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Help a child struggling with anxiety

By on October 6, 2022

Anxiety is commonly viewed as an individual’s issue. Though this is not entirely untrue, it’s important to recognize that anxiety impacts those around the individual. It’s less of a question of  ‘does it impact others?’ and instead a question of, ‘how much does it impact others?’  This is especially true for families with a child struggling with anxiety.

This is the first article of a short series for parents of children who struggle with anxiety.

In this article, I hope to give you a better understanding of anxiety, how it’s maintained, and a basic road map to overcoming it. In the next article, I hope to give you a good starting point on how you can begin helping your child overcome anxiety.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a normal part of everyday life. Though it often gets a bad reputation, and it’s nice to imagine a life without it, in reality, our lives would be a mess in its absence. Without anxiety we would never study for tests or prepare for that presentation at work. We wouldn’t slam on the brakes when a child ran out onto the street. Anxiety is crucial for keeping us, and those around us, alive and well.

The problem with anxiety, is we can often experience the feelings of being in danger when we aren’t actually in danger. The reason for this is the Amygdala, the part of the brain most often responsible for anxiety.

The Amygdala is responsible for one thing only: keeping us alive. It has two modes: panic and off. That’s it. The problem with the Amygdala is it’s not very accurate. In fact, it’s quite dumb. It operates off the premise of, “I’d rather keep you alive than be accurate. Let’s shoot then aim later. We’ll figure out the details later, until then, panic!”

The Amygdala sends us all types of false alarms. It screams “Danger, danger, danger” when in reality we’re perfectly safe. For example, at home, something falls from the shelf unexpectedly and uncontrollably, we jump. Thanks for keeping me alive Amygdala. Or while hiking, our brain mistakes a twig for a snake and we lose control for a split second. That’s the Amygdala.

I’ll touch on the Amygdala again later.

Clinically speaking, anxiety is something more than just a false alarm. It’s a false alarm plus avoidant behavior, which then brings negative consequences to an individual’s (or family’s) life.

Take for example a child who has separation anxiety, begins to avoid school, and grades start to suffer or social interactions screech to a halt. When we start avoiding things in life that we need to survive, thrive, or simply just enjoy life, this is when anxiety becomes a problem and of clinical interest.

Going forward, when I refer to anxiety, I’m referring to anxiety + avoidant behavior + negative impacts on one’s life.

Anxiety is maintained by engaging in avoidant or escaping behavior. When we avoid or escape a situation that is not actually dangerous, and the Amygdala is screaming “danger, danger!”, we inadvertently say, “Good job brain! This is dangerous. Keep sending me those signals in these types of situations.” Avoidant/escaping behavior is like pouring gasoline on the flame of anxiety.

It can be helpful to view anxiety as a cycle or a trap. It looks like this:

1. A trigger occurs (it could be outside of us, like a busy mall or a school playground, or it could be internal, like a worry thought suddenly popping up, “What if they make fun of me?”)
2. Uncomfortable (and often intense) body sensations (e.g., racing heart, sweating, shaking, upset stomach, etc.)
3. Worry thoughts (e.g., “this means I’m in danger,” “I hope this goes away soon,” “I got to get out of here!”)
4. Avoidant behavior
5. Short-term relief and a sense of escaping danger
6. Reinforcement and long-term maintenance of anxiety

This is how anxiety is maintained. The anxiety cycle is easily maintained because it’s our instinct to run away or avoid something that causes us intense anxiety. It takes a lot of intention and practice to go against that instinct.

So, how do we step out of the anxiety cycle? It’s a paradox. We do exactly what the anxiety tells us not to do. We do the very thing that causes us anxiety.

Anxiety feeds off our fear of it. It needs our fear for it to survive. The way out of the cycle is to change how we react to the anxiety. Instead of fearing the fear, we embrace it. We lean into it. We welcome it. We even encourage it. This is the paradox.

Let’s go back to the Amygdala. It’s important to know how it learns.

The Amygdala doesn’t learn through language. So, we can try to reason with it or show it proof that the situation is safe. It doesn’t understand. Like talking to a brick wall.

Instead, the Amygdala speaks the language of experience. If you want to teach it something new (and it can learn quite quickly, by the way), you need to show it. It needs to live through the experience.

For example, imagine going to a haunted house. Before you enter, the person working the door pulls you aside and gives you a one hour presentation on how safe the haunted house is. “It’s been open for 25 years. No one has ever been hurt. Not even a stubbed toe. You’re perfectly safe.”

No matter how good the presentation was, no matter how convincing it was, the Amygdala learned nothing. As a result, at some point in the haunted house, you’re going to get triggered.

So, how do we teach it a new lesson? Through experience. That is, we go back inside the haunted house.

When we go back inside, what we are telling the Amygdala is, “You sent me some false alarms. There is nothing dangerous in there and I’m going to prove it to you by going back inside. You can yell and scream at me all you want, but I’m going in because there is nothing dangerous.”

The Amygdala will respond to this by actually sending more alarm signals. It’s saying, “What are you doing? I already told you this is dangerous.”

As we go against the urge of the Amygdala, it slowly starts to learn that the situation is not dangerous. The more often we go into the haunted house, the more it will learn. In fact, it might even get bored and not send any alarm signals.

Another important thing to know about the Amygdala is the only time it’s open to learning a new lesson is when it’s triggered. That is, when it’s yelling and screaming “Get out! We’re in danger!” If it’s not yelling and screaming at you, it’s probably not learning anything new. Again this is the paradox.

To decrease the anxiety in the long-term, we have to increase it in the short-term. To decrease anxiety in the short-term, is to maintain it for the long-term. The more we want the anxiety, the less of it that will be sent our way. The more we resist anxiety, the more of it we’ll get.

Much of the work with anxiety is learning how to override these false alarms, even though they feel urgent, real, and scary. The goal is to override the false alarms and stay in the “dangerous” situation to teach the Amygdala, that actually, it’s perfectly safe.

Ok, that was a lot. How does this all connect to parenting and helping out a kiddo with anxiety? Is it even possible to teach these concepts to kids? How will I teach my child to lean into anxiety when it’s so scary and difficult even for adults?

This is what I’ll cover in my next article. In short, there are common ways parents and families inadvertently collude with and reinforce the anxiety. Families often make changes to routines and certain experiences to decrease a child’s anxiety. Though instinctual and well-intended, these changes are often helping a child avoid their anxiety, which as we learned, reinforces the anxiety long-term.

Brian O’Sullivan is a psychotherapist in Okinawa, Japan. To learn more about the Amygdala and anxiety, take a look at his self-help resources: https://socialanxietycounseling.com/self-help/

Brian also offers free online workshops and seminars. Feel free to take a look and register: https://socialanxietycounseling.com/events/

 

References:
PhD, C. P. M., & Mlis, E. K. M. (2015, January 2). Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry (1st ed.). New Harbinger Publications.
PhD, M. E. J. (2019, September 23). Overcoming Anxiety and Panic interactive guide (Overcoming Guide). Hands-on-Guide.
Winston, S. (2019, February 28). Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts (large print edition) (Large type / large print edition). ReadHowYouWant

About Brian OSullivan

Brian O’Sullivan is a psychotherapist in Okinawa, Japan. To learn more about the Amygdala and anxiety, take a look at his self-help resources: https://socialanxietycounseling.com/self-help/ Brian also offers free online workshops and seminars. Feel free to take a look and register: https://socialanxietycounseling.com/events/