There are several calming techniques for children that you can use if your child is experiencing anxiety about your divorce. Or anxiety about anything else for that matter. Children can feel stressed out just like adults, but they often don’t know how to respond to deal with this stress. Parents can help by providing easy techniques for them to use to calm down, and practicing these with them so that they can perform them on their own when needed. Practice makes perfect! There are breathing techniques that can force the nervous system to calm down like snail roller coaster or hot cocoa breathing. They can also try something that forces their mind onto something else, like the name five things challenge. Finally, if they are having difficult sleeping, giving them something soothing like the imaginary castle game which can help put their mind at ease. Hopefully, you can practice these ideas with your child so that they can use them on their own whenever they feel anxious.
Divorce Stress: Calming Techniques for Children Who are Experiencing Anxiety
Snail Roller Coaster
Breathing exercises are some of the most helpful calming techniques for children who are experiencing any sort of acute stress or anxiety. Especially children who are prone to things like panic attacks or have difficulty controlling strong emotions. In the heat of the moment, using the snail roller coaster can help your child calm down. To do this, have them hold one hand out upright in front of them with fingers spread, like they’re about to face palm. Then, using the index finger of their other hand, pretend the finger is a snail riding a roller coaster that traces along their fingers going up and down between the fingers. At each hill, they should breathe in, and when the coaster goes downhill breathe out.
Hot Cocoa Breathing
Another great thing you can add to the arsenal of calming techniques for children is hot cocoa breathing. To do this, have your child pretend that they’re holding a cup of hot chocolate. First, have them “stir the cup,” and then breathe in the smell of their cocoa taking a deep breath through their nose. Then, have them “cool down” the cocoa by breathing out cool air with their mouth shaped like it’s around a straw. Have them breathe in the cocoa and cool it down several times.
Name Five Things
Breathing exercises can help force your body’s sympathetic nervous system to calm down when you are feeling emotional. However, another helpful one of the calming techniques for children going through divorce is distraction. Sometimes, it’s helpful to force your mind to think of other things. Have your child hold out their hand and count on their fingers. For each finger, have them name something that they can hear, then taste, smell, feel, and see.
Imaginary Castle
Finally, if your child is having difficulty sleeping because of divorce stress, there are some great techniques they can use for calming down before bed. One of these is to practice deep breathing or relaxing the muscles throughout their body. They can also “build” an imaginary empty castle in their mind. Have them go through and decide what each room in the castle looks like, what kind of furniture it has, what it smells like, and fill in as many details about their castle as possible. Hopefully, this can help your child get their mind off of something stressful and put it towards something soothing instead.
Divorce is stressful for everybody, and children feel that anxiety just as much as adults do. If your child is experiencing symptoms of anxiety or stress, finding them age-appropriate support is important. For example, books they can read, a peer counselor to talk to, or a childhood therapist. You can also employ many calming technique for children that they can use. Just make sure to practice them with your child when they aren’t stressed so that they know how to do them when the time comes. You can try breathing techniques like snail roller coaster or hot cocoa breathing. Or you can have them do something distracting like thinking of things around them that they can sense with the sight, smell, taste, hearing, and feel. Finally, help them fall asleep by encouraging them to imagine calming things like a castle that they can build in their mind. Hopefully, by employing some of these techniques, you can help your child navigate the emotional and stressful process of divorce.