Engage with your child – strategies to help

It can be difficult to engage verbally with a child who barely takes part in conversation! 

Your child may be the sort who usually says, “Nothing,” when you ask about school. Or “I dunno” in answer to any query. 

The good news is you can sneak into their lives by just listening. Not any old listening, but careful, tentative listening.

The bad news is we have to ignore our mobiles, stop peeling carrots and definitely not start walking out of the room intent on going to do something else.

And the very best listening amounts to looking straight at your child, hopefully on a level with their face, and saying nothing.

Well, OK, listening is obviously not saying anything… except a strategic ooh, ahah, I see, go on – that sort of encouraging attentiveness that your child sees as real listening.

The thing is, as adults, socially, we do a lot of

• interrupting
• giving our parallel stories back
• finishing sentences for the other person
• telling them what they could do to sort things out.

So, to really allow our children to tell us something, we have to

• let them say everything they want – which might mean staying silent while they get their heads around the next sentence they want to add
• refrain from offering our own version – it’s friendly and sociable but doesn’t let the child talk about their anxious moments
• sit on any immediate advice – sometimes it’s better to help them think of a solution. Later. Depends what they’re explaining.

So if you’re face to face, giving full attention and making nods and signs that you’re listening, there are two other things you can do to help your child be willing to engage with you and tell you difficult things:

1 Show empathy with their situation. “That does sound scary” or “I’m not surprised you wanted to run out of the room.” 

This isn’t necessarily agreeing. This is understanding. Showing you see it from their point of view. And without judgement. If you say, "That's nothing to worry about," you've made them feel guilty about worrying, as well as worrying!

2 Use a phrase like “Tell me about that?” or “I wonder what happened next” to encourage further sharing.

In this way, you've engaged with your child in a way they can deal with, without them feeling they’ll be shamed or in trouble for what happened.

The main thing is to use listening as a gift to your child – the sort of present you can’t put a price on.

Tone of voice is amazing! Have you ever thought how many different ways you can say to your child: “That’s interesting”?

We often say it when a child tells us something they've done. How does it come over? 

Try saying it to yourself three ways and hear how it will sound to them:

1 off-hand (back to cooking, paperwork, mobile)

2 emphasise the first word: “That’s interesting!” (you’re going to take over and add your own thing)

3 curious (you keep eye contact and wait).

The good thing is, you can turn the tables on them and listen for their tone of voice! It tells you a lot.

Children always say, "I don't know" when you ask them something – but listen how they say it and be a detective:

1 I dunno (distracted, not interested, bored) – try asking later when they’re more involved with you.

2 I - don't - know (punched out: you've asked this too many times, stop bothering me!).

3 I don't know (I wish I did, I could use some help to work things out) – acknowledge the frustration/anger before leaping in with help, though.

4 I don’t know (flat voice, I do know but I don't want to talk about it). Try saying: “If you did know, take a guess at how bad it would be, out of 10?” It may not work (you may get same answer) but they’ll know they’ve been heard and understood).

And the point of all this is?? You can use changes of tone of voice (yours and your child’s) as a means of engaging with them.

Everything turns on data these days. And if you have an anxious child, you’re going to need to start data gathering.

In fact, if you’re on this site, you probably already have reams of data that tell you something’s worrying them.

That’s fine. But there’s another way to gather information – and that’s to play board games.

Most families will throw themselves into the game, and be proud to announce that the children are, eg, “ruthless when they play, they just have to win”.

Well that’s data! Why do they have to win? Can they be pleased when someone else wins? And say, "well done"? 

And if they cheat to win, that’s information too. How so? They fear failure. They feel their self-esteem will be badly affected, instead of it being just a game.

If they suggest different rules mid-way through the game (“Let’s decide you can jump over someone’s piece three times”), well it may just be creativity. But children of six to 12 love rule-based games. And that’s just it. Following the rules. Not changing them.

Perhaps they find the rules too hard for their level of coping? Does the game feel unfair to them? Weighted against them? That’s OK, but it’s still telling you something important. You don’t want to be adding to their anxiety. Play an easier game for a while.

How about the child who wants to go on and on playing, round and round the board. What data are you gathering here?

Perhaps they're so happy having your company that they can’t bear it to stop. (Give them more, when you can.)

Maybe it pushes other worries from their mind. Offers relief from anxiety. Perhaps it’s merely to push back bedtime. 

