Anxiety: Adopt a Solution Focus Based on What Works!

boy and girl throwing and catching a ball to illustrate a solution focus approach to anxiety

Ever experienced someone trying to give you a solution when all you wanted was to be heard?? It’s awful, isn’t it! Doesn’t help at all. So why am I proposing to talk here about adopting a solution focus to an anxiety issue your child has?

Two reasons!

1 Anxiety is, as I’ve often mentioned, future-focused. Always about something that may be going to happen or go wrong or be found difficult etc.

Finding a way through the problem before it’s supposedly going to happen therefore makes sense. Although it’s not us who will find the solution!

2 Your child always (yes, always!) has something they do well, manage successfully or love doing. Harnessing those skills to the anxiety problem in hand therefore makes sense. But it’s them who will find the solution!

See how it works? They have skills they use regularly. So let’s help them recognise and use (or adapt) those skills to tackle their problem confidently and successfully. 

We’ll look at that in a moment. But first, how not to do the work for them!

What role can you play as parent taking a solution focus – without taking over?

I think we all know that listening carefully with empathy – and not judging – is the best basis for discussion with your child whatever their age. However, what we can add in here are some questions to help them think things through when they get to that stage.

What might we ask?

  • What would you like more of in your life?
  • What’s the anxious feeling (or anxiety level) like right now? (Use a scale of 1-10 where 10 is high anxiety.)
  • If you woke up one morning and a miracle had happened (or someone had waved a magic wand), how would you know the magic had happened? 

Let’s look at them and see how they relate to a solution focus while still letting your child take control and manage the anxiety, even recover from it.

You'll have noticed there’s a plan or plot here!

  • find out the goal they would prefer (try to help them think beyond sweets and videos!), 
  • track progress, and 
  • look for evidence of success.

None of this is replacing listening and responding with empathy. It’s like part two of the conversation process.

  • Help your child regain some calm,
  • hear them out,
  • continue the discussion in terms relevant to them and
  • gently help them towards a solution they choose and can relate to.

In effect, you’re helping your child think up solutions rather than focusing solely on the problem.

Why is it important to help your child imagine a good result?

The brain is amazing! Whatever we feed it, it tends to act on. After all, that’s quite often how the anxiety got there in the first place – the brain acting on negative, catastrophising thoughts. 

Just imagine how potent it is to help your child invent a new scenario where the problem doesn’t exist any more or has improved enough to be OK. The brain gets to work on it straight away!

That's why I always think it’s helpful to get answers to how things would look, what life would be like, what they’d be doing etc when it’s all good again. Sometimes it's not even what we imagined they would say. All information is good.

Let’s listen in!

“I’d be able to have friends round because my homework would be finished. I’d be happier because my teacher would praise me for reading better. You’d be proud of me for getting good marks. I’d be spending Sunday afternoon getting everything done, so we could play a family game or watch a film in the evening. You wouldn't be nagging me!”

Isn’t that a recipe to aim for? Note it's all positive: try not to let "don't" and "won't" into the ideas. Help your child flip them to positive.

The anxiety in this sort of scenario stems from several things: maybe the teacher being cross (again!); wondering if they’ll lose friends because they can’t reciprocate and therefore miss out on play dates; worry about your reaction to low marks when you know they “can” do better; always expecting nagging from you and the consequences!

This, then is their goal. How they’d like life to look, what they’d like more of in life.

And the evidence of the magic wand having worked?

This is similar to discovering the goal and forms part of that discussion – but it’s more detailed and can happen in dribs and drabs along the way as their score mounts up when doing the scaling question (see below).

  • "I'll see I got an A grade!"
  • "I'll have finished my homework straight after tea so my friends can come and play."
  • "Mum won't have nagged me at bedtime!"

It also helps seal success when they actually see these things coming true. They see their efforts have worked – and grow in self-esteem and resilience.

Why scale the anxious feelings?

Some people keep spreadsheets (I’m definitely not one of them!) and others simply like evidence in some form or other.

However, most children get on well with scaling from 1–10. They may find it hard to be exact with the numbers – but it doesn’t matter. They always choose one.

What matters is the numbers going up or down, and they see what’s happening. Much better than relying on passing feelings and moods. So don’t ask too often – maybe once a week according to what’s appropriate – and get your child to record it.

So where do your child's skills come into it when you're helping with a solution focus?

They need an "engine" to get from where they are now to where they want to be. Their current skills are the engine. The skills and abilities (what they're doing right) just need harnessing!

This is where you play detective on the quiet and notice what your child is doing just fine in another area. You can then use the information to help guide a conversation. (Clearly you adjust this conversation carefully to the age and verbal ability of your child!) 

What are they good at that will help? (“Let’s make a list of what you’re good at and see if any of those things will help you here!”)

What are they managing – and how? (“Wow! How do you manage to do that so well?”)

When have they managed a possibly anxiety-making situation – and what did they do, when others might stay anxious? (“What did you do or say to yourself that was so helpful?”)

Be sure to validate

  • what your child tells you worked, or
  • their thought that resulted in success, or
  • they say they’re good at. 

The challenge then is to help your child use some of this information to help them manage the anxiety-producing situation they’re faced with.

An example

I once worked with a child who found it hard to organise everything to take to school. Even when Mum helped, they still mislaid stuff, left things behind, forgot what would happen on a particular day  – and ended up in trouble.

Morning routine became an anxious time as they felt incompetent and a nuisance and a failure and all the rest! They rated it 3 out of 10 most days.

We talked about what life would be like when this was all sorted out. And how they'd know a magic wand had been waved over the whole morning routine.

"The teacher and Mum wouldn't get mad at me because I'd have everything in my bag!"

The routine they described sounded to me just like something else they did correctly that I already knew about from Mum. I asked how they managed it.

"So how come you manage to get everything gathered up and right for your riding lesson each weekend?" I asked innocently!

"Oh, I have a list in my head. I can sort of see or imagine the whole afternoon like in the cinema. I picture what I need in the car, what I need in the stables and then on the horse when riding."

We discussed how neat an idea that was, how skilful to envision the things needed in different places. We wondered together if they could try using that undoubted skill to manage the morning routine: thinking of PE, lunchtime, reading time, and anything else that would be needed at any point during the day. Visually.

They had a skill they could use in a different scenario. It took a week of practice (lots of different days to imagine!) but the score went up to 8 after that week. That was a good-enough improvement for everyone involved.

Interested in the positive ideas here?

This is not traditional solution-focused therapy (SFT) but does use some of the ideas. However, if you feel like trying SFT out in your own life, there’s a very reasonably priced course available here that you might like to investigate. (Note, I"m not paid for any links or purchases!)

However, the evidence I've gathered from therapy-room experience is that children want to be back to “normal” and enjoying life fully. They like a positive approach, like SFT. So the ideas are adapted, yes, but it's still useful because focusing on a solution in this way helps them feel they’re moving towards that goal instead of wallowing with no hope. 

Give it a go?

TAKEAWAY>>>>>

Find Solutions:

  • Help your child with anxiety find ways to feel better.
  • Use their strengths to handle the problem.

What to Do:

  • Listen and ask questions to understand their feelings.
  • Let them think of ways to solve the problem.

Imagine Good Things:

  • Imagine good outcomes without the anxiety.
  • Use numbers to see if things are getting better.
  • Use their skills to make things improve.

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