 was mentioning I had done a similar talk to this about a month ago and when I was looking at my notes from that talk things have changed a fair bit in the last month already so the last one was right around when spring break was ending and nobody knew what was going back to school and so now people have been doing you know back to school from home and all of those things so I'm gonna try and touch on some of what the current concerns have been but I wanted to start off let me just sorry pull something up on my screen so I just wanted to start off by speaking a little bit about anxiety in children and adolescents in general so the number one thing that I like to start off talking about is that anxiety itself the emotion is a normal emotion we all feel it especially turn during times of uncertainty and it's an adaptive emotion to a certain extent that you know anxiety keeps us safe it keeps us on alert if we had no anxiety and no kind of worries about danger around us we'd cross the street without looking potentially we do all sorts of things so it's something that's adaptive it keeps us safe it helps us stay out of danger however obviously anxiety can become problematic when it gets to a point that there isn't any danger in front of you but you're still spending a lot of time worrying or having that kind of anxious response in your body or in your pods so many anxious kids have a sensitive temperament a lot of the children I work with their parents describe them as since a young age is being quite sensitive and worrisome or anxious and that's pretty common another thing that you know I often talk about is that many anxious children also do have an anxious parent it's not uncommon there is a genetic component to this there's also the aspect of modeling responses to things and so I will be talking a little bit during this talk about as parents how we can also model appropriate reactions to worries and uncertainty and all the things that are especially coming up with COVID right now so in thinking about kind of normal anxiety and when to be a bit more concerned about your child or adolescents anxiety I'd say you know a normal a normal whatever that means amount of anxiety is manageable with support so you know with a little bit of extra a little bit of extra support a little bit of extra attention some front loading some structuring like doing a little bit of kind of extra the anxiety is okay it's not interfering with the child's life or impacting them in a really significant way so when it's more worrisome would be when things like your child doesn't settle with supportive strategies for little kids sometimes we see regressions in behavior or really big changes in their behavior so if your child was kind of doing really well or let's say a young one who is totally potty trained and then like a preschooler and then suddenly they start having accidents like that might be a sign of like hmm there might be something going on they might be feeling extra stress around them right now you know kids seeing that your child is getting excessively upset or distressed or that the the intensity of their reaction is kind of disproportionate to the actual things that are going on right now that would be something that would be kind of a cue of like maybe maybe this is something else and the big one I think about is when it's interfering with day-to-day functioning like when anxiety is getting to the point that you can't get out the door or you can't get your child to sleep for hours or they can't participate in events that other kids or kids their aides should be able to do so things like going to participate in birthday parties obviously not right now or sporting events or things like that but like for example right now not being able to participate in classroom online calls could be a sign of anxiety that they can't keep up and do the things that the other kids are doing and so you know in general when I'm meeting families when I become worried or say yes this is something we need to look at or work on is when it's really interfering with day-to-day life for the child and for the family and that the child is not getting to do the things that they want to do that to me is a big one like this child wants to go on a sleepover but they're too anxious to or they want to go to that birthday party or play on the soccer team but it makes them too anxious those are the times that I say let's give them some strategies to manage that so they can do those things and you know one of the things that I like to think about when we're talking about worrying is that when we worry we actually we increase the dangers in our minds and we shrink our own personal resources and this is something I talk about with kids like we're overestimating the danger or the threat that is around us and and what's important is we're also underestimating our own ability to deal with that so that's just kind of a little bit of background on anxiety in general and I wanted to kind of march right into you know COVID specifically and anxiety what's happening right now and some specific coping tools that people can be using to manage or help their child manage their own anxiety and worries so the number one thing I talk about with parents to start off with when we're talking about your child's anxiety is what's happening with your own anxiety like how are you how do you handle these things what what kind of reaction do you have to things around you in your world so you know when all of this started some of the questions I would have had for parents was like how are you feeling about COVID are you stressed about getting it are you stressed about your parents or your own health or your family's health you know and and if you are stressed about that how is that coming out you know if your child coughs around you and isn't great about covering their mouths or washing their hands like is that creating a lot of stress for you are you are you are you kind of raising your voice because you're