Summary
Are you struggling to support students dealing with anxiety in your school? You're not alone. Anxiety among students is a growing concern for parents, educators and school leaders alike. It can significantly impact a student's behaviour, learning, and overall well-being.
In our latest episode of School Behaviour Secrets, we're going to explore why kids find it hard to escape anxiety and what you can do to support them.
Important links:
Get your FREE Beacon School Support guide to helping children manage their strong emotions
Get our FREE SEND Behaviour Handbook: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/send-handbook
Download other FREE SEMH resources to use in your school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources
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Show notes / transcription
Emma Shackleton
Supporting kids who feel anxious about an element of their home life or school, and that out of control worry is limiting their potential or the choices they'd like to make, resulting in high emotions, challenging behaviour, or even sadness and disconnection? Then you're in the right place, whether you're a teacher, school leader, or parent, because today, we're going to explore why kids find it hard to escape anxiety and what you can do to support them.
Simon Currigan
Welcome to the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. I'm your host, Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton, and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents, and, of course, students when class room behaviour gets in the way of success. We're gonna share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural special needs, whole school strategy, and more, all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the School Behaviour Secrets podcast. Hi there.
My name is Simon Currigan, and welcome to this week's episode of school behaviour secrets. This week, I've been wondering about what's going on with the pronunciation of place names, like Great Yarmouth or Bournemouth or Sidmouth. They all clearly end in the word mouth, not muth.
So what's happened there? Why pronounce mouth like they've got a mouth or muthful of bread? Don't get me started on the counties. I don't agree with everything the Americans have done with the English language, but at least they have the courage to say Shire when they see it. Bedfordshire or Bedfordshire. I think you'll find the former is just phonetically implausible. And Warwickshire, Warwickshire, I'm singling you out here for being a try hard at postmodern individualism.
You know your name should be pronounced Warwickshire, not Warwickshire. Now go stand in the corner, and you can wear the class show off hat for good measure. You'll be in detention with Wednesday and the word segway. And now that's place they've sorted out, I'd like to welcome my cohost to the show, Emma Shackleton. Hi, Emma.
Emma Shackleton
Hi, Simon.
Simon Currigan
Start with a quick question?
Emma Shackleton
I think we should. We've got over 200 episodes now. And if we didn't start with a question, the universe might implode or something.
Simon Currigan
Brilliant. According to a 1997 study by MORI sampling 1,000 adults, what did 43% of respondents say they were putting off?
Emma Shackleton
1997. Recent research then?
Simon Currigan
People might be putting off new things. You know? Social media didn't feature highly. No. Buying an Internet modem?
Emma Shackleton
Updating a MySpace account. Alright. Let's imagine it's recent then, putting off? I think people tend to put off boring but sometimes important things, like putting off going to the doctors or getting their car serviced or maybe putting off a phone call or a meet up with somebody.
I don't know. What were 43% of respondents putting off in 1997, Simon?
Simon Currigan
Right. I think the answer probably may still hold. The survey said putting off making a will. Ah, yes. You're on the right lines with the others. 38% of people said they were putting off visiting a dentist. 35% going on a diet, 34% were putting off decorating, which seems weirdly specific, 34% were putting off starting an exercise program.
I can empathize with that. So, yeah, that's what people were putting off in 1997.
Emma Shackleton
Okay. We haven't evolved that much then, have we, since then?
Simon Currigan
Don't think we have.
Emma Shackleton
No. And how is that linked to today's episode?
Simon Currigan
So today, we're exploring anxiety and why children get trapped in negative cycles of anxiety, and they can't find their way out. And anxiety often involves the act of putting off an event that you find uncomfortable, unnerving, or scary.
Emma Shackleton
That makes sense. But just before we jump into the episode, how would you fancy paying it forward with a small good deed? We really rely on word-of-mouth recommendations. So if you're finding the School Behaviour Secrets podcast interesting and useful useful and you know somebody else who might like it too, do them a favour by opening your podcast app and clicking the share button.
Simon Currigan
And, of course, while you've got your app open, please make sure you also subscribe so you never miss another episode.
Emma Shackleton
And one last thing before we get into the information and strategies you need about anxiety, we've got another really helpful free download that could help your students or even your own children if you're a parent listening to the podcast. It's called how to help children manage anger and other strong emotions.
Simon Currigan
Of course, anxiety is another strong emotion, and the guide gives you an approach to helping your student understand, recognize, and manage strong emotions successfully. It shares a method that's evidence based, walks you through how to use that approach step by step, and even comes with some principles to support your work.
Emma Shackleton
Oh, and what is that approach?
Simon Currigan
Well, you'll have to download the guide to find out.
