From Worry to Wonder: Help Kids with Holiday Anxiety Today

What’s In This Article

What Does Anxiety Look Like?

Physical: The anxiety can show up all over the body. Children might complain of muscle pain, tight muscles or soreness. A child might talk about or rub a part of their body such as head or stomach to indicate a pain in or discomfort in that area.  They could be dizzy or even have trouble in the bathroom. The other place you might see anxiety symptoms is around sleep. Sleep issues might arise in the form of trouble getting to sleep, night mares, more dreams, or night wakings. My middle child wakes up and rocks for hours in the middle of the night when she is anxious.

Emotional: This will show up as worry that feels bigger than the event or situation. They will reveal their big feelings about something you perceive as small such as a game, family dinner, or class Christmas party.  Words such as “I am NOT going to Grandma’s” or “I am NEVER going back to class” or “I CANNOT get on stage for my concert.”  Emotionally, the anxiety might look like frustration or mood swings. They can be playing with siblings and then yelling in the same breath. A child could go from giggles, to wrath, to tears and giggles all in 3 minutes because you asked them to pack their backpack up for school.  They might kick the car seat and sob because you asked them to buckle their seat belt while you grab their jacket from inside. (This one reveals my daughter’s anxiety about me leaving her.)

Behavioral: You might see this in three main ways. One, it can look like avoidance. They refuse to go and do something you ask them to do, or a task they must do such as attend school. Two, a child that once liked to roam, all of a sudden is a velcro kid that won’t leave your side. Third, it can also show up in regressions. Hopefully your once potty-trained child doesn’t go back to the pre-toilet phase but that can happen. They might return to thumb sucking, needing a particular stuffed animal or insist on being “babied.” Hopefully, you can find their favorite bunny up in the attic if this happens!

Cognitive: Cognitive symptoms of anxiety manifest most clearly three ways in kids. First, a kid might become obsessed with perfectionism. If you listen, they reveal the standard they are reaching towards and how they are failing. I remember my first born trying to draw a “perfect” circle and throwing the paper while yelling about the tiny overlap at the top because it wasn’t perfect. It turns out, she was anxious that her friend wouldn’t like her if she wasn’t “good” at drawing. Second, an anxious kid might be “spacey.” With low focus, or even running into objects they can reveal they are tired and, or worried about something. Their focus will be “off” and you might notice it when you have to repeat yourself for the 4th time about teeth brushing. Third, if you put on your listening, not judging detective hat, you will hear language about how they are trapped. If you hear that they cannot do anything about a situation they are in, you know there is some anxiety present.

What Can I Actually Do To Help Kids With Holiday Anxiety?

There are many effective, accessible methods for making anxiety manageable. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Exposure Behavioral Therapy (EBT) are both excellent tools to pursue, but are most effective in conjunction with a trained therapist. For on the go assistance, I like to use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), most commonly known as tapping. All you need is a single finger and a few sentences to help bring the anxiety from debilitating to tolerable, or even negligible. It is a simple, but powerful, way to help your kids with holiday anxiety.  Bonus content, the tapping skill you teach to give anxiety relief for kids during the holidays will be useful the whole year through.

What is Tapping?

Tapping is a popular self-regulation technique that can help children (and grown ups too) manage emotions, including anxiety. It involves tapping on specific spots on the body while focusing on the specific anxiety or distress a person is feeling.  EFT, tapping, combines the thought identification component of CBT with acupressure points in the body. The goal is to reduce psychological upset and emotional distress. If you want to help kids reduce holiday anxiety, keep reading for information and instructions you can use today.

How Do I Tap?

The act of tapping is as simple as it sounds. Just like you might tap an index finger on a table, or a child’s shoulder to get their attention, you tap a single finger on specific points of the body. To get started, consider washing your hands since you will work near your eyes. You can always use hand sanitizer too. Then, you take your index finger and repeatedly give a light touch on one of the designated areas. You want to tap firmly enough to feel it but not hard enough to leave any type of mark or to feel painful.

Where Do I Tap?

While there are a number of great spots to tap, there are 8 accessible, simple places on your hand, face and collarbone that make up the easiest, and best routine. I think of them as 5 zones. The first zone is the bottom side of your hand sometimes called the karate chop. You “chop” one hand into the palm of your other hand. Two, the crown of your head. Three, there are three spots in the eye area. At the beginning of your eyebrow at the nose edge, side of your eye on the bone edge (near to the very edge of eye without touching), and under your eye at the bone edge. The Fourth region has 2 spots around your mouth. They are, right underneath your nose (above your top lip) and underneath your lower lip but above your chin. The fifth region is on your collar bone. I have some fun, holiday themed printables to help with visualization.

How To Do A Tapping Sequence:

