There’s nothing more concerning than when our child feels down on themselves and plagued by worry. But what if this is just attention seeking behaviour? Host Amelia Phillips and Clinical Psychotherapist and Director of Wellbeing for Kids, Georgina Manning discuss the delicate balance between addressing your child’s worry without amplifying attention-seeking behaviour. They look at ways to differentiate worry and an anxiety disorder and simple practical ways to reduce our child’s worry.
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
I’m going through a bit of a tough time with my seven year old Charlotte. She started to display signs of low self-esteem and worry. She’s getting super frustrated with herself over the littlest of things like, I can’t draw a cat, and then she rips up the page or, My handwriting’s not neat, and she starts to cry.
She’s become clingy. She’s having bad dreams about being taken away from us, but I’ve also noticed that she can sort of ham things up a bit in certain situations. So I’m trying to address this issue, but I also don’t wanna make it bigger than it has to be.
This is healthy. Her with Amelia Phillips, there is nothing more concerning than when our child feels down on themselves and is played by worry. Worry. They’re not good at something, worried about the planet, about their pets or their friendship groups. A. As a mom, it just rips you open and you wanna take their pain away, but your attempts sometimes fall on deaf ears, or even worse, seem to amplify their behaviors.
How do we manage these periods when they lose their spark? How do we identify genuine issues over attention seeking behavior and get to that root cause? And finally, how can we best support our kids through this tricky. Georgina Manning is a clinical psychotherapist and director of wellbeing for kids.
She runs workshops and has created the peaceful kids and the peaceful parents’, mindfulness and positive psychology programs. Georgina, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. When it comes to the profile that I just described, the child who worries a lot and feels. In the 15 years that you’ve been working in this area, have you seen an increase in anxious kids?
Definitely, yeah. I’ve seen it, um, myself personally and then also what parents talk about a lot and reaching out for support. And I work a lot with schools and I have so many teachers saying to me, You know, in just say in 15 years that they’ve been teaching, that they’ve seen a real change over that time.
Just, um, a lot of kids appearing anxious, whether it’s an anxiety disorder or not, but actually just seeming anxious in the classroom. So, and it’s across the board because there certainly must be shades of gray when it comes to this, where it’s. You’ve got the child that’s absolutely diagnosed and might have some very serious anxiety disorders, but say my example a moment ago where I’ve never taken Charlotte to see anyone about this, it’s kind of disappeared.
Talk me through the shades of gray and, and what to notice when a child first starts to appear a little bit anxious. Okay, so that’s a, it’s good that we clarify this sort of the difference between an anxiety disorder as such, or just someone feeling anxious. So we’ve gotta remember that when we feel anxious from time to time, that’s really normal.
Whether a child or adult or, you know, like in say, new situations, unfamiliar, um, when we’ve gotta perform or, you know, taking on a new challenge so that, Okay. And normal. And that’s, I suppose on one sort of end of the, the spectrum. And we know that there’s difficulties when it gets more into sort of ongoing and chronic kind of feeling, anxious and, and having those responses.
So, And then also if it’s interfering with our day-to-day lives and it’s stopping us, you know, living our lives fully and having fun and, you know, we’re avoiding things. And it’s also across the board as well, like not just one thing. Yeah. Because we can often just be anxious about one sort of little thing.
And look, if we can function okay, then that’s fine. Like for example, you know, you might be scared of say, spiders and you don’t have to change that, you know, . Yeah, yeah. Um, but it’s more if at particular with children, Interfering with their development and their, you know, social interaction and their, their school.
And we see it quite a lot. So it’s not just worrying about one little thing, it’s across the board. So that’s where. Even if it’s not diagnosed as such, you’d say more that it’s falling into more an anxiety disorder. So why do you think the prevalence of this has increased over the last couple of decades?
Well, the, there’s no sort of real fixed evidence or, you know, hard evidence, I should say around this. Although this is talked about a lot and I think that there’s a range. Reasons, and we’ve got an increasingly, you know, more complex world than we did even 15 years ago. So it’s fast paced. There’s not as much downtime and a lot of parents will say this, you know?
Yeah. Teachers will say this, you know, see kids that are really exhausted. So we are seeing kids that might go, for example, from school. Then to an afterschool activity and then they’re on the iPad or technology and then bed . And then it’s kind of like this big piece missing, which is play. So if you don’t have play, then you don’t wind down, just like we don’t as adults.