Emma Shackleton
Oh, cliffhanger. I like it.
So, dear listeners, if you want to join the fabulous company of thousands of your educator peers who've already downloaded our free resources, go and get your free copy today. I'll put a link in the episode description, and all you've got to do is open your podcast app, check the description, and tap on the link. If you haven't done that already, do it today. Or even better, if it's safe and you're not driving, get your phone out now and get that job ticked off your list.
Simon Currigan
Perfect. Right. So all we have to do now is take a deep breath, talc our legs, flatten our stomachs, and pull up the tight leather trousers we call behaviour. So it made sense when I wrote it. So I wanna make clear from the start that in this episode, we are talking about mild to moderate anxiety. And if you're working with a student or you're a parent and you're thinking about your own child and they are having significant anxiety, what you should always do, your first port of call is always going to be a medical professional. So should we kick off by talking about what anxiety actually is?
Emma Shackleton
Yeah. Good idea.
Simon Currigan
So an anxiety is you can think of it like a worry. Worries are perfectly natural, and all children have worries that come and go in life, but an anxiety is kinda like a worry that's escalated. It snowballed out of control, and it's influencing the kind of choices that the child would like to make. It's limiting their life. They might want to go to a football club, but they might have an anxiety about being hurt. So they don't go or they're resistant to going. So it's limiting their life somehow.
And what's interesting about anxiety is it's a lie. Your body's reacting as if a fearful, scary fight or flight event is happening right now in the moment, but anxiety is always future based. It's your brain projecting into the future and thinking about something happening that you might find scary or you're worried you're going to be hurt or you're going to die or someone that you care about is going to be hurt in a in a way that's irreversible. So your brain is thinking about future events. It's not thinking about what's happening now, but what happens is your body then reacts to that future event as if it's happening in the moment. So if you are worried about being stung by a bee and you have an anxiety about that and you're in your bedroom and you're thinking about going out and playing with your friends or perhaps your mom or dad's told you to go out and play with your friends, get some fresh air, then your body starts to react as if there is a bee on your body stinging you right now. But your body is perfectly safe.
In the moment, you are perfectly safe. So anxiety is an out of control worry that limits the choices you'd like to make, but it's also always future based.
Emma Shackleton
And the thing is with anxiety is that one of the elements of anxiety growing is we've got a natural tendency to underestimate our ability to cope with the stressful event and the likelihood of that event happening. So Simon's alluded to somebody being anxious about being stung by a bee. What we tend to think is if we are anxious about being stung by a bee, we believe that if we get stung by a bee, it's gonna be the end of the world. It's gonna be a huge, huge event, and there's absolutely no way that we're gonna cope with that. We tend to overdramatize, over catastrophize what might happen. And don't get me wrong. Sometimes a very small number of people do get stung by bees, and a very, very small proportion of those people do have life threatening consequences if they are allergic to bee stings, for example.
But in the main, most people in their daily lives don't get stung by bees. And if they do, it's an unpleasant experience that they are then able to recover from. But when we've got an anxiety about a situation, our perspective is all skew wiff, and we don't feel like we're going to be able to survive that incident or we're going to be able to cope with that incident. And we also magnify the chances of that happening. So we are fairly certain that each time we go outside on a sunny day, there's going to be a bee and it's going to sting us. When logically, in reality, what we actually know is a very small number of bee stings happen to people. And there are many, many, many, many more occasions where we do go outside and we don't get stung by a bee than the very few times when we do.
So we underestimate our ability to cope, and we overestimate the likelihood that that scary thing is going to happen. And we also overestimate the consequences. So we tend to catastrophise. We imagine we're gonna get stung by a bee, then we're gonna go into epileptic shock, maybe we're gonna die, maybe we're never gonna recover from that bee sting, Everyone's gonna look at us. It's gonna be really embarrassing. The world's gonna stop turning.
Simon Currigan
To give an adult example as well or, actually, you can see this from the perspective of a student in class being asked to put up their hand and give an answer. Public speaking is a common anxiety that people have. And to look at those categories, you know, we underestimate if you have that anxiety. You might underestimate your ability to cope and do well in a public situation. You might fear people laughing at you and see that in your head as a certainty. People will definitely laugh at you if you stand up and speak in public. Or if they did laugh at you, you know, what are the consequences of that happening? Probably nothing.
You know, if people you did stand up and speak in public and the other adults laughed or the children in the class laughed, then that's it. That's probably done and dusted. It was a 5 second consequence. It's not something that's gonna be with you for the rest of your life and follow you around. So what do people do when they have these anxieties? Well, often, what you'll find is children and adults then get stuck in a vicious cycle of avoidance behaviours. So we have someone with an unhelpful belief.
