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Coronavirus Disease 2019
Calming Your Child During the COVID-19 Crisis
Nothing you can do to calm your child is as effective as being calm yourself.
Posted April 3, 2020
Do you remember the advice about using an oxygen mask when flying with your child? The oxygen masks drop down automatically if there is a problem with the pressurization system, the system that pumps air into the cabin to make sure you have plenty of air to breathe. If the masks drop down, you are told to put on your oxygen mask first and then put your child’s oxygen mask on. You take care of your need for oxygen first so that you can take care of your child's needs. The same is true now during the coronavirus crisis. Nothing you can do to calm your child is as effective as being calm yourself.
I had a client who was born in Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution. When she was a few months old, her parents believed they had been identified as members of the underground. For weeks, they expected to be arrested at any moment. Finally, they were able to flee the country in a truck under a pile of potatoes.
As an adult, this client was unable to fly due to anxiety and panic. Fortunately, by linking the challenging moments of flight to memories of being with her parents when they were safe here in Connecticut, she became able to fly comfortably.
Some of my fear of flying clients had parents who were too anxious to provide the emotional security they needed to learn to regulate anxiety on their own. That was not the case here. My client has a sister who was born in the U.S. two years later. The sister had no anxiety issues at all. This makes it clear that their mother had the ability to provide emotional security. For obvious reasons, she did not feel secure enough when expecting to be imprisoned to help her child feel secure.
Again, this is an extreme case, but it makes the point: it's not just a matter of keeping your child calm during this crisis. It is also a matter of whether your child will be able to regulate anxiety years from now as an adult. Early childhood is the time when children build in—or fail to build in—the mental software that activates the calming part of the brain, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). So go back to the idea that you need to put on your oxygen mask if there’s a pressurization problem before you put your child’s mask on. You need to be calm yourself so your child can also be calm.
Researcher Stephen Porges discovered that when we are with other people we pick up signals that, if benign, activate the calming system. The signals are transmitted by their face, the voice quality, and the touch or body-language. If the person is safe to be with—both physically and emotionally—the signals that come across unconsciously activate your calming system. As a parent, this is what you need for yourself. You need good calming for yourself so your child can feel calm. Tips and techniques don't do it. Being calm yourself does.
Good PNS Programming
When stress hormones are released, they grab our attention. Something unexpected is happening. We feel alarmed. And we should. What is going on may be a serious threat. We need alarm to get our attention so we can determine the cause of the alarm, and decide what—if anything—needs to be done about it. After a moment of alarm, if we have good PNS programming, the PNS kicks in and calms us automatically. Automatic calming is essential because clear thinking is needed to deal with the situation if it is an emergency. To think clearly, we need to be cool, calm, and collected, even if a life-threatening situation. In fact, especially in a life-threatening situation. Nowhere else is clear thinking as important.
Not So Good PNS Programming
When stress hormones are released, if our PNS doesn't kick in, we stay alarmed. With nothing to override the effects of the stress hormones, a state of emotional emergency persists. The feelings of distress continue until the stress hormones burn off.
The Solution
It's really very simple. It involves providing you with the mental software that activates the PNS. We identify a situation in the past that naturally activated your PNS. When the memory is vividly recalled, the memory activates the PNS. What we do next is as simple as what Pavlov did with his dogs: we set up a conditioned response. Through repetition of a linking exercise, we link the feeling of being stressed to the memory that activates the parasympathetic nervous system.
What Memories Activate The PNS?
Neurological researcher Stephen Porges discovered that when we are with other people, if they are no threat in any way, they unconsciously transmit signals from their face, voice quality, and body-language/touch that activate our calming PNS.
When activated, the PNS stimulates the vagus nerve. What Porges calls "vagal braking" takes place. Vagal braking overrides the stress hormones, slows the heart rate, slows the breathing rate, and relaxes the gut.
Once a person has trained their mind to automatically activate the PNS, vagal braking begins as soon as they feel alarmed. They may calm down so quickly that they aren’t even aware there was a moment when they felt alarmed.
A person can learn to use vagal breaking by reading Panic Free: The 10-Day Program to End Panic, Anxiety, and Claustrophobia and training the mind to activate the parasympathetic nervous system by following step-by-step instructions.
Below is one of the exercises in the book. Use it immediately when you feel stress. The ideal person to link stress to is a person with whom you felt your guard let down. Feeling your guard let down indicates maximum vagal breaking. If you don't recall someone you felt that with, pick a friend who is easy-going. You need an emotionally safe friend who doesn't judge or criticize you. The signals that you are completely safe are transmitted by the person’s face, their voice, and their touch. I want you to imagine buttons you can press to calm yourself. The excerpt from the book follows:
The Three-Button Exercise
Imagine your friend has pasted a sticker on their forehead bearing a picture of a button with the number 1 on it. Another sticker, showing button number 2, is pasted on their chin. A third sticker, with button number 3, is pasted on the back of their hand.
Now imagine feeling alarmed. Imagine putting your finger on the button 1 sticker on their forehead and then releasing it. Their face comes clearly to mind. You see the softness in their eyes. It feels good.
Imagine putting your finger on the button 2 sticker. As you release it, the person’s lips begin to move, and you hear them greet you in a special way. You may notice that the quality of their voice calms you deep inside.
Imagine touching the button 3 sticker on the back of their hand. When you release the button, the person lifts their hand and gives you a reassuring touch or a hug—whatever gesture is appropriate in your relationship with this person. You may notice calming stillness rest on you.
You can activate vagal braking by pressing the buttons any time you wish. But we want to set up calming that works automatically. To establish automatic attenuation, intentionally remember feeling alarmed, and then press button 1. Remember the feeling again; press button 2. Bring the feeling to mind again; press button 3.
Repeated use of this exercise can teach the PNS to automatically kick in when calming is needed.
How well does it work? I just posted a video on YouTube in which clients talk about how this method has controlled their anxiety during this crisis.
