Dear Parents,

Last week I attended the Gippsland Catholic Primary Principals Conference. One of the discussion points that we are seeing in all schools is the number of students with anxiety. At times these anxieties seemed to escalate on the school yard where students struggle with negotiating, taking turns and conflict resolution. With the global COVID Pandemic and lockdowns, have our children forgotten how to play?  

One of the ways we can help children manage these concerns is to ask them good questions about their worries:  what makes them the most anxious, what they are worried about in particular, how we can help them and what their plans might be to manage their problems/anxieties. We need to teach our children the skills to deal with problems for themselves.

Asking gentle questions about their worries helps children learn to communicate about and manage anxiety - and helps us as parents/caregivers know how to support them.

But unfortunately, there are some things we do when we ask questions of anxious kids - which can make things worse.

For example - asking questions in an anxious or stressed way.  Children notice anxious body language and stressed vocal tone - and this increases their anxiety.

We can't stop ourselves acting stressed or worried in front of our kids entirely.  But when they come to us to tell us their worries, we should try to take a deep breath, silently tell ourselves "it's okay for kids to worry" and try to show a caring, curious but CALM front.

This shows them (with our body language, facial expression and tone of voice) that their worries are not terrible, they are manageable and we will work through it with them (or find time later to work through it with them, depending on the time of day).

See the attached tips sheet about common mistakes we can make as parents when asking questions of our children.