So we've got this child. Let's stick with the example of a child who's concerned about being stung by a bee. Let's just assume here that they're not gonna go into anaphylactic shock. They just have a fear of bees. So they have this belief that if the bee stings them, if they go outside, a bee's gonna sting them. It's incredibly likely to happen. It's going to lead to a catastrophic medical incident or death or whatever afterwards.
So then they're put in a situation where they might have to go outside. What then happens is, normally, if we're in a dangerous situation, our body starts to amp up for the fight flight freeze response. So your heart might start beating more quickly. You might start breathing more quickly. Your muscles might tense. You might feel hot and so on. Because your body is preparing to respond to a real life, life or death threat.
Well, what's happening here is that's really interesting is you're getting what's called psychosomatic symptoms, which is you are not in that situation. There is not a tiger or a mugger or something dangerous in front of you. You are simply having thoughts about something dangerous. Your brain, again, is predicting into the future about what might happen, and then your brain responds to those thoughts as if they're happening now. And what's really interesting is when someone gets those emotions and physical sensations, that then confirms to them at a biological level that they are right to have that fear about being stung by a bee even though there isn't a bee in sight. So what happens next? They then seek to avoid being in the situation that they're in or they believe they're about to be in.
So they might run indoors and refuse to go out or they might refuse to go out in the first place. And what does that avoidance behaviour do? Again, it confirms that they were right to have that belief. Actually, that avoidance strengthens the belief that they're going to get stung. Those avoidance behaviours increase the strength of the vicious cycle. So each time the child goes around this vicious cycle, it compounds, and it gets stronger and stronger. And often, interestingly, if a child's, let's say, been asked to do something maybe they've been asked to stand up and do a a presentation for their work in class, and they're worried about what the other children think and then they refuse to do it.
And then the teacher might say, well, if you don't do it, the consequence will be x, y, or z. From the child's perspective, the consequence is actually preferable from engaging in the event that's causing their anxiety and putting them in danger. So when we're thinking about using consequences, which is something adults often default to when the child not engaging in a behaviour that they would like them to do or they feel that that they need to do, the child might actually find that preferable from standing up and doing the presentation. And, again, that compounds the vicious cycle.
Emma Shackleton
Yeah. And I and I think just touching on the point that you made about the psychosomatic symptoms, it it's very important that we share with children that those sensations are real in their body. So it's completely normal to feel your heart beating faster. That might make you feel sick. You might start to sweat. You might get a headache. You might get other bodily aches and pains because of that reaction that's going on in your body.
And it has been triggered by a thought and not a real threat, but the feelings feel real. They are real sensations. So often, children will say that they feel sick or they've got a headache or they've got a headache in their tummy sometimes. And it's really helpful as a parent or an educator to help the child to understand that those sensations in their body are real and are painful and are normal. And as you said earlier, because of those avoidant behaviours, the child avoids the difficult situation and doesn't see that whole cycle play out. So if they don't go outside let's go back to the bee. If they avoid going out of the house, that means, of course, they don't get stung by a bee.
That leads them to believe that that avoiding behaviour makes them feel better because when they're inside the house, they're no longer under threat of being stung by a bee. The physical sensations settle down in their body. The sickness feeling goes away. The headache goes away. So it reaffirms to them that they've done the right thing by staying inside. So the avoidant behaviour has worked. And as you said, Simon, it magnifies the threat even further and makes them think, okay.
The threat's real. If I can just stay away from the threat, then I'll be safe. But that impacts on your life and impacts on your enjoyment of life. What we actually need is for the child to be supported, to be able to go outside, experience being outside, maybe even experience being near a bee, and live through it. And that's the way to chip away and start to diminish this thought or this belief that they're gonna get stung by a bee and die.
Simon Currigan
And, of course, that's the approach that CBT or cognitive behaviour therapy has kind of adopted, and CBT is is has often been seen as the answer to supporting people, not just children, but adults as well with anxiety. So it's an approach to helping the person understand and undermine that unhelpful belief through graduated exposure. So for an example with the bee, the child might look at a picture of a bee on a computer for a couple of minutes. That is not putting a bee on them immediately because that that that's a situation that they're gonna find overwhelming, and then they might move from there. They might graduate to watching videos of bees, and then they might go to, I don't know, a zoo where they can look at bees behind glass cases where they're safe. So what CBT does is instead of compounding the vicious cycle with avoidance behaviours, which is what the child is doing now, It puts the child in a situation where they're kind of confronting their fear, but in a very, very, very safe, predictable way to start with, which then instead of compounding the unhelpful belief, it undermines the unhelpful belief. And when they can cope with that situation, then they then move up to the next sort of level of meeting and being exposed to their fear, which might be again looking at a video or go into a zoo and looking at a bee behind a sheet of glass or something.