So sort of lack of that wind down, chill out time, um, you know, which is different to being on screens. Yeah. Yeah. And just that time to just relax the brain. Kids have also got social media. They’re constantly comparing with each other. And then as we get, you know, if families are stressed out, we also kind of get that catchiness of anxiety and stress.
Yes, it is contagious. That is very contagious. . It is so contagious. And again, it’s real, you know, to really wanna make a point on that. It’s not to blame parents at all, it’s just how it is. You know, like if, if we feel a certain, you know, emotional state, the closest people to us will feel that. And there’s science around that.
It’s not just, Oh, I can pick up your energy. It’s, it’s actually science. So we know it ripples out and affects others as well. So when a family presents to you with a child feeling anxious as a psychotherapist, do you try to get to the root cause of that and work out what it is, or do you kind of not worry so much about it and just stay solutions focused?
So I mainly work in this space of. Early intervention and prevention. So with, you know, the, the workshops that we have, you know, the Peaceful Kids Workshops and peaceful parents and so on. Um, but with the, you know, the kids, we work more in that sort of educational space, which is really empowering kids with strategies and also psychoeducation, letting them know what’s happening.
So they learn what’s happening in the body, in the brain, and they’re feeling anxious. And then strategies to then cope and to manage. So I don’t work so much around root cause and so on. It’s really around empowering the child, skilling the child up, and also skilling the parent up. So, It’s around normalizing it as well.
So when we work with kids, when we work with them in, in small groups, it’s great because they can normalize the sort of those feelings of anxiety they might have or worry that they have or the, you know, the big feelings that they’re having. And just having that normalized is really powerful for kids.
They know that they’re not the only one. Like they’re not alone. Yeah, I absolutely love this idea of preventative because I even see it with my kids. When you can nip something in the bud when it’s just a little kernel of an idea or early, it’s so much more powerful than having to go and mend something later on.
But that actually brings me to a conundrum that I’d love to discuss as well, and. Attention seeking behavior as well. Mm. Do you find that some kids will recognize that when they behave a certain way and they might talk about. Certain things, they get a lot of oxygen and attention poured on those things.
Mm-hmm. and so then they kind of amplify it. Well, definitely, because, you know, kids are masters at manipulation, aren’t they? They’re so good , which is, you know, that’s kind of their job, you know, And the kids love attention and they need that. It’s, it’s a need as well. So, however, you know, on a more sort of serious side, As a parent, if we respond to children more, when they do, you know, are feeling anxious and we, that’s our one-on-one time with them, then the child will seek that out more.
Yes, that’s, yes. Not, not across the board, but often, and that’s what I see. So for example, if a child gets a lot of one-on-one when the child’s got a difficulty and the parents really tuning and listen. And that’s great that the parents doing that, then it can give it more oxygen. And it also depends on how we respond as well to the child and what we are saying and so on.
And if we stay sort of stuck in that response of only giving that one-on-one time in that, then children can learn definitely to do that and that. And it’s not because they’re putting on the anxiety or putting on feeling that worry, it’s just that that’s the time that they, It might not be the only time they get that one on one.
How do you suggest we respond if we’re stuck in a bit of a cycle where our child has honed in on the fact that they’re getting this attention when they talk about all this negative emotion? Sure. What’s a good strategy to break that circuit? So one of the things that I love to, you know, work with parents around is teaching our parents around reflective listening or just active listening skills where we tune into how our child is feeling.
And we don’t jump into problem solving or reassuring really quickly. We just listen. So we listen to what the child’s saying, we listen to how they’re feeling, and we reflect that back to the child. So the child feels really hurt. So for example, a child might say, Oh, you know, I’m worried about, you know, what my friends are gonna say to me tomorrow at school.
And cuz I really stuffed up today with the basketball game. , we can just respond back and say, Okay, so yeah, you’re a bit, you’re worried about what, what your friends are gonna say. Yeah, mom, I’m just really worried cuz yesterday they said this and yesterday they say that and we respond back. We’re trying to name the emotion as well.
So we, what you call, name it, entertainment it. So if we can name the emotion or the feeling for the child. It actually tams the brain. So that stress part of the brain, right, Which is involved in, you know, the whole part of anxiety, that actually calms down because we’ve got someone else who understands that feeling and it’s named, and the brain sort of goes, Oh, I can relax now.
