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Helping an anxious child
Hannah Lashite, Child Play Specialist at Bupa Cromwell Hospital, gives an insight to helping children and young people with anxiety.
As a parent, it's hard to watch your child worry over situations that don’t seem frightening to us, but these situations can feel genuinely threatening to them. This apprehension can create a nervous system response, resulting in chemical changes in the body. This is anxiety.
Hospital environments in particular can be sources of stress for children. If children are anxious about coming in to have surgery, it's important to understand the source of the anxiety. A pre-surgery visit to the hospital may help the child become more familiar with the environment. The child might feel unsure about what is going to happen and overwhelmed with all of the different things they are hearing.
For some children and young people these feelings of anxiety and stress can occur in many aspects of daily life.
Here are some techniques that parents may find useful to help them:
- Break the task or event down into smaller steps
- In the run up to a task or event, talk about what is going to happen
- Celebrate any efforts to tackle anxiety
- Give a choice where appropriate
- Use deep breathing and guided imagery for older children
For more information, visit bupacromwellhospital.com/skyline