 How can we support a child who is having a panic attack? It's one of those moments that can feel so horrible as a supporting adult because you can feel so helpless and sometimes we worry we'll make things worse. So that's what we're looking at in today's episode. So the first piece of advice I've got is to just be their remain presence physically and emotionally. Just being there as this presence, as this adult in the life of a child who is panicking can make a huge amount of difference. Try really hard not to leave them on their own. If you feel that extra support is needed, try and get help to come to you rather than leaving someone on their own with their panic. Doesn't necessarily mean you need to be right in their face, but just present letting them know that you're there. Just be there. It can help to be talking to someone maybe using our slow, low, low talking where we slow down the speed. We lower the volume and we lower the pitch to convey calm. So slow, low, low. And we might be using phrases to remind them that we're going to be there, remain present. We might use phrases like I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere or you're not on your own. You're not on your own or I'll stay with you until you feel a bit better. Or maybe I'm here to help you. Or perhaps going back to one of our favorite kind of safety phrases, you're safe, it's okay. Those kinds of simple words, those reassuring words that say, I'm here, we've got this, it's okay, can be so helpful to a child. So you're safe, it's okay. And remembering with any kind of phrase that you might be repeating in a situation like this, it's okay to say it again and again and again, the sound, the rhythm, the cadence of your voice can be like a kind of audible hug to a child who might not really yet be able to hear the words that you're saying, but as you repeat them, as you stick with those themes, they will begin to make their way through. The next thing you can do is to kind of assert some control over the situation. So when someone's having a panic attack, this feels very out of control. It feels messy and chaotic and like we're not quite sure what's going to happen and it's horrible. So if you are able to come in as the supporting adult and make it quite clear, it's okay, this situation is fine. I'm in control, I've absolutely got this. Now, you might not be feeling that at all. You might be thinking, oh my goodness, they're having a panic attack. I don't know what to do. This is freaking me out. It's making me panic. Ah, those feelings may well go through your head. That's normal, particularly if it's someone that you really care about or you're not very experienced in dealing with these things. It's normal. It's okay. This is the moment. We're going to put on our best acting skills. We're going to do that thing that we don't generally tell people to do. We're going to pull ourselves together. We're going to take a deep breath. We're going to put on the mask and we are going to assert control. Now, as a little aside to that, this is quite stressful. And putting on the mask, assert and control when we don't feel very in control is quite an emotional load for us. So we need to think later how to look after ourselves and who we can let off steam to and how we can emotionally regulate. But right now what that child needs is someone in control of the situation because they ain't. So we're going to step up. We're going to take a deep breath and we're going to assert control. So things that we can do to help to show that we've got control of the situation, just things like calmly stating the facts. You're having a panic attack. It will pass. That sounds like a strange thing to say in this situation, but actually, for a child who is experiencing a panic attack, it can be helpful to be reminded or told that this is what is happening. When you have a panic attack, it feels like you're dying and it's really, really awful knowing that it's just and it's never just, but knowing that it's just a panic attack, that they're not having a heart attack, that something awful and irreversible isn't happening to them and that this is going to pass, can be deeply reassuring. And hearing that from an adult who they trust said with calm authority, again deeply, deeply reassuring. And these things, when we begin to show this control, express this control, take calm control of the situation, this is what can help the panic begin to pass because panic begets panic, but calm is what we need here. We need to start to try to calm things down for them. So we're taking control, we're telling them, you're having a panic attack, it will pass. We might take control by actually managing the situation. Right, we're going to walk over there where it's a bit more quiet, actually physically taking them from one place to another where you're controlling the situation, you're taking them somewhere where they're going to be a little bit more private, a little bit more quiet, a little bit more calm. Taking control in that way can be really helpful. Again, reminding them, I'm with you, it'll be okay. I'm here, I'm in control is what we're really saying. Or we might do something like talking them through their breathing. Breathe together with me. Co-regulation where we emotionally regulate alongside the child, we try to get their responses, their bodily responses, their physiology into time with ours essentially is a very powerful thing here. So even just sitting silently and breathing alongside the child will after a while mean their breathing will fall in time with yours so that ragged, jagged breathing will begin to become more measured and will start to match your breathing. So throughout all of this be thinking about your body and what we're trying to move