The post ‘Stronger Than Anxiety’ – An online course for kids and teens. appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

If you are a young person who has ever struggled with anxiety – a lot or a little, or if you have ever wanted to extend your reach towards brave, this is the course for you. Anxiety and courage always happen together, but so often, anxiety can get in the way of the important, meaningful things we need to do. Something we know for certain is that you will always have more courage in you than you think. You can feel anxious, and do brave. You are braver, stronger, and more powerful than you could ever know, and you will always be able to do more than you think you can. Now to show you how. In this video, we’ll explore:

• Why anxiety feels the way it does.
• Why anxiety always comes with courage, and how to access that courage when you need to.
• A way to think about anxiety that will help soften its impact.
• How to feel braver, stronger, and more powerful when you need to.
• How to calm anxiety in the moment to make way for the important things you need to do.
• The connection between anxiety and your ‘thinking brain’ – and how to switch your thinking brain on.
• The connection between anxiety, anger, sadness, and a new way to think about (and manage) big feelings.
• The powerful, proven strategies that will build courage and resilience, and strengthen against anxiety in the short and long term.

Let’s get anxiety out of your way – because the world needs you more than ever.

This course includes a video and a workbook. Access will be available for 3 months from the date of purchase. 

NOTE: This course is included in ‘Anxious to Brave’ – An Online Course for Parents.

Bulk purchase options for schools or organisations.

This course is a personal license for individual use only. If you would like to make the content available to the children, teens, or families in your school or organisation, we have licensing options to make that happen. Please see here for more information about multiple license discounts, and broadcast licenses.

This course is intended to offer meaningful support to young people to build courage and resilience in their day-to-day lives. It is not therapy, nor is it intended to replace any therapy your child might currently be involved in.

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Saying ‘goodbye’ can be tough! Not only for our children, but for us too – even the strongest and bravest of parenting hearts can feel the wrenching that can come at separation. Separation anxiety exists for a good reason. We want our children to feel loved and supported, and we also want to build their brave so anxiety doesn’t stand in the way of the important, growthful things they need to do.

Of course we’d rather our young ones never feel the tailwhip of separation anxiety, but so many young people (and the adults who love them) are going to experience anxiety at separation from a loved one. It’s part of being human, but it doesn’t have to hurt. As their important adult, you have a profound capacity to support them through separation anxiety and help them feel braver, stronger, and closer to you, even when you’re not beside them – at school, at bedtime – any time they are away from you. In this one-and-a-half-hour webinar, we will explore practical, powerful ways to do this.

This is information I wish every parent could have. I’ll be speaking to you from my professional experience, but more importantly, I’ll be speaking to you from my parenting heart. Something you might not know about me is that my own experience with my daughter’s separation anxiety when she was a little person is what led me to this work. (She’s now one of the bravest women I know!

I know we can get kids through separation anxiety. I know the heartache. I know the feelings of helplessness. And I know we can get them through. 

If you can’t make the ‘live’ online event, that’s no problem at all. A recording of the webinar will be made available to all registered participants for 30 days.

We will explore:

• why separation anxiety happens, and the important job it’s there to do;
• the thing all loving adults will do (we’ll all do them!) that can inadvertently make their anxiety worse, and what to do instead;
• why their anxiety will fuel yours;
• what adults can do to soften the impact of separation;
• how to respond in the midst of anxiety – strategies for children, parents and carers (including teachers and other important adults);
• practical ways to support your child through separation anxiety;
• specific strategies for bedtime anxiety;
• the toolbox for young people – how to help all children feel bigger at separation;
• the connection between anxiety and aggression, and how to respond to big behaviour in the moment;
• the connection between anxiety, behaviour and learning, and how to work with this;
• a road map for supporting your child through anxiety – before, during, and after;
• why relationships matter, and how to facilitate relationships between children and their important adults (teachers, other important adults) in ways that will build brave behaviour.

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The research is so clear – and there’s plenty of it. Students who genuinely feel cared for by their teachers do better at school. When children feel safe, cared for, and valued, the learning part of the brain opens wide up. Learning and engagement increase, anxiety is reduced, and critical incidents of big behaviour decrease. On the other hand, without felt relational safety, the brain will focus on getting ‘safe’ rather than learning.

Why relationship matters.

The part of the brain that is in charge of learning, self-regulation, making deliberate (good) decisions, thinking through consequences, and connecting can only open up when physical safety and relational safety are fully felt. This isn’t about what is actually safe or not safe, but about what the brain perceives. It’s about felt safety.

How children do, will always come from how they feel. Children and teens are no different to adults in that way. The reason we want to be with certain people, or be in certain places, often isn’t as much about the intrinsic nature of those people or places, but about how we feel when we are with those people or in those places.

But what about academics?

Of course academics matter, but relational safety has to come first. It’s a condition for doing well academically. Children don’t feel good at school because they do well. They do well because they feel good. Rather than prioritising the outcome – grades – we have to prioritise building the strong foundations all kides need to be the best they can be.

When we prioritise academics over relationship, it’s like building the walls before fortifying the foundations.