like don't do that because it's creating some anxiety you know and then also recognizing that a lot of parents right now are going through really high levels of their own stress I mean I really think parents need to acknowledge that you know it's a lot right now for parents it's a lot to you know for some parents it means both parents are working but from home and your children are home and you're somehow supposed to homeschool them or at least help them get through whatever it is their particular school is assigning to them while balancing potentially a full-time job other parents are really stressed because they're not working and they've lost their jobs and there are huge financial stresses that come with that and while they're coping with that they're also trying to cope with a new role of being home and being with their children and again helping with school and all of those things and also I think that it's important to keep in mind that a lot of the things that we as parents would do normally to release our stress or cope with our stress are not necessarily options that are available right now so seeing our friends going out for a nice meal and chatting with your closest friends about the struggles you have with parenting you can't do that now I mean you can have zoom calls and those are great and I definitely recommend them but you know that's not necessarily an option or you know some people would go to gyms every day or several times a week to release their stress and that's not an option and exercising at home with children might be a challenge you know normal support support networks might not be available so there are a lot of stresses truly that are happening for parents so one of the things that I always recommend is that parents are checking in with their own anxiety and also taking on some tools to better manage and also model really good coping skills and so whether that's through your own kind of supports support network online resources I'll talk a little bit about some of these or have some of them in a resources page at the end your own counseling you know whatever it may be finding ways to exercise finding ways to go for a walk by yourself to unwind before you transition from you know morning to being with your kids having a getting up half an hour before your kids do just to have a quiet cup of coffee or tea or workout before your kids are up like finding some thing in your day that helps you cope better because we know from that you know that example of on the airplane when the oxygen masks come down you got to put yours on first or you're not going to be able to help your kids get theirs on and take care of them and it's the same thing through times of stress like this you've got to be able to manage your own stress in order to help your children manage theirs um you know in terms of helping your child one of the things that is really important is really checking in with your kids and you know listening to to them in terms of how they're feeling through all this like regular check-ins about how they're managing how are they managing not seeing their friends you know are they stressed or worried about things what kind of things how's school from home working out for them like really hearing how they're feeling and also listening to what it is they've been hearing about the world or the situation either through their friends because even through zoom calls with their classmates kids are talking about well I heard you know I heard we're going back to I heard we're not going back to school I've heard this like they're sharing that stuff depending on the age obviously but and they're also listening to the news a little bit right like a lot of families have the news on or they have notifications of headlines coming up from news apps and kids depending on the age and teens for sure are seeing that so you know number one is to listen to how they're feeling and to empathize with their emotions to validate how they're feeling you know saying things like yeah this is really hard like you know it's hard not seeing your friends I I get that like you love your friends you love to be at school with these people or I hear that you're worried about your grandparents or or just that yeah uncertainty is hard like not knowing when you get to go back to school or when things are going to change that's that is really hard and then when it comes to things like what they're talking about with their friends around COVID or what they've heard asking them like what have you heard what what are you what's your understanding of this and and correcting any misinformation addressing any myths um you know providing them simple facts at their developmental levels so you don't need to give them more than they necessarily are asking but I also recommend not to shield kids entirely from what's going on so you know giving them facts but in in an age appropriate way because when parents don't share info with kids or say like don't you don't need to worry about that or just kind of get quiet around certain things kids kids are very perceptive they're listening and they're aware and so when you don't share you run the risk of children having misinformation in their minds or for especially our worried kids who have great imaginations they're actually creating potentially a wayward scenario than is actually happening and so it's a great opportunity to check in with them and speak with them and ask them what they know and correct it and just give them the simple facts because having true information in and of itself can help bring some worries down and the last thing on that point is just to remember that it's always okay to say that you don't know or you don't have all the answers you know you can say I don't know but I'll find that out for you or when I you know I don't know that now but when I do I'll definitely share it with you so some of the kids are starting to ask about what the summer is going to look like or they're continuing to ask