So it’s kind of two or three fold really, this technique, because we’re tuning into how our child’s feeling, we’re getting them to understand how they’re. We’re naming it for them and then it helps them to calm down so their anxiety is calmed. But if we jump in really quickly, Which can often happen, and I know I’ve done this myself as a parent and , it’s a natural response.
But we, if we jump in and problem solve too quickly Yeah, fix it mode. Fix it mode. Because we’re worried ourselves as parents. If we hear our child upset, we wanna fix it. Right, ? Yeah, absolutely. So if we can just sort of be mindful. Of our response and really tune in and be mindful of our child and what they’re feeling and sit with that rather than trying to have the emotion go really quickly and try to fix it.
Because often we think, Oh, I don’t want them to be feeling this. I have to fix it. But if we actually just sit with it and name it, not try to fix it, just name it back. Mm-hmm. really here what’s happening. You’ll see kind of the en energy shift in the situation or the conversation anyway, because they’ve sort of got it all out.
They fear really. And then if there is a problem to be solved, if they think there is, then we can move to problem solving and brainstorming. What about when you see repetitive behavior? How can you manage that? So for example, if a child is worried about the same things, so the same sort of worries coming up, or, or every day the child’s talking about different worries, we can tune in, like we talked about how the the child feels.
But one powerful strategy. That I like to use and teach kids is the use of a worry box and worry time. So they have a box, whether it’s a tissue box or whatever it might be, and you have a set worry time where you can be the child and say, Okay, we’re gonna write down all our worries for five minutes. And we’re just gonna clear our mind.
So they have a piece of paper for each separate worry. So they write down worried about what my friends might think of me in the classroom, whatever, that my best friend’s not gonna talk to me tomorrow, you know, Next one, uh, that they’re gonna laugh at me when I’m playing basketball. Pop that one in. Yeah.
And they just clear the mind, writing it down, popping it in the worry box. Mm-hmm. and then after. Doing that straight before bed because sometimes it can open up these huge discussions that go on forever. And kids love to do that. Yeah. Don’t they then doing a relaxing activity. It might be that and then, then the shower or the, you know, the bath or whatever.
Then, you know, board game or whatever. And then book and bed, you know, older kids can do it as a journal and so on. Then probably, you know, do it more privately, but for sort of, you know, the primary age they can, you know, often like doing that with a parent and so that’s really powerful. Because it feels like there’s something done with the worry rather than just talking, talking, talking, talking.
Yeah. You can then say, Okay, we’ve done the box. Yeah, now we’re gonna pop it away and now let’s eat dinner and talk about something positive. Yeah. It just sort of contains it. So it sort of brings the worry down from 24 hours a day to five minutes. So it’s just, you know, knock yourself out with worrying for five minutes,
I love it. That’s great.
And so then how would we balance that out if we do have the child that has been putting it on and, and pouring a lot of oxygen into that? Is it just a matter of them making sure that you are spending an equal amount of time on. A different topic on a different area of their life that’s positive. Yeah, that’s right.
So we can use this technique not just when they’ve got a difficulty. So it might be, you know, that really tuning in that mindful listening to our child as they come home and tell a story about school or a friend. And it’s funny and you are really there, you’re really present when you’re talking to them about that.
And cuz I like to call it filling their cup when we have those mindful parent moments where we’re a hundred. Focused and the child knows that cuz they pick up two seconds if we’re not really there. We’re their in body, but we’re not there in our mind. Mm. And we can’t do this all day long. That’s not practical, but we might say have 10 minutes or we’re talking to our child and we are really, really present.
We’re intentionally present. So whatever it is, the good, bad, the negative, whatever. Worry is the joys and that’s that tuning in. Rather only when we think, Oh, you know, my child’s got a problem. Oh, I better really listen now. Yeah, that’s actually a really powerful tool to think about it like, okay, well if in the last week I’ve devoted this much time to.
When my child is struggling, what other areas in a positive, optimistic part of their life can I put equal amounts of oxygen into and fill their cup in those areas as well? Yeah. And it can be being involved in, say, hobby or just an interest or something, whether it’s, you know, they like. Coloring or Yeah, being creative or whether they build Lego or kicking the ball or, Absolutely.
And again, it doesn’t have to be hours and hours because it’s, it’s not possible to do that. But even if it’s say 10 minutes and then there’s another 10 minutes or a 20 minutes and we’re kicking the ball and we are just completely present. Yeah, I love that. And another expert I spoke to on time management actually, Said that kids’ attention span are approximately equal to the minutes to their age.