This is why too many kids are falling down at school – not because they aren’t capable, but because the necessary foundations for them to do well haven’t yet been laid.

Rather than focusing on what kids are doing,

‘How do we get better results?’

‘How do we make them behave better?’

‘How do we make them engage more?’,

we need to shift the focus to how they are feeling,

‘Exactly what can we do to make sure each child feels welcome, cared for, wanting, important?’

How to build relationship. What teachers can do.

Here are some small things that can make a big difference.

• Exactly what happens to make students feel welcome when they walk into school/ the classroom? Of course all students are welcome, but exactly what little things are done to let them know that?
• What is their role in the classroom? Research shows that, according to students, one of the things that helps them feel cared for is when teachers give them jobs to do.
• Are they invited to share their opinions?
• Are they given opportunities to make decisions that affect them?
• Do they feel like the adult in the room believes in them and wants them to be there?
• Name similarities, ‘We both have a dog. Can I see pictures of your dog?’ ‘We both wear glasses.’ ‘Yeah. I feel anxious sometimes too, especially when I’m doing something new. It’s okay to feel anxious.’
• Ask them, ‘What are the things that adults do that help you feel cared for?’
• Let them know, ‘It’s my job to help you do well this year. What does ‘doing well’ look like for you? What might make that easier? What might get in the way?’
• Ask them to finish this sentence, ‘I want my teacher to know …’
• Let the parent know you like their child, or let them know anything positive that happens involving their child. Parents will pass this message on to their children. It’s always lovely to hear that someone has said something nice about us to the people we care about. Sometimes it can land harder than telling a child directly. 

So much of my work is about supporting schools to implement practices and procedures that build felt relational safety in students, increase engagement and learning, and reduce critical incidents of behaviour. I see the difference this makes.

What parents can do.

What a parent decides a child will follow. One of the best things parents can do is to let kids know they (the parent) trusts the teacher to care for the child and like the child. It’s okay not to feel this straight away – trust takes time – but until you feel it, your child won’t either. 

If you trust your child’s teacher, let your child know: ‘I really like Ms Smith. You’ve got a goodie there. I’ve heard such great things about her. I know she’s going to love you,’ or, ‘I’m excited to get to know Mr Jones. I’ve heard good things about him.’

When your child’s teacher says anything positive about your child, let your child know. If you haven’t heard anything positive, ask the teacher to let you know something your child has been doing well or is improving on. If the teacher can’t name anything, your child might not feel as ‘seen’ as they need to. That’s okay – teachers are managing so many things and they don’t want your child to feel unnoticed either. A gentle conversation can just help channel attention towards helping your child feel more seen and cared for. 

If you aren’t sure about the teacher yet, that’s okay, but if you aren’t sure, what has to happen to help you feel more certain that your child is in strong, loving hands? Do you need a conversation with the teacher? An email occasionally? Anything you can do to support your child’s teacher is going to add to building a strong, beautiful foundation for your child.

And when the resources already feel stretched too far …

We are asking way too much of our teachers and our schools at the moment. We have been for too long. The truth of it though, is that for learning to happen and for engagement to increase, we have to focus on relationship first. It can’t be any other way.

Schools and teachers are spending the time and resources anyway, on managing behaviour and trying to increase learning and engagement. If we can channel those resources towards building relational safety, so young people feel more seen, valued, and cared for, rather than less capable or less clever, there will be less need to spend those precious resources managing big behaviour, disengagement, and reduced capacity to learn.

First though, we need to value the relationships and the way kids feel at school, even more than how they do at school. All kids are capable of their own versions of greatness, but unless they feel safe and cared for at school, we just won’t see what they are capable of, and neither will they.

I’ve seen the difference this makes. Teachers are superheroes. The ones who value the need for relational safety, and who do what they can to build in practices or micromoments to build relationship change lives. They really do.

Our teachers need relational safety too.

Of course, this isn’t just about students. When adults don’t feel safe, valued, or cared for, those adults will also be more likely to act from a survival state. This isn’t about personality or character. It’s about being human. No human can be the best version of themselves, and no human can keep giving when they are feeling depleted, unsupported, or as though what they are doing doesn’t matter.

The time teachers put into building relationship matters. It matters so much. It matters more than academics or grades because they are building the strong, beautiful foundations needed for those academics and grades.

The effects of relationship building won’t always be visible straight away, but it will always make a critical difference. It’s like drops in a bucket. Sometimes we don’t see the drops until the bucket is overflowing. Some children have bigger buckets than others. Some have smaller buckets but those buckets are running dry. This might be because of their particular needs (and we all have things we need, but we don’t always need the same things in the same way), their history, their circumstances today, this week, this year. This means it might take longer to see that bucket fill – but know that however slow that bucket is filling, those drops matter – every single one.

We need to make sure our teachers feel seen, safe, cared for, valued. Our kids can’t be the best they can be without them.

The post How to Build Relational Safety at School – And why it’s so important. appeared first on Hey Sigmund.

For ages 5-12 (and up).

‘Hey Warrior’ can be shipped worldwide.Available in softcover and hardcover.

