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S4E11 - How Do I Help My Child With School Anxiety? · Play Therapy Parenting: Real Parenting Questions Answered by a Child Therapist

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast
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with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
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Hi,
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I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks,
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The Kid Counselor.
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This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I
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answer real parenting questions about behavior,
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emotions,
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and the parent-child relationship.
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In today's episode,
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I'm answering a question from Simone,
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and this is about
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child school anxiety.
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Interestingly,
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I just answered a very similar question from a therapist on the other podcast
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about clients that had school anxiety.
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So,
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this week has been a lot of school anxiety stuff.
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And I think that one of the most important things
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that we can recognize when we are aware that we're
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helping anxious kids
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is
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that there are all kinds of behaviors associated with the anxiety,
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and often that's what we want to try to address.
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I just want my kid to fall asleep without me having to be in the room.
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I just want my kid to be able to take a shower
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or take a bath
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without me being in there.
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I just want my kid to get in the car without a
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fight in the morning because they don't want to go to school.
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I just want my kid to talk to other
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kids when they go to baseball practice.
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We're we're always seeing the anxiety in terms of the externalized behavior.
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But it's very important to recognize that the behavior is the manifestation
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of the root issue.
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And so we can't just look at the behaviors and say,
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well,
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here are strategies to work on those.
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That's putting a band-aid over a gaping wound.
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We actually have to address the anxiety at its core.
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So that we give the child the ability to actually conquer the fear and the worry,
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then the behaviors naturally resolve themselves.
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So there's very much a process and an order
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to supporting anxious kids,
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and it can't be motivated by,
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I just want the behavior to stop.
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We actually have to give them time and space
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to process the anxiety and then
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By default,
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the behaviors naturally shift.
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So,
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that's kind of what I covered in the therapist side of it.
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So,
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I figured I would share that with you all as well,
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because
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anxiety is rampant right now.
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In the last 6 years,
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anxiety has spiked to
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unmanageable levels for so many kids,
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and
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we're seeing this more and more and more.
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And I have all kinds of theories about why screens are at the top of that list.
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But there's all kinds of other reasons and other influences.
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So this is an epidemic,
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and it's up to us to
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be aware,
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to be equipped,
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and to support our children through the anxiety.
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Anxiety is
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not something that has to be
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debilitating.
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Anxiety is not something that has to interrupt daily function.
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It can get to that point.
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But it can also be reduced and resolved
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to where a child is
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not troubled at all by their anxiety,
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not to say they're never going to be anxious again,
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but it will not be all consuming.
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So that's really the goal and that's what we will talk about today.
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So,
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I want to read parts of Simone's email and then we will dive in together.
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I listened to your podcast about child school anxiety,
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and you said at the end,
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if I had questions,
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I should email you.
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I'm struggling with my nine year old daughter who has developed
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an intense aversion to going to school in the morning.
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When she gets home from school,
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she always says she had an OK day and everything was good,
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and the teachers always let me know that she does wonderfully.
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But in the morning,
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Getting to school is always surrounded with fear and a stomach ache and crying.
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She's currently in play therapy,
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but I've not yet seen improvement in her behavior.
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I have my own struggles with mental health,
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and this has been sending me into my own spiral,
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watching my daughter struggle in the mornings.
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I want to find her an appropriate therapist for her struggles,
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and I'm at a loss as to how to handle this,
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who to talk to,
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what to do.
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I'm willing to go to any lengths to ensure that my daughter
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can thrive and find happiness through all of this morning anxiety.
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All right,
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so Simone and everyone else,
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let me start with,
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this is not insurmountable.
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This is not surprising,
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and this is not uncommon.
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So,
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if I had $1 for every time I
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helped a family and supported a child that's in this exact same scenario,
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I would have a lot more money than I do right now.
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So,
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this is a pretty standard scenario.
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And I just want to give some insight because I
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don't know that there's a whole lot of strategy involved.
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I mean,
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obviously having your child in child-centered play therapy
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is going to be the most effective approach.
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If you would like specific referrals,
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I have trained therapists all over the world,
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and so I often have therapists that have specifically coached with me.
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So,
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if you all are looking specifically for a therapist in your area
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and you can't find one or you don't know of one,
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shoot me an email and I'm happy to let you know
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if I have trained any CCPTs that are close to you.
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I have a pretty robust network of child-centered play therapists.
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And Simone,
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I know that you live in the LA area and I do know of some CCPTs,
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so I will absolutely provide that referral
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in addition to this podcast.
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But
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we're not specifically saying,
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OK,
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we're going to address these issues with the morning routine.
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What I'm going to try to provide is
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some perspective and some insight and some awareness,
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because I think that's going to be the the crux of helping her to overcome this.
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So,
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typically what happens is there's a natural reason
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why anxiety begins.
