TBRI Tip: Dealing with Anxiety
"Sad children look angry and scared children look crazy." - Dr. Karyn Purvis, TCU Institute of Child Development
Children from hard places often have lived their lives full of anxiety. Anxiety serves many functions, but the most important purpose is that of survival. When a brain detects a possible threat, it spawns a series of responses throughout the body to keep us alive. Certain parts of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus, help us to break down the potential threat in order to modify our responses to an appropriate level. But when those parts of the brain do not receive the information needed for processing, the ‘survival brain’, or the limbic system, automatically mounts a ‘life or death’ response.
The body responds to these threats in one of three ways- fight, flight or freeze. When this happens, blood is diverted away from the brain- where the problem solving and complex thinking would occur- and is redirected to the lungs, large muscle groups, and the parts of the brain that keep us alert and focused on evading the threat at hand. That blood being diverted assists in the igniting of the fight, flight, and freeze reactions. Fight is exactly what it sounds like, getting ready to fight to eliminate the threat. Flight is running away from the threat. Freeze is staying still to avoid detection from the threat.
Children who have experienced trauma commonly have anxiety disorders which make them hyper-attuned to threat detection. Their brains and their bodies are constantly on high alert and are monitoring for threats. This is commonly referred to as hypervigilance. Their brains and bodies are on such high alert that they may see a threat in a situation that isn’t objectively dangerous or threatening. However, when their body senses that something is a potential threat, it turns their anxiety up, their brains interpret it as a high-risk threat and they enter fight, flight, or freeze mode.
The fight mode can look like extreme meltdowns, verbal aggression, physical aggression, screaming, throwing things- it can look like you have an entirely different child on your hands. Flight mode can look like running away, hiding, locking themselves in their room, or isolating themselves. The freeze mode can look like disassociation, defiance, ‘zoning out’, distraction, or even a hard time focusing on a task.
It is so important to keep these things in mind when parenting or caring for a child from hard places as often times, what may look like defiance, aggression, or disrespect comes from a standpoint of fear and survival. Some things that you can do to help prevent and handle anxiety-related meltdowns are:
- Detect the escalation as early as possible.
- Once you notice the escalation, stop the discussion around the original demand.
- Check your own emotional tone and stay as even and as non-threatening as possible.
- Use as little words as possible.
- Avoid commands like “you need to calm down.”
- Stay close by and connect with them if they choose.
- Model and encourage calming skills like counting breaths, getting a snack or drink, or utilizing a sensory regulation tool like a fidget.
Staying connected with a child throughout a meltdown is essential to moving forward in a positive way. Helping a child through the emotions allows them to build a safe and trusting relationship with you which in turn, could lessen the frequency and severity of the meltdowns.
Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) is at the heart of all we do. Learn more about TBRI here.
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