It is important to explain the situation correctly.
Alarms are sounding all over the country. Ukrainian families are forced to hide in basements and bomb shelters to save their children, who are also upset and scared. Their reaction can be completely different: someone closes in on himself, someone cries, and someone starts to play pranks and does not listen to their elders at all. Child psychologist Svetlana Roiz is sure that this is the normal behavior of the child's psyche in a traumatic situation. Therefore, adults should know how to defeat children's anxiety and level out the state of stress. or in a bomb shelter, basement or subway.
- Help to get on your feet
During a stressful situation, it is important to feel your feet. This applies to both adults and children. Then there will be no feeling that the earth is leaving from under your feet. To do this, take a position so that your feet are confidently on the ground.
Jumping and stomping will help children regain confidence in their abilities and overcome fear. If possible, let the children run. To do this, you can offer games like skipping rope, rubber bands, classics, colored or song traffic lights.
- Do your exercises
If you are in a crowded place, for example, in the basement of a multi-storey building or underground in the subway, and there is no way to run, get your child interested in exercises. The fact is that during stress, muscles spasm, so exercises to stretch the neck and fingers will help ward off this condition. Teach your child and exercises for the eye muscles: without moving your head, move your eyes to the extreme points: up, down, right, left.
- Heat the tummy
If your child is still small and you can pick him up, do so. If the child is already an adult, hug him, hugging him tightly, stomach to stomach. With your palm, tap his back at a pace — 1 beat per second. Such a mini-massage will help to calm down, because during stress the functions of the gastrointestinal tract are disrupted, which can cause nausea, bloating and even diarrhea. The warmth of your body in the area of the child's abdomen and the vibrations from tapping will help him restore the digestive tract, which means that adaptation to stress will be faster and easier.
- Convince to drink
Drinking is important when you're stressed, even just a little. Remind your child of this by constantly offering a drink.
So that he does not have the opportunity to refuse, offer him a choice of two possible actions. For example, ask: “Will you drink tea or water?”. As a result, the child will drink the liquid necessary for his body and will be sure that he himself wanted it, so he will not be harmful.
- Rub your hands
Cold hands will help to give out that the child is stressed. However, this method will help if a clear trembling has already begun on a nervous basis. First of all, rub your child's hands or invite him to rub his palms together until they become hot. The fact is that in a life-critical situation, blood rushes to the respiratory system, heart and brain. And if you return it to the limbs, you will give your psyche a signal that the danger has receded.