when are we going to go back to school and we don't have a lot of those answers right now we don't know and it's totally I would say as a parent it's better to say to your child I don't know than to say I think that we're gonna I think this is what's gonna happen and then have a child be disappointed or really expecting that outcome and it doesn't end up happening I think it's really important like I was talking about to provide information and it's okay to provide your child a little bit of reassurance during these days when things are uncertain and kids do need a little bit extra these days to know that you know we're all working hard we're all doing what we need to be doing to stay healthy you know we can talk about how our community are all working together to keep us safe you know community initiatives to kind of work together like we're all doing our part and that's what's the best we can do to keep ourselves safe and and we're doing everything we can so you know those kinds of messages it's also okay to let them know that maybe we're all a little bit anxious or stressed in these uncertain times because worry is normal but you know I think what happens sometimes is that kids kids get anxious and they start seeking a lot of reassurance from parents so they start asking similar questions over and over like is let's say is is grandma going to get sick is grandma going to die or am i going to catch this or did i wash my hands enough do i need to wash them again what happens if you know so if they're asking lots of these kinds of anxious questions that's a great opportunity to kind of notice that that's their worries and learn to handle that a little bit differently so so the thing about reassurance is that it's a good fix in the short term so when a child says like am i going to get sick or i touched that am i going to get sick and you say no you're going to be fine and then they do it again and you say no you're going to be fine no you're going to be fine well it's a bottomless pit like they're just going to keep asking it because it's it's a quick fix it's like a band-aid like it just helps in that moment but it doesn't actually help reduce anxiety in the long term in fact what it does is it fuels the anxiety further because the child then starts to feel reliant on you that you're the one who can bring down their anxiety like by asking you and you having the answer you can bring that down rather than them feeling empowered to manage their own anxiety and sometimes inadvertently when we do a lot of reassurance it also can sometimes give children the message that there is actual danger and that they really do need you to help them with it so they don't learn that this is the anxiety driving it they learn that i need i need mom to keep me safe or i need dad to keep me safe so i know that providing reassurance um is really hard i say that both as a psychologist and as a parent who has a reassurance seeker at home um it's really hard our natural instinct as parents is to make our kids feel better like really that's what we want to do we want our kids to not feel discomfort that's kind of our natural instinct it's but it doesn't it's not always the best for our anxious kids so our natural instinct is to go you'll be okay it's okay you're fine you're fine you're fine um but like i said that's going to fuel the anxiety rather than help them to manage it and it's not um serving our child well when we remove all their discomfort as much as that's what we want to do we really want to have in mind for our kids that they need to learn to manage discomfort because that's a big part of life like life will not be without discomfort and if you can start at a young age helping your child to tolerate some discomfort not huge amounts not like exposing them to something really scary and like leaving you know but but being like hey like sounds like though that's the worries oh the worries are back oh or hey you asked me that before and i answered the questions you remember what my answer was well you do awesome that's great so let's let's move on right so those are great ways to kind of point out that this seems like the anxiety and what could you do to manage it um or or to be even more clear like you already know the answer to that so i'm not going to answer it or if they ask a question you know am i going to get sick if i if i touch that well what do you think what do you think is going to happen and then you can correct misinformation without providing reassurance seeking but i tend to say avoid statements like don't worry or you won't get sick um i don't like saying things like you won't get sick or grandma won't get sick um as reassurance because it might not be true like you can't predict the future you don't know for sure and when you give a very black and white answer to your child it sets you up potentially for you know saying something that's not true and later if let's say your child does get sick or grandma gets sick your child will feel like well mom just says things to make me feel better but it's not necessarily the truth so you want your child and i'm saying mom just because i'm a mom but you know or dad like you want you want to be able to um to say to them like you know we're all doing what we can to stay healthy that's why we are physically distancing that's why we are washing our hands um rather than don't worry you won't get sick you'll be fine right we're doing we're doing what we're supposed to be doing and we're all taking this seriously and we're all doing what we can and that's our job in this that's our responsibility um and then you know praising them when you notice that they're managing their worries better or they're not seeking reassurance but answering those questions for themselves that's a great moment to be like hey you like i saw that you kind of were going to ask me that or you started to ask but then you answered it yourself that's awesome like you you just like bossed back your own worries so that's really