So the child still feels safe, but the experience is helping undermine the belief. And over time, we go around and around, and we increase the graduated exposure. And it supports with melting away the belief, and then the anxiety goes away or at least and that's why, actually. Most kids and most adults, their anxiety doesn't ever go away. They learn to control their anxiety and learn to control and manage those fears, and that is an important distinction. We call that process of setting up a graduated exposure, whether it's to public speaking or going out in the field or joining in with drama activities in class, we call that process a set of stepping stones, and we give you detailed how to's about how to set those up successfully in a online training, how to support children with anxiety and fear. The thing is with those plans, you do need to set them up in the right way so the student experiences success from day 1.
Those early experiences are super important because we don't want the child to be out of their depth and feel overwhelmed when they come into contact with whatever it is you're putting in front of them. If we started by placing a bee on a student who has a fear of bees, we're probably gonna make their fears even worse. So setting those processes up in the right graduated way is super important. But for those that are interested, we've got the training how to support students with anxiety and fear that's part of our strategy hub membership, and you can find that on our website at beaconschoolsupport.co.uk.
Emma Shackleton
Another technique that can be helpful when you're supporting somebody who is struggling with anxiety is to try to help them to get some perspective and to think logically about the situation. And, of course, that's much easier said than done when someone's feeling anxious, They're running on adrenaline. They're being driven by emotion. But when we can try to coach people into analyzing the situation more logically and realistically, that can help to reduce the anxiety. So we're trying to prompt them to tap into the idea of, am I safe in this moment? You know, what is the real degree of this threat? And there's a mindfulness technique which goes by the acronym RAIN, which is recognize, accept, investigate, and non associate.
So the r is recognizing, and it's just recognizing that you are anxious. So recognizing how your body is responding, picking up that your body is having sensations that are indicating to your brain that you are in an anxious situation, and that's okay. Accepting. The a is for accepting, knowing that you can be anxious and that the anxiety can lessen and subside and that you will be okay. Investigating, So really thinking about where do you feel that sensation in your body. So what does anxiety feel like for you? Is it a knot in your stomach?
Is it a pounding headache? Just be aware of where your body is indicating that anxiety. And then non associate. So the n is for non associate. And that's a method of separating yourself from the anxiety. So you are not the anxiety. The anxiety is something that you are experiencing, and this experience will pass.
And to help with that is breathing. And breathing is the technique that will help to reduce anxiety, and there are all sorts of mindfulness techniques.
If you look on YouTube, there's mindfulness for kids. There's lots and lots of different strategies. And if you can help to teach people when they are calm, some mindfulness techniques that if they deploy the RAIN system, they'll start to recognize when their body is signalling to them that they are anxious, and then they'll know that that's the right time to deploy the mindfulness technique. And mindfulness is all about bringing your thoughts and bringing yourself into this moment instead of projecting future events that might not even happen into the now.
Simon Currigan
So that's why kids get caught in negative spirals that are hard to escape from. They have an unhelpful belief, a worry that's gotten out of control. They have a scary thing that they seek to avoid. And when you get those avoidance behaviours instead of undermining the belief, actually, what it does is it compounds that belief. Then the stronger that unhelpful belief is, the more likely the child is to experience anxiety and try to avoid being in front of the bee or doing the public speaking or whatever it is.
Emma Shackleton
That's right. So we need to help them to question those beliefs and undermine them. We need to pop the balloon and deflate those beliefs, and that's often in the form of graduated exposure to the scary thing.
Simon Currigan
Being able to do that means you need to be in a calm or logical state. So using mindfulness techniques can be because it takes you away from that feared future event and brings you into the now, and it often calms and downregulates your emotions in the moment.
Emma Shackleton
And don't forget what Simon said at the very top of this podcast. If your pupil or your child is experiencing very high levels of anxiety, obviously, make sure sure you do seek professional medical help.
Simon Currigan
Hope you found that useful today. If you have, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the world. Share it with your colleagues and who might find the information useful. Open up your podcast app, and you can tap on the share button, and you can send a direct link to this episode using whatever messaging platform you like, whether that's WhatsApp or messages, or you can even drop it into your social media feed so other people can see it. When you think about how you found out about the show, it was probably by someone sharing it for you.
Emma Shackleton
And that's all we've got time for today. We hope you've enjoyed today's episode of School Behaviour Secrets, and we'll see you next time.
Simon Currigan
Bye.
Emma Shackleton
Bye for now.
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
