Autistic Children with Anxiety and Stress
How Can Parents Help?
Anxiety and stress… (we all collectively take a deep breath) are human traits. Not to ever be fully diminished or avoided, they are facts of life. From the first humans in search of fire and their next meal, to current humans in search of the right social media post that doesn’t offend too many of their cousins, our species has always dealt with these feelings. As the autistic brain processes the world with different levels of intensity, that same brain is often more susceptible to anxiety and stress. That increase in anxiety, oftentimes, reflects a society not set up for certain sensory, adaptive, and social needs.
***Below are some tips and tricks to support your child. These strategies are broad and not written specifically with one child or parent in mind. Please keep in mind this article is addressing a spectrum; a spectrum with various communication styles, cognition, learning history, skills, skill deficits, goals, etc… As I discuss different focuses of how you can support, please do your best to think “okay, how can I adapt this concept to best suit the individuality of my child?***
For many parents, this isn’t their favorite part to hear, but before they get anywhere with their child's anxiety, we have to start with their own. While anxiety is universal, the way humans process and work through it is often directly or indirectly taught. It’s vital that all parents assess when they get anxiety (because they do!), how they support themselves during those times, and how they have supported their child during times of the child's anxiety. It's okay to not love anxiety, but it’s not okay to avoid it. Anxiety is generally the body and brain labeling something as important. Human instinct is to protect and avoid an uncomfortable feeling, to give into temporary relief from addressing something challenging, but when it's important, LET’S GO GET IT!
So now that you have an idea of how you process and work through your own anxieties, here are some skills we can teach your child. As you read this, keep in mind, 80% of working through anxiety is planning, preparing, and practicing. The “doing” is the final 20%, but the goal should be to reduce the number of instances or intensity of the anxiety before it starts. When anxiety inevitably comes, this proactive approach should ideally lead to children accessing anxiety reduction skills quickly, ideally, without support from others.
First Up, let's help label your child’s anxiety. Let's identify situations when anxiety has occurred in the past and situations when anxiety hasn’t occurred. Let’s identify situations where the child has had success with reducing these anxious feelings and situations they have not. Finally, let's label specifically what is happening inside and outside of their body. Pretend you and your kiddo are watching a TV show about your kiddo. Let’s try to watch them narrate their previous anxious situations. Work with them to be specific about the actions they took, the words they said out loud, and the dialogue in their head.
Secondly, make sure to be cautious and intentional about your language as you discuss these events with your child. The health of your child’s brain is dependent on the thoughts they feed it. “Are we an anxious person?” NO. “Do we have anxious thoughts?” Yes. While the difference between those two statements might appear minimal, they are massive in terms of your child's ability to see their anxiety, rather than be their anxiety. When we can see it, then we can do something about it with our actions, thoughts, and words.
Thirdly, let’s help our child discover what to do about it. For humans, and children specifically, moving their body and changing their environment is the first portion of doing something about it. Once they have labeled it and identified it’s happening, they need to give their brain some momentum to replace unwanted thoughts to thoughts that work FOR THEM, rather than against them. Moving one's body and changing the scenery allows for more opportunities to distract the brain and provide it with the healthy chemicals to make your child feel better and give more opportunity for beneficial thoughts. Once they start to feel better, they can begin to override negative thoughts, ask productive questions (like “what if it all goes right?!”), and take needed actions to address anxiety.
Now moving one's body and “distracting one's brain” can come in different forms. Maybe it's breath work, maybe it's their favorite self-stimulatory activity, maybe it’s drawing. As a team, you can support your child in finding out what works for them and then give them a rolodex of 2-5 options for them to access at any time or in any environment. Sometimes parents focus on coping skills such as trampoline or swinging, which are wonderful, but aren’t always accessible in every environment. Your child's goal should be to have 2 or 3 different skills, 1 or 2 of which he could do in a confined environment such as the car. Ask yourself “If the wifi goes out, I have limited space, etc… What can my child do to create momentum with their brain?”
Lastly, PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! 80% of working through anxiety is the practice beforehand. If you have a smoke detector, baking soda, and fire extinguisher, then your pan fire never becomes a house fire. The same concept should be applied with supporting your child's anxiety. Now, don’t make it a point to induce anxiety as practice (just like you wouldn’t start a fire in your kitchen as practice), but plan out with your kiddo when these events might come up organically and practice before you get there. Will one successful practice or event mean your child won’t have anxious thoughts or reactions in their body? No. But the more opportunities they have to practice and then have success with lowering the intensity of anxiety (or reducing it quicker), the more that becomes a skill they can access without the need of practice or your support. This is a life skill. Meaning it’s an active practice needed for your entire life. Let’s accept that it's going to happen from time to time, but if we practice and stay consistent, we can minimize its frequency and intensity!
SHORT RECAP OF SKILLS TO FOCUS ON
Identify and define stress and anxiety (be intentional with your language)
Identify and practice different ways to “build momentum” with our brain by moving our body or changing the environment.
Identify and practice replacing thoughts, taking positive actions, and using productive words.
Remember, 80% of dealing with anxiety is getting ahead of it, being prepared, and practicing.