good so kind of giving praise when when you see them shifting into managing their worries better um one of the questions i i've been asked a little bit is um with the new emphasis on hand washing is are we kind of creating a younger generation who will become germaphobes or develop um ocd around hand washing um i i'm not a fortune teller i don't know for sure um i think that you know there is that potential for kids especially those who are already a bit on the worrisome side to start um hand washing uh more than they need to or longer than they need to where it's fueled by anxiety rather than um a normal amount of we wash our hands to stay clean um and healthy i think that um i think realistically like hand washing is going to have a different emphasis in our lives in general for some time to come so i think that when kids go back to school i think you know i know for example when my kids were still in school before spring break their teacher was having them um wash my younger ones who were in elementary school we're having them wash hands several times through the day like after recess before eating like but in a more concerted effort and i think that um schools weren't necessarily doing that in such like there was the opportunity to but it wasn't so much a directive and so i do think that we're going to have a different emphasis in general in our society around um hand washing so i think right now it can in a healthy way it can be a way for children to feel empowered and and their role in contributing to this is good hygiene and keeping people around them healthy by washing their hands um and for younger kids you know there's lots of ways people have seen to like make it a game and make songs and things like that um but i think that for some of our kids who are more naturally a bit anxious there's a risk of that and we'll need to watch for that and and kind of help them early on as much as possible get but you know even now as parents if you notice your child is like maybe starting to wash too long or their hands are really getting bra at this point um that those would be some of those signs and i would recommend um you know just kind of going hey like let's let's go back to you know singing singing a song when we do it or or kind of counting in our heads and not doing it beyond that and reinforcing kind of sticking to reasonable amounts or not doing it too much i really don't think it's going to be kids in general like i think you know to my kids like i have my reassurance seeker kid that one will um has that risk and my other ones will be like yay i don't have to wash my hands all the time anymore right so i think it's it's going to vary with various kids and their their personalities and their temperaments a little bit um i think that um you know when i when i speak about anxiety and i what i've kind of alluded to a little bit um already or spoken a bit about is that you know the first steps are kind of empathizing with anxiety with the anxiety like validating that feeling recognizing that it's there it's you know it's it's it serves a purpose there's a healthy way to have anxiety and then there's a way that it it gets out of control a little bit and it gets with kids we often use that the idea of externalizing worries so it's not that they are worried but that they have worries and with younger kids and even up to teens we kind of name it and for younger kids maybe we even draw what their worry is so maybe we we call it a worry like there's the taming worry dragons program so so a worry dragon or a worry monster or the worry bully or mr worry or the you know all those different things so you can name it and by naming it and externalizing it it can help because um we can talk about it as oh here it is again like it's come in it's like this thing that's sitting on your shoulder or this thing that's kind of around you and it's being bossy like oh i see the work mr worry's back and he is telling you that you're supposed to wash your hands a bunch but like you could be the boss like how about you boss back mr worry and you tell him nope i'm good i did what i was supposed to and i'm going to go back to having fun and playing my game with my friends because i really like doing that and that's what being a kid is about um you know when i talk to kids who are worriers they often speak to them about um worrying as a talent um and it really helps a lot of kids feel less down about their worries like it's less of a burden but actually as this kind of talent and that they can use their talent to fight their worries so um i'll often say you know worrying is actually a talent like did you know that like you know not everybody has the kind of amazing brain that can think about worries the way you do like you have to be really imaginative and and have this like really great ability to visualize like all the possible scenarios of what could go wrong like you you have to be imaginative to be able to do that you have to have a really bright imaginative brain to think about like all the possible things that could go wrong and to be able to like see them in clear picture in your mind and that kind of comes that language comes to the taming worry dragons program so it's like a real talent for worrying and so now let's use that talent and that amazing imagination that you have to fight those worries and to boss them back and to put them in their place and so and so that you can have more fun kid time and worry free time and that's kind of the emphasis that um i work from and so when we're talking about specific coping skills for um for worries like uh lin mentioned in the introduction i work um from a cognitive behavioral therapy model as well as i mean the new gen what we call the new generations of CVT or kind of mindfulness and act which is acceptance and commitment therapy and i work within those kinds of models um and i'll speak to some of those some tools that we use within those models now but the first thing i wanted to say before i