So if you’ve got a five year old, their real attention span is about five minutes. So these quality moments don’t have to be these massive gestures of a day at the zoo, right? It can literally just be minutes to their age. And for me, as a busy mom, I find, you know what? That’s manageable. I can do that. It is, isn’t it?
And often it’s the same. It’s not creating more time. So for example, we might be reading a book to our child and we’re already gonna be reading a book to our child, but we could be up in our heads doing our to-do. Or we are completely intentionally focused, so we are feeling their cups and it’s the same amount of time.
They feel it in two seconds. , they can tell the absent minded parent just going through emotions. So you run these amazing preventative workshops. Talk me through some of the management techniques in there. Your top picks for what you think are really useful tools to help children that may have low self-esteem and feeling worried.
So one of the key things which I touched on before, is being able to share feelings. So sharing feelings with others, and particularly with peers, is really powerful. You know, is that sense of connection and belonging. Feeling like you’re not the only one that has these feelings that sometimes can be really over.
So getting to know how you feel is sort of the start of being able to manage how you feel. So the sharing, but also that psychoeducation of, okay, so this is how this feels, this is how that feels. And being able to share that. And then sort of moving more to self-regulation strategies such as, oh, I can feel that sense of dread or fear, anxiety.
And I know where I feel it in the body cuz I’ve learnt all about it. I’ve learnt what happens with the heart and the brain and adrenaline and you know, all of these, you know, and the fear part of the. So they know then, Okay, I’m feeling this way. What can I do? And they employ a range of strategies such as, yeah, self-regulation tools like deep breathing, for example.
So three big, deep, mindful belly breaths. Mm-hmm. . And then just noticing. , they’re breathing and they can do this through, for example, breathing buddies, lying down and putting a soft toy on their belly if they’re little. Okay. A bit older, they could put a week pack or something. Yep. And just watching the soft toy go up as you breathe in 1, 2, 3, and then out 1, 2, 3.
So that regulation of attention and. Focusing on the body. So grounding techniques. Mm-hmm. , uh, deep breathing. And then also a range of coping strategies. So things that they can do that make them feel better. So if they feel a certain way, what can they do? And this is very unique to each child. Yeah. What, what’s an example of some of those?
So, for example, you know, we teach kids what will make you feel better, Calm yourself down, or bring your energy up, either up or down. Mm-hmm. , they might talk about things like having a nice warm bath or spending time with their. Or going on their hobby or spending time with their friend or talking to, you know, a trusted adult, um, kicking the ball, doing exercise.
And again, there are, a lot of them are body based things as well, because we know that when we calm the body down, it calms the brain down. Okay. So they’re really practical and expressive sort of coping strategies that they can use. But through the programs we run, we get the kids to identify that and understand what coping strategies are.
And we give them a whole lot of examples and. Find the ones that really work for them. Mm. And then they know that they’ve got those go-tos to go to as well. That could be a really interesting dinner table conversation with your kids. You know, outside of the heat of the moment, you could say, you know, what are some things that make you feel good and that make you feel calm?
And you could almost get that tool kit happening. Mm-hmm. And so, In a day or two when they say, Oh, I, I’m worried about going to school today. You can say, Remember at dinner the other night we spoke about, you know, stroking your soft toy or whatever it might be. Do you think you could use that now? Yeah. Is that how you’d use it?
Yeah. That’s really good. It’s teaching it and having those discussions around when you are feeling calm and ready to learn, not learning them. When you’re in that moment, you know, I. So, because when we’re feeling really angry or really anxious, you know, it’s like we call, like thinking brain goes offline.
So we can’t, we don’t think very logically. Yeah. So if we have things, particularly as a visual as well, like we give cards to kids that’s got their visuals on there, um, of what they can do. So it’s that reminder. So they might not feel like doing it, but they know when they do that thing, it makes ’em feel good, whatever that.
Mm. But some of the other strategies for use is helping kids, like empowering them to problem solve because sometimes their worries actually are real problems. Often the worries are just worries, but if it is an actual problem, yep, then we teach them to break it down, brainstorm solutions, and slowly have a go at approaching that thing.
Or that problem that they’re scared of or worried about, and we teach them in, also in conjunction with parents to help them do that. Not take over and tell the child what to do, but empower the child to get those strategies. Yeah. Almost become a coach. I think, I love this idea that as a parent, you’re slowly becoming that coach rather than telling them what to do, you’re, you are empowering them, which is, it’s a lovely dynamic.
