Health and Wellbeing
Understanding and Supporting Anxiety in Children
Read anxious behaviour as a child's way of saying something's wrong, and help them from panic back to calm.
- 51 minutes
- Recorded webinar
- 1 CPD hour
- Certificate
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What you'll learn
- Recognise fight, flight, freeze, fawn and flock responses in a child's behaviour
- Name a child's emotion for them and use a scale to gauge its size
- Calm a distressed child with co-regulation, rectangular breathing and butterfly hugs
- Help children handle sticky worry thoughts with the idea that thoughts aren't facts
- Plan graded exposure so a child faces a fear in manageable steps
About this course
An anxious child doesn't always look anxious. They might refuse, run, freeze, go very quiet or try hard to please you. Their survival brain has taken over, and asking them to think before they act won't help, because anxious children feel first and think last.
You'll get the science in plain terms, like the amygdala working as the brain's smoke detector, and a set of things to try. Name the feeling for a child ("I wonder if you're feeling angry today"). Use a scale so they can tell you how big it is. Help them settle alongside you with co-regulation, rectangular breathing or a butterfly hug. And when a child starts avoiding something, use graded exposure so they face it a bit at a time.
It's taught by a primary nurture teacher, and there's a booklet of resources to go with it.
- For early career teachers, mental health leads and 5 other roles. Early years, primary, secondary and special.
Recording
Open in order
- 35 min
Webinar Playback
- 17 min
Q&A