool that tells us important information about your child’s current physical health. So now imagine applying this tool to measure your child’s feelings or current mental health state.

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Help for the Anxious Child, Anxious Teen, and Anxious Parent: Part 2

AnxietyFearPuzzlebyStuartMilesIn a previous post Help for the Anxious Child, Anxious Teen, and Anxious Parent, I shared the importance of building your own toolkit and your child’s toolkit for coping with anxiety. The focus of that post was on learning how to calm down the body by changing your breathing.

In another earlier post, I shared one of my favourite techniques for containing and placing a time limit on worries and anxiety, entitled The Worry Jar Technique: Help Your Child Overcome Worries and Anxiety. While this strategy is very helpful for children, it can also be adapted for parents and teens by for instance, writing anxious thoughts and worries in a journal.

So now that you have a good foundation, let’s add some more helpful strategies to your toolkits.

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The Worry Jar Technique: Help Your Child Overcome Worries and Anxiety

Nervous-ChildIt may seem like your child worries a lot of the time and about everything. Children can worry about all sorts of things, such as safety issues, tests and school work, friends, family, health, the planet, and more. They may seek reassurance and ask you questions repeatedly about their worries. By asking you about their worry, your child may feel better for a short while, but then some time later, you may notice that your child asks you again about the same worry. This tells you that your child’s worry did not go away (as you had thought or had hoped). Click here for more information on children’s anxiety.

In this post, I will share with you about the worry jar, which is one of my favourite techniques to help an anxious child contain their worries.

In my clinical work, I have found that being creative and making the strategies concrete and come to life improves their effectiveness and usefulness, especially with young children. I encourage you to do the same in helping your child.

The Worry Jar

A Worry Jar is a place for your child to put their worries so that they do not need to keep thinking about them. It is like storing them or putting them away for safe keeping. Just knowing that their worries are contained in the jar can free your child from having to replay them in their minds.

worry-jar

Create a worry jar with your child. Find a real glass or plastic jar. Have your child decorate it (which is the really fun part) and then label it with a name (e.g., ‘Johnny’s Worry Jar’ or ‘My Worry Jar’). Once the jar is finished, help your child write down all his or her worries in a list on paper. You and your child can then cut each worry into its own strip of paper. Fold each worry and put it in the jar. Once all the worries are inside, have your child close the jar.

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Recommended Books for the Anxious Child

In an earlier post about help for the anxious child, anxious teen, and anxious parent, I discussed building your toolkit and building your child’s toolkit of strategies to help cope with anxiety. I focused on learning breathing techniques and then teaching them to your child or adolescent in order to provide you, your child, and/or your teen with the foundation and starting point for your toolkit.

In my clinical practice with young children, school-aged children, and teenagers, I often recommend to my clients and/or their parents different books that can support and reinforce the work we do together. These books about anxiety are helpful resources that can enhance learning and the therapeutic process. I thought I would share five recommendations for young children and school-aged children

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Help for the Anxious Child, Anxious Teen, and Anxious Parent

Kids and teens have worries and experience stress and anxiety just like their parents. Indeed, we can feel anxious, worried, overwhelmed or stressed at any age – young and old alike.

Sometimes anxiety may seem to run in the family. Ever notice that your child or teen is anxious just like you? That is because children are very perceptive and attuned to their parents, almost like they have antennae where they can essentially pick up and sense your moods and signals. Children watch closely your actions and behaviours and they listen carefully to what you say (even though they are busy playing or doing other things).

The upside of this is that children learn not only from what you teach them but also from observing you. You can help your child or teen, both directly and indirectly, manage and cope with stress and anxiety. I know it is a cliche, but it is very important that you practice what you preach.

Where to begin? Build your toolkit, build your child’s or teenager’s toolkit.

The first and most important tool is to change your breathing.

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The “What If” Game: To worry or not to worry?

Worries. We all have them. Some of us worry a lot whereas others worry a little. Some worries are about important and big issues and some may be about small details. Worries can be about realistic and probable events or about unlikely occurrences. Regardless of the type of worries, they can be on our minds at all hours of the day and night affecting our daily functioning and our ability to sleep.

Insomnia

When we are worried, the mind seems to take on a life of its own and we can get wound up with seemingly incessant and bothersome thoughts and questions (such as…What if this happens? What if that happens? What if I can’t do it? What if I fail? What if I had done this instead of that? What if I said this? etc). The worrying questions can not only be about ourselves but also about our loved ones, including our children (e.g., what if my child gets hurt? What if my child fails his test? What if my child is being teased at school?). The questions may seem to repeat and to go on forever…and ever. Ugh!!!!

I call it the dreaded “what if” game!

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