towards in terms of that calmness, that slower, deeper breathing and so on. So maybe breathe together with me. So we're going to take control. We've got this, we're calm, we're collected, we're in control and if we're not, we're acting. But that's what the child needs to hear right now. We need to be doing things here like trying to prevent the panic spreading as well to other people. So we might be like polite but firm and telling other people to bugger off basically. We need to not have other people coming and creating more anxiety within this situation. We just need some space. So we want to make sure that no one is kind of crowding the situation or running or screaming or otherwise panicking in the vicinity because that's remarkably unhelpful and we'll tend to make the child who is having the panic attack to panic even further. So polite but firm. So we might be here using phrases like give him some space, he's going to be fine and again to the calm authority. We're trying not to have any panic or anxiety in our voice. We're taking control of the situation. We're trying to prevent the panic of others. So give him some space, he's going to be fine. Or Ada, would you just encourage the others please to move on? Taking control. Best teacher voice here guys. Just really step into it whether or not you are a teacher. Ada, just take control of that lot would you? Please encourage him to move on. She'll be okay in a few minutes. Reassuring everyone around you're trying to dampen that panic. Let them know it's okay. I've got this situation. I'm in control. She's going to be absolutely fine in a few minutes. Or you don't need to worry. This will pass soon. So we are in control. We are calm. We're trying to prevent that panic spreading to ourselves and to other people around the situation trying to calm things down. So there are a few other things that we can do to kind of convey that calm. So I've talked about your calm being catching. But we can do some things really proactively to convey calm to encourage the child's body to mirror ours. So we can be thinking about things like our body language. Actually just checking in with how we holding our body. Are we all sort of tense and scrunched up and showing anxiety? Can we just consciously just think about, you know, relaxing the shoulders, opening the palms, having that calm in control approachable body language that the child might need to see right now? That kind of open soft body language just says, I'm here and I'm not scared. That's really important. And again, when it comes to the body language, just thinking about it consciously, even if we're not feeling this, maybe we are feeling a bit scared. But what we want to show the child is I'm here. I'm not going anywhere and I'm not scared of this. It's okay. I'm in control. That's what we're trying to say. And sometimes just manipulating our own body language to try to show that to act that can help us to begin to feel it as well. Think too about your own breathing. So we're going to take really nice, slow, deep breaths. And we're going to be thinking about our calm voices. So again, that's slow, low, low. So we're speaking slowly with a low pitch, low volume. We're thinking about our body language, soft and it's open. And we're going to be taking nice, long, deep breaths, like really in control, trying to convey relaxed, calm. I've got this. A few phrases that might help here depending on how things are going with the child. You're safe. Let's help your brain to realise that. So we can actually talk to a child at times of calm about these moments and remind them that you can help them to calm. So you're safe. Let's help your brain to realise that. And again, some of these things seem like such strange things to say. Why would we say that? We're saying this because this panic response is a kind of evolutionary response that keeps us safe in moments of danger. And this child's body is responding as if to a tiger or a bear running down something big happening that they need to be kept safe from. Actually, they are safe right now, hopefully. And we just need to remind them that. So we need to let them know you are safe. It is okay. Perhaps they're reliving a past trauma or something's triggered them. So you are safe right now with me here. We just need to let your brain understand that. And then once your brain catches up, then your body will begin to calm and just understanding the mechanics of what's going on here with panic can be really helpful there. This is about communicating to this child, to their brain, to their body. It's okay. This situation actually is safe. There's no need to panic and it takes a little while for the brain and body to catch up. But that's really where we're going here. You might say something like we're going to take control of your breathing. Just talking them through their breathing can be helpful. Even if they're not really following it, it can give you a bit of a script to follow. So you might do something like close your mouth and breathe in through your nose for one, two, three, four. Now let's hold our breath for seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Now breathe slowly through your mouth for eight, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And again, through your nose. One, two, three, four. And you can just talk them through this. When it comes to taking control of panic, just one thing to be aware of. The numbers don't matter too much, but we're taking sort of shorter breaths in. So usually a count of like three, four, five. We're holding it if we can for a moment. Just trying to take control and then breathing out really slowly. So our out breaths are kind of double the length of our in breaths. Don't get too hung up on the numbers. It's