get into kind of specific ideas of tools that we might use and as parents you can kind of start to learn about or use as well is that in these times of uncertainty and when everything like kids aren't going to school and they're home all the time and there's not a lot of structure in their lives my number one right now is for parents to be looking at things like routines and schedules and consistency particularly for anxious kids but for all kids kids do best knowing what's coming they know best knowing what to predict and knowing that tomorrow looks like this and the next day that's why school works so well for kids and for a lot of kids i mean obviously there are some kids that don't love that but in general especially anxious kids they do best when things are consistent and structured and i think that that is something that a lot of families are particularly struggling with in this current time because parents are both working they have meetings that they're juggling not every day is the same for parents kids aren't in school like it's just feels like a lot to manage and creating a schedule feels like how do i do that my my days are so different my weeks are so different and so what i tend to recommend is if you can create a daily schedule for Monday to Friday go for it like if if there's a parent at home that can manage a schedule um and kind of keep the kids on it things will be smoother at home because kids will know and obviously it depends on the age of your children but you know so the level of support they need is different for like the primary grades like k to three versus kind of four to seven and then of course high schoolers can manage a schedule relatively well with some parent support um so if if at all possible to just create a schedule great but it but i think for parents who especially those who are both are working at home and have younger children sometimes that's not doable um to kind of maintain your own work schedules and your kids so if you can't do five days do one or two days like have the two parents look at their work schedules look at what meetings are coming up obviously some things sometimes things will get thrown with an unplanned meeting but as much as possible and also to ask work like it's helpful for me at home to know a couple days in advance because of planning things for my kids to know when these meetings are so as much as possible obviously can't happen all the time but these are general guidelines if you can create a schedule and you know even if it's just the night before the two of you the two parents sit down together or if it's a single parent sitting down looking at your schedule and then creating a schedule for the kids and so the idea is that in that schedule is school work time and if your children need support around that then that is scheduled at a time that you as a parent or one parent has flexibility to help support them with that so um don't schedule that at a time that no parent is able to help because that won't go up and it'll be frustrating in every way it it just won't work um so if there's a time in your schedule that both parents are unavailable that's a time for kids to have maybe reading time maybe playing games maybe screen time something like that um but ideally fitting in an appropriate amount of school work time based on kind of what school is expecting and every school is very different so i'm not going to give any kind of benchmarks on that because it i've seen that it varies a lot based on public schools and private schools and what grades um but also fitting in in that schedule some outside time some exercise time that's going to be important for everybody um if you can as a parent go with your child i mean obviously if they're little you need to do that but even if they're a little bit older or you're fitting in your own exercise time at a later point that's going to be really important so routines consistency schedules really important um when it comes to managing anxiety specifically i've spoken a little bit about bossing back the worries so that idea of kind of talking back to your worry monster being like hey leave me alone i don't really i'm not going to listen to you i don't have to do what you're telling me to do um you know thinking about um from a cognitive perspective like helpful versus unhelpful thoughts so you know a helpful thought um might be something like we wash our hands uh to keep a safe reasonable amount of times and then helpful one might be i'm not going outside because i might catch covid right so um so noticing when we're having thoughts like which ones are helpful versus unhelpful i sometimes speak with um kids about uh our unhelpful thoughts our worried thoughts are kind of become um especially with teens i talk about this like we've evolved to have that part of our brain like the caveman part of our brain um is there to alert us to dangers like you you want to make sure that you're on the lookout or you might get eaten by a sabertooth tiger and if you're not listening for the little sounds when we were cavemen you could get eaten and that was it so you had to be on alert our anxiety helped us but also you know like for those kids and teens who worry about peers and what their peers think about them um that also comes from our caveman brain because we lived in small little family units and you had to be watching what people thought of you and how they judged you because if it looked like people didn't really like you they might kick you out of the cave and then again you're getting eaten by the wolves so it came those thoughts that we have we've evolved to have them they were helpful at one point in our evolution they're no longer very helpful right now they don't save us they don't save our lives anymore so i sometimes talk about that with kids and teens with little kids i'll use things like another tool i use a lot is detective thinking so using facts like being sleuths and detectives and using the facts to fight the anxiety