How to help your child cope with panic attacks

Panic attack - an attack of excessive anxiety, Fear, it may take up to 20 minutes. He is not necessarily accompanied by a real danger. In children, panic attacks can occur as a symptom of disease (eg, metabolic disorders) or as the body's response to stressful situations in the family or outside of it.

How can parents help the child with panic attacks, revenge, she has already come?

1. It is not necessary to appeal to the mind of the child and use logical arguments. If a child is experiencing a panic attack, and you try to logically explain why everything will be fine - it's a losing strategy. In a state of fear and panic attacks the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for rational, almost disconnected. But the amygdala commands: fight or flight. Logical arguments will not help here.

2. No need to ask for the child to calm down. The phrase "Do not be afraid", "nothing terrible has happened," "everything is fine" - does not work. Besides this you discount the experience and the child's fears. Tell him that you can see how he's scared, that you understand it. Remember that you need to recognize the emotions of a child. Confirm that his fears are realistic and reasonable, what really happened, or might happen something terrible - nowhere.

3. Do not give in to emotions. Child during a panic attack can not control myself, fear, anger and other emotions. He can fight, biting, shoving, screaming, crying. Parents initially try to calm, nothing happens, and then parental patience bursts. After all, do not worry, as it seems, did not happen, and therefore tolerate "concerts" they do not intend to. However, to lose self-control adults - it is a way to aggravate rather than solve the problem. You give clear scared to panic a child, an adult who has to defend it, he gives in anger and despair, and because of it no defender.

4. Help your child to calm the breath. To help cope with panic attacks can normalize breathing and heartbeat - fear they are much more frequent. Ask your child along with you deeply inhale and exhale several times, mentally counting to 6. When the breath is normal, panicheskach attack hours will come to naught.

5. Switch the child's attention to something specific and real around himAny object or animal that might interest him. Talk about this subject, ask your child to describe in detail his.

Globally treatment of attacks of panic attacks involved therapists. For example, teach the child to keep track of their own thoughts, which lead to further panic. The child learns to interrupt the emergence of a panic attack at the root and gradually gets rid of the attacks.

You will be interested to know 6 Ways to overcome fear, anxiety and panic attacks.