If you have a child who feels all the feelings, then this advice from a psychologist might be worth a try.
While the psychologist specifically mentions anxious children, we feel it’s a tip that could be beneficial to all kids and parents.
Dr Sandra, who regularly posts on social media, shares advice that she says would have been helpful for her as a child, and that she wishes her parents had known at the time.
The psychologist and mother describes herself as a ‘former anxious kid’ and is all about sharing practical tips with this particular nugget directed at children who experience anxiety related to bedtime.
She believes that parents ‘who teach kids one rule before bed can change how anxiety shows up later in life’ with the thinking behind this theory being that you’re giving kids the tools to help them deal with worries, rather than brushing them aside or trying to forget them.
The expert advises putting an activity into practice every night about 20-30 minutes before bed, encouraging kids to write or draw their worries, describing it as ‘a worry window’.
Psychologist says parents should do this with kids every night
She says:
‘Every evening, about 20–30 minutes before bed, you give your child a “worry window.”
‘They get a notebook (or they can draw if they’re little). For 10–15 minutes, they write or draw everything that scared them, stressed them out, or felt unfinished that day.
‘Then you close the notebook’.
And here comes the important bit – you tell your child that the worries ‘stay’ in the book and they don’t get any attention until it comes to the same time tomorrow night.
Dr Sandra says that the reason why this particular method works is because it teaches kids that they don’t have to suppress anxiety. She describes this as giving the anxiety a container.
She explains:
‘The goal isn’t to eliminate fear. It’s to teach the brain: this feeling can exist… without running the whole night’.
Dr Sandra believes that if we allow our kids to deal with these worries instead of pushing them aside that ultimately over time, this will help them to tackle anxiety head on, and stop giving each individual worry such weight.
It also has the added advantage of taking the worry away from bedtime, a time and place that should always be a source of comfort for kids.
‘Bedtime stops being the place where everything spirals. Your child sleeps. And anxiety starts losing its grip’.
She says that parents might try and soothe their kids’ worries by saying ‘you’re fine’ or ‘don’t worry about it’ but that ultimately, this is just delaying the anxious feelings.
Dr Sandra reminds parents that ‘emotional strength’ isn’t about feeling fear but instead it’s about recognising it and dealing with it so that it doesn’t control you. It’s teaching your kids that you ‘can hold this worry, without it holding you’.
