Coping with fear, anxiety and strong emotions
What are anxiety coping skills?
Anxiety coping skills help children and teenagers manage anxious feelings and actions. Emotion coaching also help children and teenagers cope with feelings like sadness and anger.
There are many positive ways to support the development of emotional coping skills. Children can learn to express and manage anxiety and other strong emotions in healthy ways. Without these and other key life skills like constructive problem-solving, anxiety can start to affect a child’s daily life. It can even affect how they feel physically.
Why are coping skills important?
When anxiety is starting to affect daily life, children and teenagers need help to work on specific anxiety coping skills. This helps them become more confident in their own ability to manage anxious feelings. Not just now, but in the future, too.
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How do I know if a child is especially anxious?
What can make it harder to develop anxiety coping skills?
Children need to be loved and cared for, and shielded from genuine danger and harm. They need to have parents involved in their lives. At the same time, too much of this can rob kids of confidence in their ability to handle challenges. They can end up relying too much on their parents instead of growing more independent. And if they never learn how to cope with anxiety and uncomfortable emotions, they will struggle in adulthood. Parents can get the balance right, and support coping skills, by making positive changes.
How can I help my child cope with anxiety?
- Children often learn by example. Even though parents are sometimes concerned or even upset, it's not the end of the world. It can be handled. It can be talked about. It can be looked at as a challenge or minor setback. This teaches kids that occasional setbacks are a normal part of life and problems can be solved. And that helps them in the long term. You're letting your child know that uncomfortable feelings can be managed.
- Children need to experience reasonable levels of risk, failure and disappointment, with parents supporting them just enough and not too much. Of course, you can't just throw your child into the world and expect them to cope.
- The younger a child is, the more they'll need your emotional support. But when a child is old enough, rather than simply reassuring, you can help children and teenagers work out how THEY can deal with difficult or challenging situations.
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Strengthen your child's coping skills
Is your child especially worried or anxious? Parents can prevent problems getting worse as they get older. The Fear-Less Triple P program gives everyone in the family (not just one child) the chance to benefit by learning new skills. Learn new ways to help your child or teenager manage challenges, overcome anxiety, and be more confident and resilient.