really not like a massive issue, but it can be really helpful, as I say, to have those sort of slightly shorter in breaths, to hold and then to have those extended out breaths. This just tries to begin to get the balance in the body right again and really take control. Again, there's loads of technical reasons to do with sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system and stuff like that about why this works. And I have to be honest, I find the science on this all quite tricky, but there is a lot of science. Do you go read it if you want to? But trust me, short amounts of breath in, holding for a moment and then breathing out so we might breathe in for four, hold for seven, out for eight is a common one. Then finally, in terms of what we can do to help, we need not to be afraid to talk about it. So this is after the fact when we've managed to get through this situation safely. We need to think about having conversations with this child about what happened on this day and what we might be able to do. To prevent and manage those panic attacks in the future. Now, the thing about these moments is they're often kind of messy and horrible for the child and they can feel really embarrassing. So afterwards, they might be thinking, oh gosh, everyone was looking at me. Everyone's judging me. I'm such a freak and a weirdo. You'll hear loads of really negative self-talk. And what we need to do here is to calmly reassure the child, make it really clear that we're not scared to talk to them about this and that this doesn't kind of scare us off or make us judge them in any way, but we want to have a conversation with them about it. So we can understand what we got right, what we got wrong, what we could do to help if this happened again. But also if there was anything in particular that triggered this event so that we might be able to manage that differently in the future. The other benefit to this is the more openly that a child is able to get about talking about their panic attacks and those feelings of anxiety, the more empowered they may feel in the future to feel those early signs coming on and to seek the help of a supporting adult in those moments as things are beginning to escalate. Because if we become more in tune and more understanding of our kind of warning signs and we have the confidence to reach out for help in those critical moments, it can be quite possible to stop it developing into a full blown panic attack. This is often something we're not able to easily do on our own particularly whilst we're still learning those skills. But with the support of an adult, if we spot it early and we let them know and we ask for that help, sometimes we can prevent the horror that is a panic attack. Now, you need to know as a supporting adult as well, it is really stressful seeing this happen. It's really upsetting particularly if this is a child you really care about. Maybe it's your child that you parent or care for and it will feel really, really awful. But your child, no harm will come to them actually like mentally, psychologically. It's a really horrible, unpleasant thing and they need your support and they need your kindness. They need your care and your unconditional love to get through that moment and to think about how to manage future moments. Physiologically, actually it will pass. Things will come back to normal and they will be absolutely OK. So that I hope is a little bit reassuring, but we do need to try and get to the heart of kind of what's going on for them and to try and prevent this happening because it feels so horrible for them, for us, for others who might observe as well. It's a really deeply unpleasant thing. And the other thing I think it's helpful for us to understand as adults if you've never had a panic attack is just how awful it feels. Like the reason why I keep talking throughout this podcast about you being kind of calm and in control and asserting your kind of authority and showing that you've got control of this situation and so on is because as the person having the panic attack, you've lost all that, you've got no control at all over the situation, you've lost all agency, your thinking speaking brain is totally offline. You need someone to come in, take control of the situation and help you to get back to the point where you can just begin to claw back and start to regain control of your body and brain. It's a deeply, deeply terrifying thing. So don't worry about the fact that you won't know exactly what to do and that you might be panicking a little bit. This is a very, very, very scared child and they might be a massive 15-year-old boy in that moment having this panic attack. But right now just imagine they're a very, very scared three-year-old crying their eyes out and do what you would do for that very, very scared small child because that is how they feel right now. That is the kind of unconditional care, support and love that they need right now. And that is where they are emotionally right now. They are not able to do adulting when it comes to emotions and feelings and taking control right now. For the record, this is also true if you're supporting an adult with a panic attack. Perhaps you've got a partner or a colleague who experiences panic attacks or a friend. Again, you might be looking at a grown-up 40-year-old with a really responsible job who's normally really in control of things in the moment when they have the panic attack. Just think small, scared child and do what you need to to help them to get through that moment and begin to regain control. I hope that there were some ideas in here that reassured or helped you a little bit. Thank you for watching or listening, wherever it is that you're engaging. And I guess I'll see you next time over and out.