so you know what is it that you're worried about let's say it's i'm worried i'm gonna catch COVID and die um okay what else could happen well i could not catch it and be fine okay that's a good one what happens to like most kids in this situation well most most kids don't catch it and if they do they actually don't get really sick oh okay um so so now that we've thought about that thought about some of the facts like what do you think about the worried thought now oh like what would be a more helpful thought now well helpful thought might be you know even if i catch it i'm likely to be totally safe and healthy so that would be an example um the other piece that i do a lot with is um is kind of mindfulness stuff so and and that happens a lot within acceptance commitment therapy as well but the idea of bringing the child or adolescent back to the present and this is a helpful one for parents too because our worries are all about the past or the future they don't tend they're not they're not about right now and the best way to get back into right to get out of our worries is to get back into right now and um so i'll do different things to get us out of our heads and back into our space around us our environment so um sometimes doing something like the five senses so um name five things that you see around you right now four things that you hear three things that you can touch two things that or that you feel on your body sometimes two things that you smell one thing that you taste um and with little kids you can have them run around and do that like touch five things you see name or like copy the sounds of things right so for little kids you can make it more fun and dynamic um another one i use a lot with kids that helps with anxiety but also with um emotion regulation stuff like like big feelings in general or big outbursts is um is kind of stopping where you are and finding a rainbow and so what i mean by that is looking around and you can do this outside or inside any room um look around and find something red find something orange yellow green blue and again with kids you can run around and touch those things or you can just name them you can do it in the car you can do it anywhere and what happens is it's getting them out of their worried thoughts and the feelings in their body and present in the environment around them which helps to bring everything down um some other things or things like meditation so there's apps for that a great one is on the resource page is smiling mind with kids um belly breathing and then lots of mindful activities like a lot of active activities that you can do but mindfully like doing a puzzle cooking baking reading taking a bath or shower like you can do all of those things um eating in a very mindful way um i think the last thing that i want to touch on because i'm aware of the time is um because i just wanted to touch really briefly on teenagers because um they're a group that i would say i'm kind in some ways most concerned about them at this time because teenagers are super social creatures like their world right now is not about their families um i mean for some of this but in general they're about their peers they're about socially connecting and we're in a time right now where we're socially distancing or physically distancing and so you know number one is i try to use that difference that we are physically distancing not socially distancing we need to be creating opportunities for connection for our teams um i think as parents it's really important to know who they're talking to um what they're reading what are they learning um you know really watching how much time they are on um on electronics i think that you know i'm seeing that a lot of parents are kind of because they're busy and because we're all stuck at home and we don't really want a lot of conflict and fighting happening is that you know the easier way to do it is just to be like go have at it like enjoy your phone i'll see you and i'll see you maybe at dinner right um so i really think it's important for parents to still set healthy limits for teams around screen news i'm not going to give you like a time because i know people want that um because it's not quite that simple like i would limit kind of um how many hours kids are playing video games but i would factor in the social aspect if they if there is one to the games they're playing um again i want the teens connecting socially um so you know if they're if they're like having FaceTime chats for hours with friends that's great that's social um if they're scrolling for hours on instagram and not messaging friends but just scrolling at mindful like mindless photos and videos not a great thing for them so i'd really like to empower parents to kind of continue to set appropriate limits around screens for teens and make sure that you are taking the time to connect with them when possible and making sure that they're staying socially connected with peers in whatever way possible because i do think that that's really important for them right now so and i think you know bottom line if you have significant concerns around how your child or adolescent is functioning right now there are still mental health supports available and um i'll show um i'll pull up resources um to show you and these are also going to be okay so here are some articles um around talking to kids about covid um helping kids cope with stress um various articles um about corona in particular um and then this is all kind of general anxiety resources so anxiety canada is one that i always recommend to everybody um they have so many great downloadable resources for parents to kind of help manage um different aspects of anxiety there's also a lot oops a lot of videos on there um so lots of great resources kelty mental health also has lots of great resources um the mind shift app which is geared towards teens it's put out by anxiety um canada and it's got different modules on aspects of cbt so um relaxation and visual