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I often go into schools to speak to groups of kids or teens about anxiety. I’m always so warmed and overjoyed by their openness when they realise it’s safe for them to speak or ask questions.

This is what happens when we make anxiety safe. When we turn a conversation about anxiety into a conversation about courage, when we normalise anxiety and speak to the human-ness of it, we strip away any shame story or deficiency story and we make it easy for young people to show up, to be brave, to grow and stretch themselves at their edges. We strengthen them. 

The two things I hear most from kids and teens about anxiety.

When I speak to kids or teens about anxiety, there are two things I hear almost every time.

The first is, ‘I thought it was just me.’ Anxiety can be so isolating. This in itself will drive more anxiety about the anxiety, and fuel the deficiency story that can often come with anxiety.

If only every young person could know that anxiety is one of the most human of the human experiences. And it happens to all of us. If only that could happen, they’d feel less alone in their symptoms, less broken because of them, and more comforted by the human-ness of them.

The second thing I hear is, ‘I didn’t know who to talk to.’ My response is, ‘Talk to an adult you trust, because I promise you, at some point in their lives – probably many points, maybe even today – they would have felt the way you do. If that adult isn’t sure what to say, that’s okay – we adults don’t always have the words we need to make sense of things – find another adult. We’re there. And we get it. Sometimes the hardest thing is knowing where to start. If this happens, try, ‘I’d like to talk to you but I don’t know what to say,’ – and let the adult help you find the words that come next.’

We’re all in this. Let them feel the human-ness of their symptoms, so they don’t feel the isolation of them. ‘Anxiety can be tough can’t it. I get it. I’ve felt that way too before. I want you to know it’s a sign that you’re doing something hard – not that you can’t do hard things. How can I help?’

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When we have conversations that can change the way they think about courage and the way they expect to feel when it’s time for them to be brave, we open the way for a different response.

‘Let me prove it to you.’

It can be hard for our kids to believe that courage comes with anxiety, so let’s show them …

Ask them, ‘Can you think of something you’ve done that was brave?’

Maybe it’s doing something new, maybe going down the big water slide, going to school, going for a sleepover – if it feels brave, then it’s brave. This will be different for everyone.

Then ask, ‘How did you feel just before that brave thing you did?’

They’ll have their words – scared, anxious, terrified, nervous. Explain to them,

‘These are all words for the feeling of anxiety. This is because your amygdala (the magnificent part of your brain responsible for keeping you safe) can’t tell the difference between things that are scary-dangerous (things that might actually hurt you) and things that are scary-safe (things that feel scary, but which are safe – new, hard, brave, growthful important things, things that matter). It’s why going to school or speaking in front of a group of people can feel like you’re getting barrelled by a wave. It’s great that your brain warns you that there might be something tricky ahead of you, but it’s important that you stay in charge of what happens next. Ask yourself – ‘Is this a time for me to be safe and avoid, or is this a time for me to be brave.”

Let’s be clear about what ‘courage’ is about.

Courage is about handling the discomfort of anxiety while moving towards brave. It’s about reading anxiety as a sign that they’re about to do something hard, important brave, not as something to be avoided.

They don’t need to handle the discomfort well, and they can build their brave in tiny steps. It doesn’t have to happen all at once.

The more experience they have feeling anxious and doing brave, the more they will realise that anxiety isn’t something to be avoided – it’s ‘brave’ in action.

But when they’re struggling so much, all I want to do is bundle them up and protect them.

Of course! This is so normal. My gosh I’ve been there too many times with my own kids. Sometimes I’ve given in and scooped them up – absolutely. This is not about perfection.

What’s important is that there are enough times, that rather than supporting their avoidance of the discomfort of anxiety (and by doing that, their avoidance of whatever safe but brave/new/hard/important thing is triggering their anxiety), we hold the space and the expectation that they can handle the discomfort of anxiety – because they can. 

We don’t have to protect them from the discomfort of anxiety. We’ll want to, but we don’t have to. Anxiety often feels bigger than them, but it isn’t. This is a wisdom that only comes from experience. The more they sit with their anxiety, the more they will see that they can feel anxious and do brave anyway. Sometimes brave means moving forward. Sometimes it means standing still while the feeling washes away.

It’s about sharing the space with anxiety, not getting pushed out by it.

Building their brave.

Our job as their adults isn’t to fix the discomfort of anxiety, but to help them recognise that they can handle that discomfort – because it’s going to be there whenever they do something brave, hard, important. When we move them to avoid anxiety, we potentially, inadvertently, also move them to avoid brave, hard, growthful things.

‘Brave’ rarely feels brave. It will feel jagged and raw. Sometimes fragile and threadbare. Sometimes it will as though it’s breathing fire. But that’s how brave feels sometimes.

The more they sit with the discomfort of anxiety, the more they will see that anxiety isn’t an enemy. They don’t have to be scared of it. It’s a faithful ally, a protector, and it’s telling them, ‘Brave lives here. Stay with me. Let me show you.’

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‘Hey Awesome’ can be shipped worldwide.

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