 I recently asked you what videos you'd like me to make and you specifically said you liked the idea of top phrases to calm anxious kids. Of course you should adapt these and make them work for you. So think about what words and phrases feel comfortable for you to say, adapt them, make them your own, explore them with the child, talk to them. So we're going to look at phrases around safety, phrases around physiology and phrases around acknowledgement and validation. So first of all, safety, phrases around safety. So when we're anxious and particularly if we're kind of having an anxiety or panic attack, then often the thing that is a big concern is a feeling of being unsafe, of worrying that you know things are going to go wrong, that I'm not safe here. This is particularly true of children who've experienced trauma, often they feel unsafe, unsafe. And the words that they need to hear from you, their trusted adult more than anything are often words around safety, actually using that word safe, you are safe. Phrase is like, I'm here, I've got you. And if it's appropriate for you to do so, sometimes actually physically kind of holding that child, letting them know physically knowing that you're there, I'm here, I've got you. Really simply, it's okay, you're safe, reassuring them that they are safe, particularly again, kids who experience trauma, sometimes this will revisit us in kind of flashbacks and it's like we're reliving an unsafe moment that happened in the past, and it feels like it's happening right now. And that's a really important thing to understand about conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder is that in that moment when we have that flashback, whether it's kind of we're visualising it or it's a flashback of feelings, we feel like the trauma is happening again right now. And at the time the trauma was happening, we probably weren't safe, but right now we are. So we need those trusted adults, those friends, those colleagues, those teachers, everyone who's around us to reassure us, it's okay, you're safe now, it's safe. Another one that can be helpful is to remind a child that you're going to stay with them whilst this feeling passes, so you're going to be okay, I'm going to stay with you, that kind of thing. So stuff around safety and have a think about what phrases around safety might work for you and the child or young person that you've got in mind. Secondly, is thinking around phrases that acknowledge the kind of physiology of anxiety. So here you need to do a little bit of background work with the child and help them to understand why they feel the way that they do when they have a panic attack or an onset of kind of big anxious feelings. And we can think then about, you know, depending on the age and stage of the child, helping them to understand that the way that our body responds, it's getting ready for that kind of fight or flight and so we're getting ready to kind of battle with a tiger or a bear or something. But sometimes that feeling isn't helpful to us because actually we don't physically kind of need to run or to fight, but rather we're dealing with battles in our head rather than kind of physical ones. So if you were in a kind of dangerous situation from which you needed to run or fight or whatever, this stuff would be really helpful, it would make you faster and stronger, you know, this is why people can do incredible things in those kind of moments. But day to day, if the thing that's making you anxious is kind of more internal or the threat is kind of perceived or imagined or remembered, that's not helpful. But the physiology is the same, so we can talk about how that feels, how does it feel in your tummy, how does it feel in your heart, your hands, we can explore that and normalise it a bit and then we can help explain to a child that when your body does this, it can only kind of maintain this heightened level of kind of overwhelm and anxious anxiety and that physiological response for a certain period of time and that as time goes by this will begin to dissipate. So we know that this feeling is going to pass, we can talk with them about this at a time of calm and then at times of heightened anxiety remind them. So phrases like, you know, this is, you know, your body is responding in an anxious way but this will pass or your body can't feel like this forever, let's give it a minute and see if you feel just slightly better then and then we'll think about the next minute. So thinking about the feeling that that will pass, you can also acknowledge that you've got through this before, you can get through it again and I think here an important thing to understand is if you haven't experienced things like panic attacks, every time you have one, even if you've had hundreds and I've had hundreds, every time you have one for maybe just a brief time it feels like you're going to die, it's horrible, you feel like you're having a heart attack or something and that you're going to die, it feels completely impossible that you could get through even the next minute and having someone that you trust telling you in a reassuring way you've got through this before, you will get through it again, this is just your body responding, it will calm down, this threat is perceived not real or you know those kinds of things explaining that in whatever way you've explored it with that person before can be super, super helpful and of course you might combine this with the you're safe, I've got you or you know I'm going to stay, that kind of thing too. Finally the third thing is about acknowledging and validating, so phrases and words that acknowledge and validate that the person feels anxious. What can happen sometimes depending on the thing, the trigger, the cause if there is one for this anxiety for the child or young person sometimes what can happen is that people around will kind of dismiss or minimize that concern and what you have to remember is that if a child is presenting in a really anxious and panicked way regardless of whether you agree that they should be worried or anxious or panicking and regardless of whether you can understand that their fear, their anxiety, their panic is real and right now they don't need this to be dismissed or judged, they need it to be acknowledged that you feel this way, you don't have to say whether it's right or wrong you just say I acknowledge that you feel scared right now or you know it looks like you're really worried right now or I can see you're very anxious or you're you know you're panicking so kind of using our emotion coaching acknowledging how they're feeling rather than dismissing that they shouldn't feel that way so acknowledging how they feel and then sometimes just as simply as going that must be really hard or I'm sorry that X is making you feel very anxious so acknowledging the feeling naming it and again always naming stuff if we can is really helpful because it gives a context, it gives the child the words they need next time but also it makes it less scary kind of stuff that's in our head and doesn't have a name is much harder to deal with than things that have got a name and a label that always makes it much more tangible and manageable particularly for small children who might not know these words at the beginning so we name it we acknowledge it and then we don't necessarily have to fix it but again we might be using those kind of safety phrases I'm going to stay with you you're here I'm safe but we might also invite the child to begin to talk about that and explore it so instead of dismissing this worry we validate it and say I can see that X is really worrying you do you want to talk about that or do you want to draw that or would you like to show me in play depending on where they are and quite how anxious they are right now it might be that they want to begin to explore this through different means it might be that they're in a moment right now where this isn't going to work and you're going to say I can see this is really worrying you I'm going to sit with you until you feel calmer and later if you want to we can begin to unpick that together okay so you're going to pick your moment you might say to a child for example that sounds really hard do you want to talk about it so again we're not saying your worry is you know this is how to fix it or I'm going to dismiss it or anything like that we're saying that sounds really hard if it feels hard to them we acknowledge that sounds really hard would you like to talk about it or how can I help you and opening up that conversation rather than layering on our thoughts our feelings our advice not always helpful in that first instance so knowledge and validate finally here sometimes we will find that someone will kind of minimize their own anxiety and say I know it's really stupid that I'm worrying about X but and actually here we need to say it's not really stupid it's not really silly I can tell it's worrying you therefore it matters to me or therefore it matters and so saying this is okay and that doesn't mean to say that we're not going to work with them to try and overcome that worry find different ways around it or look for some evidence of different ways of thinking or whatever but we need to let them know it's not silly if it worries you I want to hear about it yeah so it doesn't matter how strange or small a worry is if it is making someone feel anxious concerned worried then as the trusted adult in their life we want to hear that we want to help them to feel safe we want to help them to find different ways of managing it so there you go different ways of talking into and supporting a young person who's anxious thinking around phrases around safety you're thinking around phrases around physiology and the fact that this is going to pass and you're thinking about phrases around acknowledgement and validation and you're going to take those ideas you're going to make them your own and ideally explore them with the child or young person that you're looking to explore them at a time of calm and talk to them about what is a helpful way for me to talk to you I can't tell you all the answers here but they most likely can be flexible in your approach and keep trying different things if the first thing doesn't work good luck leave a comment down below letting me know how you get on with this if there are particular phrases that you found helpful because other people might read them and pick them up for themselves too and yeah just let me know how you get on good luck if you haven't please subscribe and tune in for new videos on Tuesdays and Fridays take care stay safe and be kind to yourselves bye