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Something happens where
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it was just like I'm scared of getting a bad grade on a test,
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or I'm scared that I'm going to not
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have anyone play with me on the playground like yesterday,
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or I don't want to have to eat lunch by myself in the cafeteria,
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or there's usually a pretty valid reason why a child does
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not want to go to school or whatever the fear is.
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They don't want to
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go to bed alone.
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They don't want to talk to anybody when they're wherever.
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So there's a very natural organic development
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of a fear.
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And what happens over time
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is kids start to fear the fear,
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which perpetuates the cycle.
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In other words,
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what started as,
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I'm scared I'm going to fail my spelling test this morning.
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Therefore,
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I don't want to go to school.
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It is very common for a child to avoid
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a fear inducing scenario.
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So,
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very common response,
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we all do it.
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If we think something's going to be scary or overwhelming or
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unpredictable,
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a lot of times we'll be like,
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I'm not doing that.
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OK,
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so that's exactly what's going on with your daughter,
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Simone.
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I'm not going to school.
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I might fail my spelling test
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or whatever the fear was.
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So that was natural.
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But then
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it actually becomes somatic
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because that original fear was cognitive.
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They,
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she had a thought,
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I'm scared of whatever it is.
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Well,
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then the emotions come in.
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So then somatically,
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meaning
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physiological response,
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the body is actually
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feeling
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worried,
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anxious,
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concerned,
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nervous.
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So now she gets racing heart,
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she gets sweaty palms,
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she gets a lump in her throat,
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she gets a pit in her stomach,
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she gets a racing heart.
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She starts to feel a little bit like sick to her stomach.
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OK,
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those are all somatic reactions to anxiety.
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Well,
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now those start to feel really scary too.
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So now it's like,
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well,
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I was just scared of the spelling test,
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but now I'm scared of how I feel.
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Well,
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then you start to get scared of the fact that you're scared.
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I don't want to feel this way.
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I hate the way this feels.
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I just want to not have to deal with this.
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So then you're fearing the fear,
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and then it becomes a perpetuating cycle.
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So every morning,
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as soon as she wakes up,
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her body is almost conditioned at this point.
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To start having somatic reactions,
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to start having cognitive worries,
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and then having fear of the fear.
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So this,
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I think from what you're describing,
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it has become habitual
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and has become a pattern of behavior,
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not by any of her own choosing.
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It just
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developed that way
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through the course of however many days or weeks or months.
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OK,
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so here's what's fascinating.
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She actually knows
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that school isn't that scary.
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Because
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when she comes home and she says,
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yeah,
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my,
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my day was actually fine,
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and teachers say,
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wow,
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she,
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she has no issues at all.
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She does great when she's here.
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OK,
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she copes.
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She has resilience.
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She's able to regulate herself.
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She's able to handle it.
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She's actually doing what she needs to do at school and she's managing,
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so even though the fear may be there,
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even though the anxiety may be there,
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she's able to tamp it down and function.
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So what we're also looking at now,
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which is a really important consideration when we have anxious kids,
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is it's anticipatory anxiety.
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In other words,
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she's scared to go to school.
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She's fearful of what's going to happen.
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Could be she doesn't want to leave you.
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Could be she doesn't have friends that she can talk to.
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Could be she doesn't like the teacher.
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I don't know.
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There's all kinds of reasons why she may not want to go,
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but
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it's anticipatory anxiety because
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this is another
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very common human phenomenon.
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We always catastrophize things.
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The what ifs are always way worse than the
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this is what it was.
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What if I go and fill in the blank,
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and then she gets there and she's like,
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oh,
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that actually wasn't that bad.
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So it's anticipatory anxiety.
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It's consumed with what ifs
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again,
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perpetuating spiral.
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What if this?
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What if this?
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What if this?
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What if this?
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And because she's 9,
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because she's not cognitive,
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she can't reason her way through this
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because as an adult we can say,
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well,
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every single day that I've gone to school,
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even though I've been scared to go,
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it's actually been fine,
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so I don't need to be scared anymore.
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You need abstract reasoning to be able to process that.
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She doesn't possess that yet.
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She's 9.
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So when we realize that's not going to develop for several more years,
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she can't talk herself out of this fear.
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She can't get herself through this anxiety with reasoning.
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And so every morning
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the cycle continues
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and she's struggling through it.
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So
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the suggestion I have for you
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is
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mindfully
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get her in a child-centered play therapy.
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Journey
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And again,
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I'll,
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I'll provide you with some resources.
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The other part of it is
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your response to her anxiety is going to be huge as well.
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So I know you acknowledge that this is kind of sending you into your own spiral.
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She's going to absorb that.
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She's going to model it,
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she's going to internalize it.
