Recently, almost every member of my family got hit with a gnarly stomach bug. It started with my 2-year-old, who picked it up from camp, and quickly spread to me and 2 of my other kids. Our oldest son was so scared to get it, that he avoided everyone in the house. He refused to leave his room and washed his hands religiously for days out of fear of getting the bug. 

Five days had passed since we were all sick and he still was fine. He went to his first week of summer camp. He must have come in contact with another sick person, because by 3 pm on Friday, he officially had the stomach bug. 

I’ll spare you the details, but he was sick for the rest of the night and had a fever the entire next day. However, in the middle of the thick of it, he looked at me and said “Well, at least I’m immune from the stomach bug for a while now!” 

I loved that he was able to see the silver lining, despite feeling terrible. And, I realized that for him, the fear of getting sick was actually more uncomfortable than the sickness itself. He was just happy because getting sick meant he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

For a lot of our kids, and frankly a lot of us too, the feeling of anticipatory anxiety about a negative outcome is worse than the thing we’re worrying about. I would have never told my son to intentionally get sick or not wash his hands. But realistically, he could have enjoyed himself quite a bit more had he not been worrying so much about the potential to get the stomach bug. 

This incident got me thinking about some of the ways we can support our kids in these times when the anxiety spiral gets the best of them. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Sometimes it can help our kids if we have them actually play out some of their worst-case scenarios – that is, when the thing they’re worrying about is a manageable fear. “What is the absolute worst thing that could happen?” “How would you manage that situation if it did happen?” Talking through those hypotheticals may actually help your child to see that the real-life possibilities aren’t as scary as the thoughts they’re having, and that they are capable of dealing, even with uncomfortable outcomes.
2. Thinking back to a time when something similar happened, and seeing through to the end result can remind your child that they have managed something similar before. Next time my son is worried about getting a stomach virus, we’ll think back to this one, and remember how he said he didn’t feel too badly after a few hours, about how the fever just made him a bit more sleepy and relaxed, and about how he managed despite being uncomfortable. This tough moment can help him better manage his anxiety in the future. 
3. I like the phrase “here’s what we know.” Often, anxieties like my son’s fear of the stomach bug actually stem from the uncertainty and unpredictability of the situation. When I tell my son, “here’s what we know” and “here’s what we don’t know yet,” we can pin down the parts of the scenario that feel a bit scary or unpredictable, and we can plan for the unknown variables. There may still be some anxiety left after this activity, but it can help remove the spiral effect that anxiety often has.

Will these tricks immediately remove anxious feelings from your kid's body? Absolutely not. But, they can help to turn an experience with anxiety into a teaching and learning moment that better equips everyone for future anxious feelings. Remember: we don’t necessarily want to take anxious feelings away for our kids; instead, we want to give our kids the skills they need to be able to exist and persevere through those tougher moments, so that they feel capable of managing any feeling that may come their way.