Helping Kids in Times of High Anxiety: Ten Minutes with Alex Allen, PhD

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Alex Boeving Allen, PhD, clinical child psychologist and VP of Clinical for Brightline to discuss her top tips for parents about how to help support their kids’ behavioral health in this new and stressful time of coronavirus.

Below is our ten-minute q&a with Dr. Allen. Hope some of the many nuggets here are useful to you and your families.

Warmly,

Naomi Allen

CEO, Brightline

Alex, what should parents think about when navigating this new world of what to talk about that might help alleviate their child’s concerns about the virus? Any tips?

We know from research that, in times of stress, a lack of information for kids is actually related to increased anxiety. I think the main thing is to meet your child where they are developmentally, answer their questions directly and honestly, and try to keep your own anxiety at bay while talking with your kids. It’s important to acknowledge and respond to your child’s questions, but answer at their level — sometimes parents give too much information that’s above the child’s developmental level.

Say more about that — how do I know what’s at the right developmental level for my child?

I suggest to parents that they first sit with their child and introduce the topic and ask your child what they already know, what they heard at school or from friends, and what they think is going on. From that you can gauge your child’s level of information and understanding. This gives you a good starting place for the conversation.

Then ask them what questions they have, and let them guide the pieces they are curious about. And remember that this will not be a one-time conversation — kids will continue to have questions or worries (sometimes the same questions again as they process), be available and ready to keep the conversation going when they need to talk.

How do I gauge what to tell my kids? What does too much look like for a young kid?

Think about it as concentric circles. For a very young child (say up to age 6–8) their circle of impact that they experience directly during community stress is quite small (tends to be at the family and school level). A child that age is typically most concerned about their daily life and worried the virus may impact them directly. So the questions they may ask would be “Why am I out of school? Am I going to get sick? Are my parents going to get sick?” For a young child, typically it doesn’t go much past that.

You don’t need to go deeply into information on the economy, global migration of the virus, health care system overload, the types of things adults are talking and worrying about.

What’s appropriate for teens? Does it look the same as an adult conversation?

For teens it starts to approximate an adult conversation, but having sensitivity to your particular child really matters. Some adolescents want to discuss, and deeply understand, what this means globally and some just want to understand the impact on safety and their personal life. Teens are also often able to intellectually handle topics that are still very challenging emotionally. So, supporting your adolescent emotionally is really important, too. Social distancing with friends may hit adolescents emotionally the hardest of all!

How early does this start?

Adolescents in their daily lives are already part of a much broader community we live in… they often hold down jobs and of course have extracurriculars so they have a broader world view than younger kids and will likely want to understand the implications of the virus in their community.

One thing I’ve heard from so many parents is the sadness or worry from their adolescent, teen and college age kids about the potential loss of upcoming milestones (graduation, school sport seasons, etc). Any advice to parents going through that?

The first step is to acknowledge the reality of that loss, not to downplay it. Our tendency as parents (which comes from the right place) is to want to make things better, but some things can’t immediately be made better. So I suggest you sit with it and acknowledge it and let the adolescent feel whatever they feel about it, and don’t dismiss or minimize them or try to make it better quickly. We are all in a period of uncertainty and there aren’t promises that can make it better for those milestones.

Then you want to provide reassurance. I use language like “Life is big and wide and sometimes the path we think we are on isn’t the path we end up on. I know this feels really hard right now; but we will get through this, many other opportunities are coming your way — new paths do open up.”

You’re a mom of two young kids. Are there particular tips you as a parent are using to manage your own well-being to help protect and support your kids?

Remembering this will not last forever — we will all get through this! It really is that age-old notion of taking care of yourself to take care of other people. And remembering that, when our kids most need us to be present and non-reactive can be when we are ourselves feeling triggered. Identify what helps you as an individual feel grounded and centered. It may be meditation, a walk, yoga, talking with friends, reading. Whatever that is for you — try to carve out as much time as you can for grounding yourself. Also, bring awareness to your own feelings so you can try to not have these hard conversations with your child at a time when you feel intensely stressed. Of course often when kids ask us questions we need to be able to answer them to reduce their stress, but if we are having a moment of high stress and anxiety ourselves, it’s really hard to be present. Being aware of that and giving yourself permission to feel it. And give yourself a little bit of a break if you are feeling pressure to be everything and do it perfectly for your kids. You are already enough for your kids, just as you — giving them the gift of time with you and your undistracted attention for parts of the day is so great for them.

Anything else you are commonly seeing families grappling with in this journey?

Kids with a tendency towards anxiety may be triggered by this ambient uncertainty we are feeling at large in society right now. I’m seeing that quite a bit in my clinical practice. For young kids who have never before experienced that the world can be unpredictable and scary at times, it is a particularly important time to stay attuned to their emotional well-being and talk with them at their level whenever they need.

The other piece is remembering that young kids are usually most concerned about what impacts them directly. As adults, we are coping with news and impact on a global scale by this virus. Let’s have extra compassion for our kids that what may not strike us as big deals in the scope of global impact may be a really big deal in our children’s world (such as not getting to be there for field day). Best not to minimize their feelings, but, acknowledge their experience of impact and keep things as normal as possible in the areas we can.

Also let’s remember the physical manifestation of this heightened stress often shows up in kids as irritability, tantruming, fussiness, clinginess, so try to meet that with compassion.

One final point: it’s an unnatural act for kids to be physically distant from their friends and loved ones. Kids are tactile and their “space bubble” doesn’t tend to be very large, so the idea of having to sit far away from friends at the lunch table or now not seeing their friends in person can be distressing. Finding extra time for physical cuddles and hugs can help.