A child may want to play the same game over and over again. Are they stuck in their comfort zone? Afraid to try a new game? Too timid to experiment?

All I’m saying is, take note! Board games are a wonderful way to engage with your child and learn something about them.

I had a supervisee who asked me what she could do to persuade her little client to stop playing Ludo every week. I said, “You don’t. You observe and learn, and do the therapy through the Ludo game.”

You’re not doing therapy, but don’t miss out on the data gathering!

REPOH is an action ritual that engages not only your child but the whole family. It’s fun and it underlines how much everyone needs to practise something before they find it easy and fun. That includes working through anxieties and fears. But also includes Maths homework, piano practice, art, and any other skill your child needs to learn.

The chart below explains the actions.

Do the actions while saying the words. Make exaggerated differences of voice or tone to make it more fun.

Children can mostly remember the routine better than adults, which boosts their confidence. Play up to this!

It’s not a quick fix but a tactic to use all along in the family when anything needs practice before you get good at it. 

When you're trying to help your anxious child, there will be many occasions when you need to say to them that they'll be able to get through their fears and worries with practice. Keep doing REPOH to reinforce the idea.

Try starting a family club if your children are still quite young (say, three or four) and there’s no chance of them finding it anything but fun. 

What will your club be about? Consult the children! A park club? A mystery outing club? A picture book club? It doesn’t matter.

Tell them you want to start a family club that does extra special things together that you all want to do.

Isn’t this what families plan anyway?

Well, yes, but in this case, there is equal involvement from the children or child in the planning, plus you’re engaging with them and providing a time when you’re all relating to each other with no stress or anxiety.

If you can wangle into the club's aims (you all have a chance to suggest ideas!) something that you know will stretch you all and increase general resilience, that’s a bonus.

So – make it about being equal, having fun together and having a purpose. You could all decide to write down on a club document what the club is for. 

That could be, for example, for reading, or playing in the woods, or going on picnics, or learning sign language. What about learning about wild flowers? Or birds?

It’s good to have several items on the agenda.

It will be whatever you all suggest and agree. Perhaps an arty family activity at each meeting?

Maybe give the club a name and and agree when it will meet. This is an excellent idea for holiday times. Say, a two-week or six-week club. Involve grandparents if they’re childminding at times.

Engage with your children in this way and the relationship is deepened for when you need to talk with them about anxieties and problems. Start early enough and none of it will seem weird or uncool.

Have you got into the habit of solving everyone’s problems for them? I know it saves oodles of time. Your child moans or complains or asks for help, or asks you to finish something for them.

And there you go – you give the answer and you’ve become the solution expert.

The challenge here is to pick a week (or name some days) and for that week or on those days, you will not be providing answers.

Anyone has a problem? They have to try and solve it themselves first. Unless it’s an emergency of course.

Tell your child this is the plan for the week or specific days. Make a joke of it. Be funny, be caring, be alert, but don’t immediately provide a solution.

How is this engaging with your child? 

Well, it takes a great deal of practice to pull back from being the solution person. But it can, and should, be done as they grow up.

So instead, you’re altering how you engage with them: 

• “I wonder where you could find that out?” 
• “I’m not sure – what do you think?”
• “What have you tried so far?”
• “Gosh, I’m not sure. Let’s have a think together.”

You’re still talking to them and giving them your attention. But you’re not spoon-feeding them. You’re building resilience so they start to manage their own problems as they get older.

Resilience is a great barrier to stop anxiety taking over the mind of anyone, children included.

“Holding you child in mind” means you have their needs and interests in your mind even when they’re somewhere else and think you're not thinking about them.

Making links with them is a way of demonstrating this “holding in mind”, so they know you care.

What are examples of links?

1 One sort of link engages with them “in advance” of need – you might offer something your child needs before they get round to asking for it:

• You might offer them a cuddle before they come running – if you’ve seen they need one.
• You might go over and offer to help them manage something they’re struggling with before they beg you to.

2 Another type of link you can make is to seek out their company on a regular basis for the sake of it, not just when you need something doing, like a chore. Or when you have to be with them for meals or bedtime etc.

You're demonstrating that you like their company, rather than happily running off to get some peaceful time of your own.

3 A third way of engaging your child in this way is to link something they say to you to something else they’ve said previously.

