The safety of your child is a natural worry, wanting to protect your child from harm and so nothing bad happens. The worries range in their nature, perhaps you worry about them getting physically hurt in some way or their mental health being impacted by someone or an event.
It might be that you experience “what if” moments. The times where you start I don’t want them to go to the shop on their own “what if they don’t cross the road properly”, or “what if they don’t make any friends when they start school”.
One of the difficulties is that you cannot control many factors within your child’s life such as what happens whilst they are at school, the friends they will make and some of the things in life their will be exposed to.
Not having control or influence can lead to feeling helpless and be anxious about the unknown. This can lead to overthinking; it may mean you are trying to bring in some control which can mean that the anxiety is the driver rather than a more rational approach.
Being led by your anxiety can lead to your child becoming anxious too. Something which is not helpful to either of you. Modelling how to stay calm and approach things in a realistic way will help your child to do the same.
It is helpful to stay in the present as much as possible, ask yourself “what is helpful to say or do now?” By being realistic about what is reasonable and possible it will help to feel calmer.
Making sure you are looking after yourself will help to manage anxious thoughts. Having too little to focus on can give time and space to worry. But on the other side being too busy can lead to overwhelm which can cause reactive behaviour.
It may be that your anxious thoughts are a diversion from another thing in your life. It could be that something within you is being triggered.
I support parents through listening, offering my thoughts and observations from what I have heard. This can help to see things from a different viewpoint. The anxious thoughts can have a voice, be heard, and help to put them into perspective.
If you find you are losing sleep worrying about your child, please do get in touch to see how we can work together – [email protected]