Let’s talk about parents and treating parents because some of your programs are specifically for parents. Can you explain why you decided to shift from kids into parents? Sure. So yeah, so we’ve had the, the Peaceful Kids Program going for a number of years, and the Peaceful Parents Program just grs organically, really out of that need of so many parents.
Hey, can I learn this stuff that my child’s learning? Hey, this sounds really good. Yeah, and also can I learn it from myself? I’m really stressed out. You know, I wanna learn this mindfulness stuff. I’ve got an image here of all these parents with soft toys laying on their back on the floor with the panda bear rising and falling from their stomachs,
We don’t actually do that with the parents, but that’s probably a good idea. We do talk to them about, But we do actually teach and coach the parents around mindfulness. And so mindfulness strategy is formal and informal strategies. So just sort of living more mindfully and bring in mindful parenting strategies.
But you know, we know through research that the best outcomes for children, you know, with change or if children are having some difficulty, is to get the parents involved. We don’t wanna work just with a child because the way that a parent responds to their child’s anxiety or responds to a child’s difficulty.
Can make a really big difference in how the child views that problem or the difficulty or their worry or whatever it might be. It has such a huge impact. I mean, would you go as far to say it can amplify and exacerbate Yep. If a parent Yeah. Reacts in totally the wrong way, . Absolutely. And that’s a big part of what we teach.
So you talked before about coaching and we talk about coaching in that sense of, you know, staying nice and calm, you know, communicating, using reflective, listen. And sort of coaching from the sidelines are not taking over, but also, yeah, not escalating because the escalating and being anxious ourselves as parents in, in how our child, when they talk about a difficulty, can make the world a difference.
So they can see a tiny little problem as this massive problem that they should be scared. And what it does is it teaches them that the world’s a big and scary place. And yes, there are some things that, you know, we need, need to have some fear about in the world, but overall, we don’t need to be on hyper alert.
You know, the, the day to day life at school and so forth isn’t scary. So we don’t wanna respond in that way. This is where I really struggle, where the rubber hits the road because your child comes home and says, you know, mommy, I was bullied at school. Yeah. And you say, Okay, well talk me through what happened.
And there’s essentially two responses that we can make besides the sort of coaching and the active listening. Mm. You can be like, Oh my goodness, that is just terrible. I am getting on the phone to the teacher right now, and that’s unacceptable, which is that probably that amplification. But then the other response is, Oh, don’t be silly.
They weren’t really bullying you. They were just, you know, this is normal stuff. This happens all the time in the playground and dismissing. Sure. So that’s kind of two ends of the spectrum, isn’t it? Yeah. What’s the middle ground to react in a situation like that? The middle ground is being able to have perspective on the situation.
So this is where to have perspective as a parent, we need to be calm ourselves cuz if we, if we just go straight into reactive. We’ve lost perspective. We’re just acting from emotion. We’re acting from our anxieties and our primitive part of our brain, our fears, which are, my child’s gonna get bullied. For example, I was bullied every single day.
I was bullied. They’re gonna end up dropping outta school. Yeah. No friends. No friends. Um, never getting a job and so forth. And we catastrophize, you know, , um, we lose perspective. So keeping perspective and, and also that listening I was talking about when we really listen, Rather than going to problem solving mode, we’re really listening.
What is it that my child’s saying? So for example, a child might come home and they just wanna talk to you about what a crappy day they’ve had, and this child said this to them and called them a name and whatever. And it might not actually be bullying, for example. It might just be this child wasn’t very nice to them, to that at school, which can happen.
And all they wanna do is just talk to you about it and have someone who really understands what it’s like and how they feel. Yeah. They don’t want you to go to the school. They don’t want you to cause a big deal. No. You see what I, what I often say to parents is they say, Who do you want your child to go to as they’re growing up?
And when they’re teenagers? And you know, parents say, Oh, I want them to come to me. Yeah. I’m like, Okay. So if we shut it down and shut down what they’re sharing by jumping to problem solving or escalating or something, you know, that’s all volunt terrible and rushing and ringing the school. Obviously there are times when we need to step in.