• EFT tapping involves combining a simple sentence with those acupressure points, so we start by identifying the emotion, feeling, or thought causing the anxiety. A feelings chart can be helpful here. We are not looking for complex revelations or underlying motives, simply a feeling that is making our child out of sorts. Often times they will be nervous, scared, upset, stressed, hyper, or unsafe.
• Once you have identified the key thought or feeling causing the child to be upset, we pair it with a truthful and calming statement. Something like I am safe, I can handle this, I know how to help myself, or I have people on my team to help.
• Then, you put the two together and practice the whole phrase. Here are a few examples. For a younger kid you might say “I feel scared and I am safe.” For an older child you might say “Even though I am stressed I can handle this and I have a plan.”
• Finally, we introduce the tapping. We work from hand, to head to heart, as I like to think of it.
  • Start with Zone 1. The bottom of one hand will “karate chop” the other hand. The side of the hand will contact the palm of the other hand. As you do this say the phrase you practiced, “Part of me is scared and I am safe.”
  • Next, we go to the top of the head, or crown of the head. Tap the top of your head while saying “Part of me is scared and I am safe.”
  • Then, move to the eye region. Put your finger at the spot where the eyebrow meets the nose, tap, and say “Part of me is scared and I am safe.” Move to the outside of the eye, tap and say your phrase “Part of me is scared and I am safe.” Then, go to the bone under the eye, tap, and say your phrase.
  • Now on to Zone 4, the mouth region. Tap between your nose and mouth and say, “Part of me is scared and I am safe.” Tap between the mouth and chin, saying, “Part of me is scared and I am safe.”
  • Finally, finish up at the collarbone. You can do both sides, or just one side. Either way, tap your collarbone while saying, “Part of me is scared and I am safe.”
  • Then, take a slow, full body breath.
• Hurray! You completed one tapping sequence. Experts suggest repeating this a few times, possibly choosing another word or phrase if another feeling or thought has come up during your tapping work.
• When you are done tapping, take several deep breaths and ask your child if they feel ready to keep moving or if they want to try another sequence. Again, our goal is not to fix anything. The goal is to help them learn to deal with a lifelong reality, stress. With practice, they might even learn how to leverage their anxiety for energy and learning.

Develop Your Own Routine:

In order to make this work for your crew, think about your kids’ personalities and temperaments. Mine are resistant to most suggestions, so doing the entire routine, all at once, doesn’t really work. It was a very good distraction, but we did not get through the whole thing. Asking your child to reveal their feelings, repeat a complicated sentence and then tap might be too much. You will need to adapt this for your kids. I suggest that you start by teaching a few of the tapping places. Maybe, print out one of the chart printables. Then, start showing your child what in the world all those dots are on the Christmas character’s faces. Stop, that is all. Later, model some of the tapping points for them but don’t even discuss it. Finally, if you see anxiety, suggest a tapping point as you talk about it. If all that goes well, you can go through a routine together.

• Introduce EFT Tapping and then train at calm moments, not when the anxiety is at a 10. 
• Turn it into a game. You can try, “Find the Feeling” naming an emotion and then having them point to it on their body. Or, create a guessing game called “Name That Feeling”. Another option could be “Tap and Find” you say a tapping spot and they tap that location.
• Utilize the power of story. Take them on a journey using some of their key interests and personality. My 7 year old likes princesses, and things she thinks are gross. Here is a story example.
  • Once upon a time there was a princes. (Karate chop) She was strong and always up for an adventure. As the princess looked around her kingdom she said, “Oh wow, there is something interesting over there! Gotta go!”
  • (Crown of head) The princess heard a noise. She was concerned. She was concerned and also curious. What could it be?
  • (Eye brow) As she turned to look her crown began to slip down her head. She feels concerned but curious. Her crown slips to the ground and goes “splat”. Uh Oh!
  • (Outer eye) But, she takes her concerned and her curious and turns to see what it is. What? What is it? How interesting!
  • (Under eye) As she looks down, her concern grows and so does her curious feeling.
  • (Under nose) The princess smells something odd! Yuck! Why does it smell so bad? What could it be? Your daughter says “I still feel concerned but I want to know more !”
  • (Under Mouth) So she sticks out her tongue to taste it! Yuck! Now she is really concerned because it tasted like her worries! But still, she is curious!
  • (Collarbone) So the princess lifts her head up high, chest tall and proud and says. “Well hello my scared feelings! You taste like ___________. Want to be friends?”
  • The concerned, curious princess bends down and gets her crown. She places it back on her head. (Tapping on crown) she says “I am concerned and I am safe because I am a brave princess.”

Does This Actually Work With Kids?

This all sounds exciting and hopeful doesn’t it? An anxiety management strategy that is both holistic and utilizes years of CBT research? But, will it actually work? I field tested this on a 4 year old, 7 year old and incidentally a one year old. Here are my results.

• The 4 year old was willing to try it. She had been up for over three hours the night before moving around the house and rocking in different spots. We tried the phrase “I am nervous and I am safe.” Somewhere around her chin, she stopped and told me she was done. I asked why, and she replied “because I do not want to stop walking around the house rocking.” That was the end of that session. I suppose if she felt the process “threatening” her freedom to get up during the night it was incidentally successful? 
• At dinner the same night I asked the 7 year old to help me do some research. We honed in on the phrase “I am scared I will get diabetes and I can call the doctor.” Somewhere around her eyebrow I met resistance to the process. I managed to coax her through her collarbone but in the review of the process she reported she was more scared. Later on, when we chatted some more she let me know that the acupressure points felt weird.  And, she said the karate chop was “violent” because it was karate. We concluded that the top of the head, the chin, and the collarbone might be something she would try.
• As for the one year old, he liked the karate chop. As I was talking our tapping session with my strong, sassy, independent 7 year old we kept “karate chopping” as we talked. Little man stood next to us and watched. About 2 minute in, he began to mimic us and was delighted by the hand motions and the exchange. Maybe he will be the EFT tapping enthusiast since he is starting so young?

Helpful Tips-EFT Tapping To Help Kids With Holiday Anxiety

• Make reasonable goals. A child may not complete an entire sequence of EFT tapping. Any work with their feelings is beneficial.
• Model the behavior. When you are stressed, pull out a Tapping Routine and do it.
• Do the tapping with them. It isn’t helpful to stare at them while they attempt this. Join in beside them.
• Teach them a little at a time.
• As you begin to teach them about tapping, use clear, simple langauge.
• Keep the experience “light”. Do not attach expectations or pressure. We are hoping that EFT tapping will help kids with holiday anxiety, so we are invested in its success. Remeber that any time spent helping a kid access their inner world is time well spent.
• Consider using a game or a story to encourage your child to participate fully.
• If this method does not work at first try again.
• Check out my additional resources section for some other ideas.