Maybe they've talked about an event at school and now they’re telling you something else that happened in class. Make some kind of link to the other occasion when you reply.

This will prove you have a linear recall of what they tell you and that you bother to remember what they say. 

If they tell you who scored the goals at the junior match on Saturday, maybe link to the score last week, or ask how so-and-so did (who they also mentioned last week) etc.

If you engage with your child by making links in all these ways, you are weaving a net under their developmental journey that will repay a hundredfold later.

To engage with your anxious child, you may find it’s useful to have a list of degrees of anxiety. I could give you a ready-made one. 

But the best way to tackle this is to write this list of words on separate pieces of paper and allow your child to make their own decision about which order they go in, from least anxious to most anxious (there is no right or wrong order). It’s what they think – which is therefore what’s going to be most useful to you in discussions.

I suggest using seven sheets of printer paper torn in half. That’s A5 size. 

This is large enough to write on in felt marker. Plus large enough to spread out down the floor like a ladder.

It’s then easy to see what your child’s thinking and how they’re arranging them and altering them until they’re happy with the list.

And somehow, working large makes it all more manageable. It’s verbalised, it’s out there and it’s visible to both of you. Plus it can be changed at any time.

These are the words I suggest, in no particular order:

PHOBIA, FEAR, SCARE, ANXIETY, WORRY, TERROR, DREAD, ALARM, FRIGHT, PANIC, DISTRESS, HORROR, CONCERN, UNEASE

If you already know one of your child’s anxieties, try asking where on their scale that particular worry lies. Then maybe: “Why do you think it’s there and not one below or one above?”

Use it any way you find helpful. It’s just something I’ve found useful with children I’ve worked with.

I say “special” because this is different from normal play and the aim is to engage your child in an empowered way.

An example will make it clear. 

Suppose your child hauls a blanket across the floor and says: ‘Can we play with this?’

You might say: "Wow, shall we make a den and pretend to be wild animals?", which would be adult-led play. 

Or: "Let’s see how many different things we can use the blanket for!" – which has an educational intent. 

Both are perfectly valid and your child will benefit from your involvement.

But what’s happened is that you’ve moved your child away from the rug itself and the germ of their own idea. That would certainly have been what they needed to do, consciously or unconsciously. They probably had something already in their head.

Perhaps a need to feel small again and wrap themselves up tightly. Or to screen off a space in which to sit privately with you because there were too many visitors recently. This idea will be lost if they jump at yours. (They will always think yours is better!)

So you could have said that it was fine to use the blanket and that you’d watch or help if they wanted you to. That way, you’d have found out how life felt for them, and they would have done what they needed to do emotionally. 

Ideally you’d have 20-30 minutes with your child, playing in this way, on a regular basis. But hey, even 10 minutes when they ask will be a wonderful way to engage with them and observe just what they’re thinking and/or worrying about. 

I've added a whole post on this sort of playing, so this is just the bare bones of a worthwhile activity to consider using with your child when you need to understand what's going on for them and give them a chance to show you. 

“Hobbies”, as a word, has slipped out of fashion a little, hasn’t it? Children do them but we don’t name them. 

Perhaps it’s because spending time on apps has become the new “hobby” – so your child is “into” Minecraft or Fortnite or Lego Mindstorms. No one says it’s their hobby!

So here, I was thinking more on the lines of passions your child might get into that don’t involve electronic devices. 

They say someone’s “on their hobby horse”, as a dig at them talking passionately about something they’re interested in.

Well, engaging with your child in a joint hobby is a fantastic way of sharing thoughts and ideas, and building resilience. They get good at something and feel good about themselves.

This is obviously a bonus for counteracting negative thoughts. You need to feel positive about yourself to take on and try out a more positive thought.

And the greatest benefit is that they have a set of skills and ideas from the hobby that you can help them to use as metaphors when working with them on an anxiety issue.

Example? 

Football teams: you train to think positively, plan a series of actions, move towards a goal, assess possible problems (like the other team being better!) – that sort of thing.

Dance class: you learn a move, know you’ll have to practise it endlessly, checking in a mirror as you go to make sure you’ve got it right, work out how to improve and work with others for a show, ask questions if you’re unsure how something has to be done.

Keeping rabbits: you’re willing to learn how to house them, feed them, keep them healthy – you don’t expect to know. You learn bit by bit and persevere till you’re happy with how they’re doing.

