Every little child gets anxious sometimes. But when your child panics, there’s a common two-word phrase he should never utter: Calm down.
That’s according to Rachel Romer, CEO and co-founder of educational assistance benefits company Guild, who is a mother of two. Especially for children, she says, calm is best taught through demonstration.
“I’m in the middle of parenting two little 4-year-olds, and I think about when they’re anxious, saying ‘calm down’ is the worst thing you can say to a 4 1/2-year-old.” old man,” Romer said recently on Guild’s “opportunity division” podcast, in an episode with leadership researcher Brené Brown and Wharton organizational psychologist Adam Grant.
Brown and Grant agreed. say “calm down” no validate the child’s emotions or help him understand his feelings, and may even unintentionally come off as dismissive, they said.
Managing an emotion like anxiety is a complex task, Grant added, recalling a 2014 published thesis in the Journal of Experimental Psychology by a researcher named Alison Wood Brooks.
“What he found was, when you ask people, ‘What do you do when you’re anxious and what do you tell other people to do?’ [more than 80%] of people said ‘calm down,’ but couldn’t, because we all know that anxiety is an intense, highly activated emotion, and it doesn’t just go away,” Grant said.
The trio recommended two exercises to help the children better manage their intense emotions.
Do controlled breathing together
First, practice breathing together.
“Sometimes without even saying [your kids] you’re doing, if you start synchronizing your breathing with them … you create that space” for them to work through their emotions subconsciously, Romer said.
This strategy can also work for adults. Brown said that she has learned breathing techniques such as “box breathing” and “tactical breathing” by taking yoga classes.
“Anxiety is a very contagious emotion,” Brown said. “Calm is also contagious.”
These methods “prime your physiology” and allow you to relax in the moment, Daniel Goleman, a Harvard-trained psychologist, told CNBC Make It last month. “This actually changes their arousal physiology from the sympathetic nervous system, which is the stress and anxiety mode, to the parasympathetic, which is the relaxation and recovery mode,” Goleman said.
Reframing anxiety as an emotion
Second, reframe anxiety as an emotion.
“That [Wood Brooks] What I found was that instead of trying to calm down, it was easier to re-evaluate the anxiety as an emotion and say, ‘Look, anxiety involves uncertainty. Yes, it’s possible for something bad to happen, but it’s also possible for something good to happen,'” Grant explained.
In that study, people performed a variety of anxiety-provoking tasks, such as public speaking. Subjects told to “get excited” were more confident and collected than those told to “calm down.”
Parents can do a similar exercise with their children. As you talk with your child, change phrases like “I know you’re anxious, but…” or “Let’s try to calm down” to “I know you’re excited and…”.
The subtle adjustment can make children happier and help them be in the “best possible emotional space,” Grant added.
DO NOT MISS: Do you want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work and life? Subscribe to our new newsletter!
Get CNBC for free Warren Buffett’s Guide to Investingwhich synthesizes the billionaire’s #1 best advice for regular investors, the do’s and don’ts and three key investing principles into one clear and simple guide.