imagery and how to deal with thoughts and social worries versus general worries and all sorts of things so it's fantastic um the smiling mind app is a great one i mentioned it before for doing meditation with um kids so it is more geared towards younger kids and great way for them to learn some meditation and mindfulness i don't have on here but if you go on to youtube also one of my colleagues um had sent me some videos and i didn't link them but there's some great youtube videos for doing mindfulness and meditation with kids so one of them was this really cute um puffer fish that um fills up with air as you breathe in and and out and it just kind of helps your kid pace their breathing and was really lovely for some of the younger kids and there was another one that was really nice that was from one of the not from the vancouver aquarium but it was a different one and it was a bunch of jellyfish floating around while someone was speaking about meditation in this very peaceful voice and it's lovely so there's but there's tons on youtube as well so i highly recommend looking at that and then there's a new resource here to talk um which is more for post secondary students a little bit older um you know there's there still are professional mental health supports available for kids and teens right now so even though we are socially distancing um we are um people are providing kind of video and such um i think that um sorry my foot was going um i just want to go back for a second um so there's um child new mental health services that canadian mental health associations confident parents thriving kids program is sorry about the ring um they provide phone coaching for parents to support your anxious child so that is a really great option as a way to have like from home supports and then our clinic the north shore child uh north shore stress and anxiety clinic sorry um we have um many different clinicians so both for parents like who work with adults as well as for kids and teens um and right now during um covid we're all providing um video sessions as needed so that's an option as well um so here is all of our contact information phone email website facebook and we have a youtube channel as well um so if anybody has questions um i'm going to stop screen sharing and the questions can go into the q and a box specifically and i will go there to answer those questions um okay so i'm going to answer this live i'm not used to doing this so i think you guys can see the question when i answer it live um but i'll just repeat it um so given that there is a big difference between a 14 year old and a 17 and a half year old um with a late teen how much should i control or limit it's tough with older teens do you have any tips so yeah i mean obviously yeah once they're pretty close to out of the house at 17 and a half it is really hard to limit their time um i think especially on phones um a 14 year old i would recommend still um doing some limits there um for older teens i think some of the challenges are um you know i think that when when you talk about tips like so for the younger teens i i do recommend things like um i often if they're on iphones which a lot of them are using things like um screen time settings that's a huge one and um and so what you can do on your iphone if you don't know is you can have your all your kids under your family and see all on your phone all of their um their screen time use so you see how much time they're spending in a day which apps they spent how much time on so you can see like okay they were on instagram for three hours today and they were playing video games for four hours and they were you know using um pages for homework for like 30 minutes or whatever it is so you can see and it gives you some visibility and then it also gives you the choice of setting up some settings around limits and so for younger like definitely tweens and younger teens i definitely recommend limiting things like um game time and aspects of social media for sure um i think that you know for older teens that's harder and it's a personal decision as a parent if you want to limit it and how much i think it's hard i think that often what i say is look at how your child is functioning um if your child is functioning well like they're so outside of covid times they're going to school they're getting their homework done they're getting good grades they're seeing friends they're volunteering holding a job whatever then there's more flexibility to be had because they're showing that they can be responsible people outside of phone use and that it's not taking over their world i think that there are important conversations to be had with a child who will forgo going out with friends or is not getting work done or is not doing well in school but is spending hours and hours and hours and hours on their phone like it's it's an important conversation to be had and i think that it is not unreasonable that if your child lives in your home to set some limits on you can have your phone like these hours and these hours your phone stays like in the living room or next to my bed or whatever i mean the ideal they say is is to have everybody have all their phones plugged in at night in the kitchen or wherever where nobody's using it and as parents model good use as well so don't be on your phone at dinner pay attention when your kids are talking to you as much as i mean i know now we're working and things like that so um i don't know that i answered that that well but i'm going to go on to the next question um okay so my 12 year old child is extremely anxious about returning to school she's having panic and worry about the unpredictability surrounding the possibility of schools opening again to some degree how can i best manage this um so some of the questions i would have would be to find out what it is she's worried about um understanding is she is she worried because she doesn't know and the uncertainty or is she worried because she could go back and