I recently gave an industry presentation for a room full of strangers looking up at me on stage. This is not something I have a lot of experience in. Sure, I have given presentations for work before, but usually no where near as many people.
Walking up on stage and looking out at the audience I felt nervous, anxious, and a little like maybe I should just run away. But then I stopped and calmed myself down. I am familiar with these feelings and I know how to deal with them. As I was looking at the title slide of my presentation I thought, this must be how my daughter felt when she gets too nervous or shy to do something in front of a crowd.
The difference is that, where I know and understand the feelings that I am going through, my daughter is still learning. She doesn’t know how to calm herself down the way I do. The more you feed into that feeling of fear, the more it is going to control your behavior. Instead of focusing on the thing she might be afraid of, and letting the fear grow like a cartoon snowball rolling down a hill, I need to stop and reframe the situation. Distract her to get her out of the loop she is stuck in.
I am not saying I have all the answers, but it was a great reminder that kids’ brains are not as developed as ours. And that I should try different strategies to assuage their fears. Here are some tips I try to remember when the worry-beasts come out and shut down an activity for my kiddos:
- Labeling or even naming the fear in a drawing on paper. This helps us think-it-through and ‘put away’ our fears when we are done. Drawing a picture of a worry monster, for example, and then tearing up that picture or putting it away helps. I think this is because the act of putting away the picture is linked to putting away the worry.
- Talking through things ahead of time. If you know the situation might get rough, talk it through and prepare with as much information as possible. We are really afraid of the dentist (who isn’t?!) but we are going to tour the office before going to help us prepare mentally.
- Narrating everything going on as a soothing technique (Momlando is really good at this!). Remembering to talk through the situation like, We are here for fun. Would we ever put you in harm’s way? Or…This is a safe place designed for us.
- Shake it off, Shake it off! Getting a child to do something silly, using their muscles to dance around a little while singing Taylor Swift. Some sort of mindless activity like this helps kids’ brains cool down and reset. Until their brains reset, they won’t be able to think rationally- so this is a big one.
Now, I just hope no one saw me jumping up and down shaking it off before my presentation!
