When your child is anxious, even the well-meaning parents cam fall into a negative and not wanting a child to suffer. It can happen when parents try to protect their child from all the fears and not helping them to face their problems and fears.

Here are some points for parents that can help the children to escape the cycle of anxiety.

The main thing is to help a child manage the anxiety and not eliminate it. No parent is ever happy to see their child unhappy and suffering from any ind of problem. Help them learn to tolerate their anxiety. The anxiety will decrease or fall away over time.

Do not avoid the things that make your child anxious. If you avoid the things that make your child anxious or scared than it will only help in short term but it will reinforces the anxiety in long run. If a child in an uncomfortable situation gets upset, starts to cry, not to be manipulative, but just because that is how a child feels.

Try to express positive but realistic expectations to your kids. You cannot promise a child that her fears are unrealistic or that she never fails a test or she will not fall while doing ice skating or the other child won't laugh at them. Instead you can express confidence that she is going to be okay and that he/she will be able to manage it and that they can face their fears. This will help in dropping the anxiety level of the kids and help them in building more confidence. This will give your child a a feeling that your expectations are realistic and you will not ask a child to do what they can't handle. It will help them to gain confidence.

Respect your child's feelings but do not empower them. It is very important to understand that validation doesn't mean agreement.So if a child is terrified about going to a doctor, don't belittle her fears. Listen to your child and be empathetic, help her understand what is she anxious about and encourage your child that they can face their fears and no need to get scared of anything. Send the, a message that, "I know your are scared, and that is okay, I am here to help you and you will get through this easily.

Encourage your child to Talk about their feelings but try not to ask the leading questions. To avoid the feeling of anxiety just ask open-ended questions like "How are you feeling about the science fair?"

Do not reinforce the child's fears. Say if he/she is scared of dog or had a negative experience with the dog, and next time if a child is near a dog then you may get anxious and send your child a message that they should indeed be worried.

Allow Them to Worry. As you know, telling your children not to worry won't prevent them from doing so. If your children could simply shove their feelings away, they would. But allowing your children to worry openly, in limited doses, can be helpful. Create a daily ritual called "Worry Time" that lasts 10 to 15 minutes. During this ritual encourage your children to release all their worries in writing. You can make the activity fun by decorating a worry box. During worry time there are no rules on what constitutes a valid worry -- anything goes. When the time is up, close the box and say good-bye to the worries for the day.

Help Them Go from What If to What Is. You may not know this, but humans are capable of time travel. In fact, mentally we spend a lot of time in the future. For someone experiencing anxiety, this type of mental time travel can exacerbate the worry. A typical time traveller asks what-if questions: "What if I can't open my locker and I miss class?"

What do trained pilots do when they face an emergency? They don't wing it. They refer to their emergency checklists. Even with years of training, every pilot works through a checklist because, when in danger, sometimes it's hard to think clearly. When kids face anxiety they feel the same way. Why not create a checklist so they have a step-by-step method to calm down? What do you want them to do when they first feel anxiety coming on? If breathing helps them, then the first step is to pause and breathe. Next, they can evaluate the situation. In the end, you can create a hard copy checklist for your child to refer to when they feel anxious.

The real problem with your child is not that he is fearful But how to handle his fears.
Children often don't know how to handle the strong feelings they experience. They may feel overwhelmed by the intensity of their feelings, and so they may rely on you, the parent, to help them.



Help your child to get rid of anxiety and help them to be more confident and be able to face their fear.