Let’s face it: we all suffer from anxiety once in awhile. Life is difficult and goes so fast, and many people these days are seeking more holistic, natural approaches to treating their anxiety—especially when dealing with children.

My daughter, Jaimie, was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) when she was only two-and-a-half. Jaimie still wasn’t talking at that age and, what we didn’t realize at the time, was that in her own way she was trying to tell us, “Excuse me, parents. But I’m feeling tremendous anxiety from that smell/sound/the clothes you put on me/etc. Help me!”

After her diagnosis, a wonderful occupational therapist and a psychologist to tried everything under the sun to teach her more positive coping techniques as well as teach us how to help her at home. Although some methods worked, the approaches were very “textbook” and ended up causing Jaimie even more distress. This resulted in a triage meeting where the head psychiatrist of Jaimie’s case “strongly suggested” that we consider putting her on anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications (SSRIs).

“Jaimie is only three years old,” my partner Steve said. “Surely there are more natural, holistic ways to treat a toddler than giving her mind-altering drugs.”

That meeting prompted us to do a lot of research, as well as go through a lot of trial and error, until we found what worked best for Jaimie. Here are a few things that have helped us:

Ease Stress By Working In Their Comfort Zone

One thing that drove Steve and I nuts was that all of these professionals who worked with Jaimie weren’t using her own strengths or comforts as a way of helping her. They chose activities that, supposedly, “always worked in cases of Jaimie’s severity level.” Well, she didn’t like water therapy or people manipulating her tiny limbs to do relaxation exercises or being forced to do highly tactile crafts. In fact, they only made things worse. Jaimie loved scribbling in notebooks, looking at picture books and laying still with her favorite beanie Tigger. So, those are what we used when trying to help ease her anxiety.

Ease Stress With The Power of Brain Food

Our brains are actually made up of over 60% fats. The fats essential for optimal brain activity are the omega-3 fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and, to a lesser extent, alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Amazingly, our bodies don’t produce these fats; we have to consume them in foods like fatty, freshwater fish, (salmon, shark steaks, tuna) nuts and other oily foods.

Children with neurological disorders such as Autism or SPD are deficient in these fats so it’s essential that they consume as much of them as they can. However, it can be challenging getting a child with SPD to eat different sorts of foods, especially when they are texturally different or smelly (like fish). What you can do is add the oils to baking. We make “Jaimie’s Brain Muffins” as well as granola, whole grain cookies and other yummy snacks with added flaxseed oil.

Ease Stress With Sleepy time

We still get Jaimie to have a little rest in the middle of the day. It’s fine if she doesn’t sleep but she needs to have some alone time where she can regroup, work through things in her mind or just enjoy a few moments of quiet time without her three siblings catapulting her sensory stimulation into the stratosphere. Alone time/rest time is essential for two reasons: (1) It helps the child get things off their mind before bedtime so they won’t be plagued with worries and thoughts from earlier in the day; and (2) It teaches them that being alone is okay once in awhile.

Breathing Through Stress

Since Jaimie was a toddler, we’ve taught her how to breath through her stress when her insides are crazy. Recently I found two fantastic books that not only teach a child how to do this but also allows them to write down feelings, the level of intensity of their feelings and how they calm themselves. One book is called, My Book Of Feelings by Amy V. Jaffe, M.S.W. and Luci Gardner. The other is called, When My Feelings Get Too Big! by Brenda Smith Myles. Both are filled with vivid pictures, speak in a child’s voice and allow the child to write directly in the book about their own feelings! Jaimie loves them both.

Keep YOUR Feelings in Check

A child with high anxiety tends to feed off of our worries and stress so no matter what, be aware of your own displays of stress. As the expression goes, “Practice what you preach.” Whenever I get a little grouchy or I’m having an off day, Jaimie reminds me to, “Breathe and calm your insides down, Mama.”
It hurts watching Jaimie worry and stress about simple, fun activities other kids have fun doing. But I feel a lot better doing little things like changing or adding to Jaimie’s diet or teaching her new coping skills than I’d feel forcing a pill down her throat every day.

In the end, it takes a lot more work and effort to use strategies like the ones above, but I know I’m teaching Jaimie skills she’ll always be able to turn to.

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