Raising Worry-Free Girls: Helping Your Daughter Feel Braver, Stronger, and Smarter in an Anxious World

Another common grounding exercise is 5-4-3-2-1, where you focus on five things you see, four things you feel, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you taste in the present. It helps even more to say those things out loud, if possible, as the sound of your voice also has an added grounding effect.

When girls describe panic attacks to me, they talk about feeling like they’re floating outside of their bodies. In fact, dissociation can be a symptom of anxiety and has been compared to watching oneself in a movie. Grounding techniques are helpful because they really are just what they sound like. They bring your daughter out of her anxiety and ri

“A meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins in 2013 found that meditation was linked to significantly reduced anxiety (and depression and insomnia).”

Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress.” They go on to say that research has shown it to help with stress, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and physical issues such as hypertension.

The Mayo Clinic defines mindfulness as “a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment.

Anxiety is a lot like a bully. We used to be told that ignoring a bully eventually makes him go away. It doesn’t. He only feels more power in the silence. The only way to get rid of a bully is to confront him. Once your daughter learns to turn and face the bully of anxiety, he’ll come back less and less often, with less and less power every time.

The more reassurance we give, the more reassurance they believe they need. It’s never enough, because it’s us rather than them doing the work. It becomes a bit of an If You Give a Mouse a Cookie kind of phenomenon, where one thing leads to another. We try to use logic. And when she doesn’t respond, we try to soothe. Soothing can be helpful, to a po

To give children the certainty and comfort they’re seeking requires that we rescue them from scary situations. And every time we rescue, we perpetuate the belief that they need to be rescued. It also makes them more demanding the next time.

“Anxiety is a method of seeking two experiences: certainty and comfort. The problem is that it wants these two outcomes immediately and continually,”