Performance Anxiety. What is it and how can I help my child?

What is Performance Anxiety:

Performance anxiety is an excessive feeling of fear, nervousness or dread related to not being able to perform well; the fear revolves around failing, being judged or criticized. This can occur in academics for example before a test or presentation, in sports before a big game or try-out, and in artistic performances sometimes called “stage fright”.

Some nervousness before performing is normal and helpful; it can help keep people focused on the goal and give them the energy they need to perform. However, there is an optimal range where this anxiety can be helpful, when you step outside of this range is when you are faced with a problem. If you have too much anxiety one becomes flustered, can’t think, overwhelmed and for some people they panic or freeze. On the opposite side, where you have no anxiety or energy about the task one might not put much effort in and might not be concerned about performing the task properly.

 Signs and Symptoms -what you might notice in your child or teen:

Avoidance – you might notice that your child enjoys engaging in an activity and is really talented by refuses to join a team or try out for the more competitive level, or they indicate they are sick the day of a presentation, procrastination, struggling to complete certain tasks

Intense focus on the task – do you feel like your child over-studies, or spends a lot of time on school work, or practices sports drills incessantly, or has lines memorized for a performance yet continues to review and practice? These might be signs that your child worries too much about their performance in these areas.

Negative self-talk – This might be something that your child says to you or they might keep these thoughts to themselves and you might not be aware of them. You might hear things like “I’m not good enough,” or “I can’t do it,” or “I’ll fail,” or “I suck” etc.

Anger – Yelling, arguing, crying, hitting, slamming doors. Children may have catastrophized these events, as a result their body and their mind respond to these thoughts the same way they would if they were in danger. If in danger their body and mind will go into ‘fight or flight;’ flight would be running away or avoiding the situation (as described above), and fight would be observed as anger.

Physical reactions – your child might complain of physical ailments like a sore stomach, nausea, diarrhea, headaches and muscle aches. Or you may notice that they are tense, their breathing changes and is faster or more shallow, their heart is beating faster. their palms are sweaty or they are warm to the touch or their skin is flushed.

How you can help support your child :

Seeing your child or teen feeling stressed and anxious can be difficult and you want to do everything you can to help. Here is a list of things you can practice with your child or teen to help them manage stress and anxiety more effectively.

·       Increase their awareness. Not all children and teens are aware that the feelings that they are experiencing are connected to a fear of failure or rejection. Introducing the idea to them can help put this into their own awareness, and these conversations can be helpful for you to gain a better understanding of how they are feeling and what they know about their experience. Start by using your curiosity to engage your child in this conversation. You might start by saying “I noticed you get stomach aches frequently; do you notice that too? I wonder why that is, do you have any idea?” or “I used to get really nervous when _____, and I know that people can get really stressed about doing really well, do you ever feel that way? How do you know you’re feeling nervous?” These sorts of questions can get the conversation started. Ensure you are empathetic and validating their feelings.

·       Teach your child calming activities. There are a variety of calming exercises that can help calm the physical reactions to fear and anxiety. Some of these include calm breathing where you slowly breathe in through the nose for the count of 4 or 5, then hold for the count of 1 or 2, and slowly breathe out of your mouth for the count of 6 or 7 or 8. Another calming exercise is grounding, where you spend time taking in the world around you. The 5 Senses Grounding exercise is an easy exercise where you guide your child to describe the following; 5 things they see, followed by 4 things they can touch, then 3 things they can hear, 2 things they can smell, and 1 thing they can taste (generally helps if they have recently eaten something, or if you have something available for them to eat like gum or candy or fruit. Alternatively you can ask them to think of 1 thing they are grateful for). Another calming activity, if possible, is movement. Some options are to do stretching or yoga, to go for a walk outside, tense then release the muscles or jump up and down (trampoline or sit and bounce on an exercise ball, or do jumping jacks or dance).

·       Help your child or teen develop a more balanced way of thinking. Thoughts and unhelpful beliefs can influence our mood, behaviour and decisions. Children and teens don’t always understand how powerful their thinking can be and don’t always understand how they can change their thinking. One way to build on this skill is to introduce positive affirmations like “I am strong and I can handle this.” or “I am smart.” or “I try my hardest.” and “I am safe.” and “I have many talents.” or “I get better and smarter every day.” It would be great to create a list of affirmations with your child and post it somewhere they can see and read it daily. Another idea is to help your child to focus on their successes, strengths and skills – make another list. The performance anxiety can highjack their ability to reason or think rationally, so having a list to remind them can help to balance the anxious thoughts.

·       Daily check ins. Spending 5 minutes after school with your child to chat about their day can help them let out any tension they might be holding onto about their day and to build your connection with them. Try to avoid vague questions like “how was your day” or focusing only on the stress or negative parts of their day. Use questions like, what made you laugh today? Who was the nicest to you today? What nice thing did you do for someone else? Was there a subject or topic that was hard to understand, and what was it and how did you deal with it? Did anything make you feel nervous or scared or uncomfortable and how did you know you felt that way? What are you happy or proud of that you did today? What do you wish you could do differently? These conversations can help build your child’s self-awareness, and offers them an opportunity to ask for advice or problem solve or receive validation for the choices they already made.

·       Professional support - If your concerned about this problem you can reach out to the teacher, school social worker or CYW, to get your child some support at school. You might want to teach out to a therapist to get professional help. Working with a therapist provides a safe and non-judgmental space that focuses on identifying the root of the issue, triggers that connect to it, and developing healthy coping skills aimed to build calmness and help achieve goals.

Next steps:

Therapy can be a great next step to help your child manage their anxiety symptoms, to feel calmer and more confident. Contact me now to discuss how I can help.