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Let's go back to one of our rules of thumb
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from earlier seasons in the podcast.
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We are thermostats,
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not thermometers.
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So we regulate ourselves,
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we adjust ourselves according to our kids' scenario.
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So as she starts to escalate anxiety,
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we actually have to bring ours down
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because thermometer,
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think about,
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you know,
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the temperature rising,
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the mercury rises,
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it's going to match
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degree for degree.
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So she ramps up a little bit,
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so do you.
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She ramps up a little bit,
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so do you.
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By the end of it,
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you're both at 104 and you're in the hospital,
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proverbially.
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So
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we're always thinking about,
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OK,
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so I'm going to be the thermostat.
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I'm going to regulate,
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I'm going to bring the temperature down here.
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So as she starts to escalate,
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you get calmer.
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When she starts to get panicky,
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you stay very calm and steady.
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You're not only modeling for her what emotional regulation looks like,
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but you're also helping her to see
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that she can't feed off of you.
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And then
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we have to reflect feelings.
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One of the most common reasons why a child
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gets highly anxious is because they lack emotional vocabulary.
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So she feels things very deeply.
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She's sensitive.
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She has these big emotions,
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and she doesn't know what they are.
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She doesn't know how to explain them.
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She doesn't know what to do with them.
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That's really scary,
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and she's already anxious anyway.
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So then you pile on some other things that are even scarier,
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of course,
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she's reeling.
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So you're going to say
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you're nervous about going to school,
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but
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you're,
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you always have
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days when you come home,
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you tell me that everything was OK.
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Oh,
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you're really worried,
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you don't want to go to school,
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but
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you always handle it.
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So we're going to validate because we want to give her
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names for the emotions.
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You're nervous,
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you're concerned,
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you're worried,
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you're anxious.
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You're scared.
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There's all kinds of options you can throw in there.
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We want to reflect feelings as much as possible.
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And then finally,
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we want to build self-esteem
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because often one of the reasons why kids are
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very anxious is because they don't trust themselves.
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So then you can start using encouragement.
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But you can handle it
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You can do it
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You come home and tell me that you had good days.
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You know
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that you'll be fine.
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You know that you have what it takes
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to get through a day at school.
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So we're going to reflect feelings,
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then we're going to use encouragement
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because that's kind of a parallel track.
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We want to help a child
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build an emotional vocabulary to decrease anxiety.
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We also want them
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to
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start to have a sense of who they are,
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what they're capable of,
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trust themselves.
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So therefore,
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we're going to help them increase self-esteem.
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Those two outcomes will naturally come
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through child-centered play therapy as well,
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Simone.
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So if you get her in with a child-centered play therapist,
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then obviously that work will translate into home and school environments as well.
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So you would be kind of supporting what
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the child-centered play therapist is going to be doing
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in the playroom as well.
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But above all else,
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we have to be mindful that
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her
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getting a stomach ache and crying and being so scared of going to school.
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School's not the issue.
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Getting her to be OK with going to school is not the goal.
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We have to get to the root of it.
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She needs an emotional vocabulary.
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She needs a reduction of anxiety,
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and she needs an increase in self-esteem.
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And we know child-centered play therapy provides
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all three of those outcomes and more.
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So you are on track having her with a play therapist,
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maybe not the one that you think is ideal,
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so maybe we need to switch.
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But
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above all else,
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you also have a role to play.
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You're
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able to stay calm,
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you're able to reflect feelings,
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you're able to encourage her,
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you're able to remind her that she
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is OK when she goes to school.
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And over time,
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your work,
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the therapist's work,
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and her work will all converge,
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and she will be a much less anxious little girl.
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So that's,
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that's how it all kind of comes together.
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So,
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Simone,
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thank you so much for the question.
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And
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for those of you that are considering putting
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your child with a child-centered play therapist,
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for those of you that already have your kids in therapy,
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I just want to let you all know
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the Parent Companion for play therapy book I put out a couple of months ago,
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it's on Amazon.
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If you feel like you would like to know strategies that you can implement,
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things you need to know about the process,
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how it's actually going to help with the reduction of anxiety,
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that's why I wrote the book.
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That's why it's a parent companion.
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If you feel like you would like
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more information and knowledge and more equipping
14:57
as your child's on a therapeutic journey.
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You can buy the book on Amazon.
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There's a Kindle version as well.
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We're working on an audiobook,
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so that's coming soon.
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But
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the goal is that you feel very confident
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in what's going on and in your ability to support your child.
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So,
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that may be a resource for you as well,
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since you already said your child's in play therapy,
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Simone.
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You may want to check that out.
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All right,
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I love y'all.
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Keep loving on your kids.
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We'll talk again soon.
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Bye.
15:22
Thank you for listening to
15:23
the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
15:27
For more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter,
15:31
please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.