Do you have a child who struggles with anxiety? If so, you know that anxious feelings can shine through in several less-than-straightforward ways, making them, at times, tricky to navigate.
Common Missed Signs of Anxiety
Quotes Illustrating How to Help Kids Navigate Anxiety
Below are seventeen quotes illustrating childhood anxiety, its trajectory, and how to support kids.
Quote 1: Anxiety doesn’t always look like a nervous child. Sometimes it looks like a quiet, angry, or difficult child. – Unknown
Quote 2: Anxiety is often masked by aggression. – @raisinghumankind
Quote 3: Consistent anger from a child is often a sign of overwhelm and anxiety. – Sarah Boyd
Quote 4: Frustration, anger, and fear shut down the thinking parts of our brain. When your child is dysregulated, they cannot access the smartest part of the brain until their emotions are calmed. – Institute of Child Psychology
Quote 5: Young kids can feel big emotions or think with logic and reason. But they can’t do both at the same time. Connect first. Then reason. – @loveandletgrow
Quote 6: Remember, nobody (child or adult) thinks clearly when emotions are high. Wait for the wave to pass before working through the issue. – Inspired by Krysten Taprell
Quote 7: Few adults are comfortable in the presence of a child’s anger. We see it as disrespectful, embarrassing, or threatening. That’s a problem because these outbursts are often nested in worry, confusion, loneliness, anxiety, jealousy, or insecurity. What would happen if we trained ourselves to see children’s anger as an invitation to get curious? What if we practiced stepping toward our kids rather than sending them away until they’ve pulled themselves together? – Deborah Farmer Kris
Quote 8: When we try to talk kids out of their emotions, they feel like we don’t understand. So their anxiety will then “fight” to be heard. – @youthdynamicsmt
Quote 9: If you punish a child for what was actually a stress-induced behavior, all you’ll do is add to the child’s stress load and your own. – Dr. Stuart Shanker
Quote 10: Children don’t choose to melt down. A meltdown is the lower brain’s solution to overwhelm. The child has reached a threshold of tolerance and temporarily cannot meet the demands of the environment. We can help by offering presence and compassion—first for ourselves and then for our child. – Robbyn Peters Bennett
Quote 11: Rhythm and ritual decrease the unknown in a child’s day, which soothes the nervous system and results in fewer meltdowns and less hard-to-navigate behaviors. – Inspired by @raisinghumankind
Quote 12: During high-stress moments or those of transition, provide kids with as much certainty and control as possible to reduce anxiety and increase their ability to cope emotionally. – @youthdynamicsmt
Quote 13: Feeling out of control as a child creates a need to control as an adult. – @breakthecycle_coaching
Quote 14: People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty. – Virginia Satir
Quote 15: If we allow kids to avoid the things they fear, they’ll enjoy the short-term relief of staying close to home and the long-term problem of continuing to feel fearful. – Dr. Lisa Damour
Quote 16: If we want to help our children manage anxiety, we need to celebrate their bravery, not just their success. -Krysten Taprell
Quote 17: Feeling capable is a natural antidote to anxiety and depression in children and teens. – @drnicolebeurkens
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