Can you see how all these skills and strategies can be used as examples when you’re engaging with your child to help them solve a particular anxiety problem they have.

A link to something they understand about is worth a thousand words. Maybe use some of the facts in sketches when working out solutions to a problem.

“You know how you work out a plan to score a goal? I suppose if it doesn’t work very well, your trainer will help you all change the plan a bit. But you’re all agreed that scoring a goal is what matters most! That’s why we’re going to write down here what you want to feel like when you have to take a test in class. That’s the goal! Let’s see if we can work out a plan together.”

This works for any hobby and is reassuring, because your child knows their hobby stuff and can make the mental and emotional links.

Just a reminder here, because I know many parents do this already. (When we’re not tired and stressed!)

The easiest way to engage with your child and keep them on board, is to acknowledge their feelings when they tell you. It’s part of good listening.

You don’t have to agree, just accept. 

You can ask them what they think caused it. That’s not the same as telling them they shouldn’t feel that way. 

Maybe commiserate (show empathy): “I think I’d have felt that way if that had happened to me.”

Ask them what they’d rather feel about the situation.

So, I’m not actually suggesting you totally keep quiet. I’m reminding us all that it’s good not to counteract that feeling your child has admitted to. It doesn’t help anyone (because the feeling will get worse if refused, and you will still have a sad/angry/sulky/crying child to deal with) – whereas allowing it, maybe encouraging more to be said about it, will keep your child engaged and assured of your support.

Maybe that’s all they needed anyway?

Don’t we all feel better if someone hears us out when we’re fed up about something?

If you want to see a super little animated snippet about the difference between empathy and sympathy, by Brene Brown, have a look here.

Family rituals are great for bringing a sense of togetherness. A ritual could become a routine, but not all routines are rituals. The difference is that routine is boring as well as reassuring!

A ritual is something exciting, something to look forward to, to enjoy and revel in.

This could be as simple as Friday supper when everyone must contribute a joke (they’ll love finding one ready to share).

Or more elaborate: like on a Saturday, you all watch a much-loved film while having a special home-made drink that doesn’t happen at other times, and perhaps all bringing the duvets down to cuddle up in.

How about when you go for a walk, everybody takes a close-up photo of something interesting. You can lend mobiles to younger children when they’ve found what they want to photo. Then print them out at home on one sheet, and hang them up for that week to look at as a reminder.

You’ll think of better things yourself. You know your family.

But the ritual will be your family’s ritual. What you do. Something everyone looks forward to. Maybe there’s a special cake every weekend made by your child or children. You cut it up, and hand it out – but the person receiving their slice will say something they’re grateful for that day (not the cake!).

The thing is that rituals are looked forward to and they happen regularly. “An often repeated series of actions,” according to Chambers dictionary.

Which reminds me, your ritual could be that you all learn a new word once a week and use it as often as possible! 

It’s okay telling your child to relax, or even telling yourself or anyone else to relax.

But let’s find out which way you relax best. Everyone’s different.

And obviously you might find that a stroll, doing a jigsaw or cooking suits you better than any of these.

But for now, here are four choices, because this starts the discussion and engages the family in working on it.

Anxiety cuts off the thinking brain, so knowing how to instantly relax is a good way to bring the brain back online to start sorting out difficult situations. It’s never “wasted time”.

The pdf of this diagram is available as a 1MB download here. 

You can also draw out your own and duplicate it for each member of your family. 

If you don’t have a printer, just read these instructions on your phone, organise the things you’ll need and then orchestrate everyone to do it and jot down their own scores.

You’ll need to:

• make sure everyone knows how to lie down and breath with their tummy/belly (see here, if unsure)
• choose some soothing classical music such as Mozart or Beethoven. (You can probably use Spotify free version to look up something that lasts 3 minutes). Pop music is too bumpy for this really – it makes you want to move or jig! Plus you want something most of your family isn’t too familiar with and can just hear while visualising anything it brings to mind.
• gather a few books appropriate to whatever ages are in your family. A selection of picture books for a young member, their own choice of reading book for anyone who reads fluently.
• paper to draw on, and pens and pencils – if you have a printer and some mandala designs, that’s fine but not important
• a timer that makes an audible noise when time’s up.

Let people take turns to set the timer and stop when it rings. Score your score and move on to the next item.

Have a discussion afterwards to see what everyone thinks their best method of relaxing is.