But overall they hate that. And that’s so embarrassing for them. Mm. So they’re gonna stop, Stop talking to you. Yeah. And if you dismiss it as well, they’re gonna stop talking to you because you haven’t Mm. You haven’t helped them. So it really is about going into that active listening and that coaching calm frame to just have that balance, that middle ground.
Absolutely. And working out, is there a problem here to actually be fixed? Or do they just wanna tell you how bad their day was? So if we think of it as adults, If we have a bad day, we wanna just tell our partner or our friend, and we just wanna vent. Right. . Mm. We don’t want them to say, Well do this and do that and do this cuz we’re not gonna then talk to that person.
Yeah. With our difficulties. If you think about who do we go to when we’re having a difficulty, we know the people that we go to, the ones that are gonna really listen to us. You’ve gotta be that person for your child. That’s right. And it doesn’t mean about being their friend, it’s about being their coach and just seeing, is this a problem or are they just.
Taught to me about it because through that talking, the coaching comes out anyway cuz they’re gonna keep on coming to you. So sometimes it’s about pausing too and thinking, Okay, even if this is a problem, we don’t need to fix this right now. The, the big thing is the emotion. So we focus on emotion first.
tuning in and then problems if there is a problem to be solved. So, And when you say the emotion, the feeling, so you’re trying to focus on the feeling. So I was feeling jealous. I was feeling angry. I was feeling hurt. Yeah. And I think with young kids as well, increasing that vocabulary cuz my littles basically.
Happy and sad and angry. That’s probably their only vocab for their feelings, . And so I think it’s about actually helping those kids to have other labels for other feelings as well. That’s right. When we can understand how we are feeling, that’s kind of halfway to managing it. Yeah. Okay. So when we can name it for ourselves also, but when, when children are young, they need someone else to help to name that for them.
Cuz like I said, you know, their vocab, like you said, can be limited. So we are helping them to understand how they’re feeling and, and helping them and normalizing it. Like it’s okay to have these range of emotions. The, the emotions don’t, and feelings, they don’t stay. Sometimes they can stay for periods if we get into a mood, but it’s normal and it’s okay to have those.
And what can I do to feel better? Okay, I can talk to a loved one and then I can use my coping strategies. Or sometimes it’s the other way around. They need to let off steam and then, , but you know, those Strat two uh, strategies are really important. So finally, Georgina, for a parent who’s sitting here listening now, feeling really worried about their child, and their child is down on themselves and kind of plagued by that anxiety, what’s the first step that they can take?
Tonight when they get home and they see their child, what’s the first step they can take to supporting their child? One of the things that I think is really important is as a parent, that we get support ourselves. So we have someone to talk to. So if we are worried about our child’s worry or anxiety and we get, you know, stressed about it, we need that outlet.
That’s not just the, not with the child. Okay, So that’s separate. So whether that’s a friend, whether it’s a partner, So having that support. And then the other side of support might be, you know, if you are really concerned, is having a professional to talk to. You could start with a GP and talk, you know, have a chat to, um, gp or they get the psychologist without the child first.
Okay. Because sometimes parents need just reassurance that what they’re doing is the right thing or what their child’s displaying is quite normal and age appropriate. So sometimes just. is a lot actually. . Yeah. So obviously like if their, if their child’s anxious and it’s going on and on and it’s really interfering with their day to day lives or the parents really struggling with that, just reach out for professional help.
Definitely. You know, we don’t need to sort of suffer in silence with it. So reaching out for help is really important. Um, the other thing in, we sort of touched on this before, but is keeping really calm ourselves and looking after our own wellbeing as parents. So if, if. Got our cup field and our resources are, you know, we’ve got good resources, we are gonna manage difficulties a lot better.
So then we’re gonna be staying more calm and tuning into our child and being able to manage that without ourselves. Sort of feeling too worried about it as well. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing and is also, you know, pulling back on a lot of extra stuff that we don’t need to do and slowing life down. So there are some, so is some day to day environmental stuff that we can change and we can tweak.
Yeah. You know, and often when I work with parents, we, you know, we talk about, and you know, they really come up with this sort of, um, discussion is around, gosh, do I really need to be doing all this stuff with my child? They’re actually really stressed out. Yeah. Or I’m stressed out. I don’t wanna be tearing around in the car every day with 20 different activities.
Yeah. So there are some things we can do to slow our lives down that make a big difference to the whole family, and particularly an anxious. Oh, I love these. So what you’re saying is slow down, get support and talk. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Thank you so much Georgina. Thank you for having me.
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