people could get sick so you know understanding the worry and providing some facts around it um tolerating unpredictability is a hard thing for a lot of people a lot of adults don't do a good job with tolerating uncertainty um so a lot of that is validating that and then it's doing some general anxiety management work so some of that stuff like um relaxation meditation like bringing the general anxiety levels in her body down by doing regular kind of anxiety management from a behavioral perspective what can we do to calm her down to calm her mind let's look at what those worries are are those you know that same idea is that a helpful thought to like worry about like you know what i don't know when i'm going to go back to school okay how is how is that helping right now like that's those are those kinds of worries that um at this moment are we're now in the future we're not in the present right so how i was talking about being present and and mindful in the moment let's focus on um i got that worry i totally understand it i understand that you're worried how do we how do we focus on right now how do we bring our worries down we can't really do anything about that worrying about it isn't going to help us know like some of those kinds of things um and if you find that your child is really anxious like when you talk about having panic and worry i would recommend possibly seeking out some resources even if it's just a little bit of anxiety management to help her with that it might be a good option for her um okay let me just sorry read these for a sec i'm going to try to answer this but i'm not sure that i have enough information too so how to help a five-year-old who decided she's bad um because some of the family members got a flu and they were worried that she might pass it on to someone else even though she might not so the parents were concerned that she would pass it on even though she didn't have any symptoms and so she decided she's bad um so i mean i think i would be looking at that thought um at five that's hard though kids aren't making those connections so at five um you're not doing as much cognitive work you're doing more um behavioral stuff and so you can label it like that's that that's sounds like the worries are back oh the worries are begging you or um you know i definitely want to give her sorry i'm just reading it again um that she might pass it on or yeah i mean i would do a little bit about that reassurance that yeah we were worried because a lot of people were worried but you know she was fine she did she did what she needed to do you guys all did what you needed to do and everybody got through it and were healthy and fine and so i would kind of do a little bit of that reassurance to let her know like she's not bad it was fine she did she was a typical five-year-old like and that you were just doing your job as a parent and she was doing what she does as a five-year-old i'm not sure that that's answering that that well but um i don't have all of the information um okay um can you propose these meditation moments within the school system i think there's a lot of evidence and research out there already about providing mindfulness moments and meditation moments within the school systems i think that they know about it i don't think that this is new um i think that each school is a little bit different in how much they take these things on and focus on it um so i um you know my recommendation as a parent would be to approach your own school district and ask what their plans are around that or is that something they're willing to do um every school district has a school district office with special education services folks and so um as a parent you could always reach out either at your school level or your district level to talk about implementing mindfulness but it can also be done at the classroom level so you could just speak to the the child's teacher about that um so the the parent that asked again about we're just making sure i have the right one the five-year-old who um thinks she's bad so um so uh mentioning that the five-year-old now panics um when people come too close and she wants to run away um i think that's a healthy balance so um you know obviously we want to maintain physical distancing so when she's uh worried that people are getting too close i don't know if people genuinely are getting too close and that's an okay reaction to be like hey like that's too close and um and crossing the street if you feel like that's going to be too close but if she's like panicking and running away when people are nowhere near then i would be doing things like um especially at five like reinforcing let's say with a sticker sheet for every time she manages to walk by people and not try to run away or just hold steady and hold your hand and have a little squeeze and keep walking so i would be reinforcing um when she is able to manage her anxiety and not panic and run away and um it's and again validate like it's okay to have some worries it feels a little uncomfortable we're all getting used to this new situation but we can do it and so i would set up some sort of a reward system where you reward her for managing her anxiety and not having kind of a too big reaction to um to that um to to coming close to someone um i think that's all the questions that i have right now um if there are no further questions then we will wrap up for today great um it's wonderful thank you so much Susan i i learned so much i don't have any kids at home right now but i i can use some of these techniques when i'm talking to them on the phone thank you so much and thank you to all the attendees thanks for connecting in with the library tonight for our virtual program i hope that i hope that i'll be able to see you all again soon in person maybe a while but in the meantime we'll have we have lots of other virtual programs if you want to check out our website so thanks again and everybody have a good evening and great good night thanks everyone