Braver Kids

One of the key steps in helping children manage their anxiety is helping them tune into how their body feels when they are anxious. This “worried body” understanding and awareness is the first piece of the puzzle, especially for children, because it:

demystifies the physical YIKES experience of feeling like death or danger is around the corner
normalizes the uncomfortable feelings they are having (yes, even nausea! even having to pee!)
drives home that all humans feel this way sometimes (even grownups! even parents!)
serves as an early warning system that anxiety is coming online, giving us a chance to catch anxious thoughts in the moment and evaluate Worry’s predictions- they may be tricking us into feeling worse than we need to

When I explain anxious physiology to kids in my office, I will ask them what they think would happen in their body if something specific, dangerous and absurd happened. Example:

“What do you think would happen in your body if a dragon swooped down and landed right in front of you? Not an adorable dragon like Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, but a giant, not-so-friendly looking dragon with the big teeth and the fire breath and the grumpy eyes?”

Most kids start by trying to reply with an action, like “I’d run! Or get a weapon to fight"!” I say, “Great! Excellent plan. But, if you did that, what do you think your body would feel like? For example, do you think your heart would be beating S L O W… or woulditbebeatingFAST?”

This cues kids that we’re trying to brainstorm how the body feels in a crisis, and the ideas start flowing. If you try this yourself, feel free to provide more forced choice options if your co-brainstormer misses key symptoms (“breathing fast or slow? sweaty or dry palms? easy to listen/think clearly, or hard?”).

I will usually draw all of it on a body outline. Then, we look at the whole thing… AMAZING how much of our body gets pulled into sympathetic nervous system activation! So, the real question:

“Why is the body doing all of this, in this moment?“
Answer: “This is your body trying the help!”

The watchdog part of the brain (the amygdala) decided that the dragon was dangerous and posed a threat. It then did the body equivalent of pulling the fire alarm- sirens blaring! Flashing lights! Activate emergency protocol!

This body alarm system is set up so that in true danger, we can respond with ninja reflexes and superhuman strength, all designed to make it easier to fight the dragon or get away. Fast heartbeat and breathing? Getting oxygen to the muscles, just like when running the mile in gym. Sweating? It’s the cooling system, getting a head start on keeping the muscles working. Ever wondered why you get nauseous when anxious? It’s because when the alarm system is turned on, your body hits the emergency brake on your digestion- no wasting energy on that stuff until the dragon is gone.

But here’s the thing- sometimes the body’s version of “helping” is not actually helpful. We can help kids recognize this by asking:

“Ok, I waved a wand and the dragon is gone! Great. But now, instead of a dragon, a GIANT crowd appears. And a stage… for me. And in 2 minutes, I have to go up there and give a speech… for an HOUR… on my biggest failures. And I haven’t written the speech yet. How many of these things do you think would be happening in MY body?”

If the kids you hang out with are anything like the kids I hang out with, I get a wide-eyed-OMG-oh-no look. Their facial expression screams that this would be WAY worse than any dragon fight. They will tell me with confidence that every single one of those uncomfortable physical things would be happening in my body. This is true. But, I ask:

“Are those things helpful? My body is gearing me up to fight or run! What do you think would happen if I punched a guy in the audience and ran off stage?”

Hahahaha…. oh. No. That would not be helpful, I am told with conviction by the 7 year old.

This, my friends, is what I call False Alarm Feelings. Uncomfortable? Yes. Meaningful? No.

This is the body pulling the fire alarm when there is no actual fire. If you are at school, or at work, and you watch a person smile, sneak up to the fire alarm in a building, pull it, and run away, do you treat that alarm as a true emergency? No. Sure, the sirens are annoying. They might hurt your ears, they might distract from work. But instead of treating them as real and acting on them (yell “Fire!”, leave the building), what do we do? We ignore them as best we can and go on with life as usual. Eventually, the alarm is turned off on its own.

This is the goal. If you have a kid that knows what worry feels like in the body AND that not all worry feelings are to be trusted as true reflections of danger, you have a kid that is one giant step closer to making brave choices in the face of worry.

But what to do with those annoying and uncomfortable alarm system feelings? We’ll get to that in Part 2.