Even little ones need help coping with anxiety; worrying is part of life as an adult, and children can struggle to cope with the stresses and strains that their life throws at them. Something that appears to be a little worry to you, can be a very big thing for a three or four year old.
Worry Trees have been used by psychologists to help with fears for a number of years, and they can be a valuable tool in helping kids coping with anxiety they have. I have used them myself with my daughter, who is, just like me, prone to the odd anxious moment.
We have made some free resources for you to help you to talk to your children about their worries, and banish them to the branches of an apple worry tree!
It is a very simple idea:
- Get your child to cut out the tree and the apples to pop on the tree. You can laminate them if you like to keep them safe, but you don’t have to
- Talk to your child about what is worrying them, and if they are old enough get them to write down their fears on one of the apples
- Stick blue tac on the back of the apple so that they can be fitted on to the tree
- Stick the apple to the tree; now it has been talked about, and passed into the safe branches of the tree, your child can be encouraged that there is no need to worry anyway. You have chatted, and solved that worry
- If your child has any other worries, write them down on other apples and pop them on the tree
- For older children, they may not want to talk to you about the worry, but prefer to write it down and pop it on the tree themselves, and talk about it when they are ready. Remember it is their worry, and letting them write it down and place it on the tree is giving them an element of control back about that worry, which is all part of coping with anxiety. Anything that can help us feel like we are in control again is a big help.
We have also provided you with an outline of the worry tree so your child can colour it in themselves. We hope you like these. We definitely do!
We have also posted a video on our YouTube channel about this, to help give you further guidance in how to use it. Do nip on over and take a look at the channel – we are going to publish a printable every week on here and there!
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine! Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania. Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on. Get in touch TODAY!
Jo
Wednesday 17th of May 2017
I work with children age 4-11 in school helping them cope with feelings and emotions. This tree would be fabulous
Phillius Thomas
Monday 12th of October 2015
This tree seems so cute, I hope that it is able to help out a lot of children. It probably would have helped me, I was a very anxious and fearful child. Any creak of the house was a monster, or the house about to collapse. I should talk to my children too, see if either of them need/want the tree.