Don’t Let Fear of Terrorism Shut Down Your Child’s Emotions

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks last fall, talk of terrorism is still perpetual in the media and possibly in your children’s minds. If they show signs of shutting down emotionally because it, they need your help before sad or depressed behavior becomes a way of life.

Look for symptoms such as excessive daydreaming and difficulty focusing on everyday tasks. They may be "tuning out" the world and withdrawing or acting up more than usual.

It’s especially critical to pay attention to their breathing because, by changing abnormal breathing patterns, you also open up a treasure chest of solutions.

Breath-holding To Avoid Feeling

Can you remember a traumatic time when you held your breath because you felt overwhelmed? Breath-holding actually stopped you from feeling the anger, hurt or sadness you experienced. It created a false sense of safety and it may even have set a pattern of shallow breathing whenever the going gets tough.

When you—and your children—worry about terrorist attacks and other traumas, you can use breathing to take care of yourselves. When you do, you will stop worrying about the future and the past, and focus directly on being “present” now.

How to De-Traumatize Your Reactions

Follow these suggestions:

· Take in air by filling your belly like a balloon. Relax as the air makes whooshing sounds and the diaphragm contracts, expelling air from your lungs. Add some play to this activity. Tell your child to visualize blowing up a big, colorful balloon that will float in the sky and go on a journey. Keep adding adventures and have fun making up stories.

· Open your mouth to breathe. In an emotionally charged situation, breathing with an open mouth increases oxygen and helps bring a sense of balance to the body.

· Place the palm of your hand on your belly, coaching your child to do the same. Feel your belly expand as you bring in air and roll your breath up into your chest. Then, as you inhale, push the belly outward. Breathe in long, slow, and deep breaths, making the belly rise each time.

· Connect one breath to another. This increases the amount of oxygen you bring into your body. Let your breath completely release with a gentle sigh. Repeat this way of breathing in easy, continuous cycles.

· Note changes in your body when you breathe this way. Notice that you bring more oxygen into the bloodstream and feel less strain. You also help your brain slow down significantly—to a rate that allows your mind to give up control and let your intuition operate. You’ll become more aware of yourself and what’s around you. You’ll also connect more fully with your environment and the people in it, thus increasing feelings of calmness and balance.

Breath Doctor Game

One parent created a variation of this belly breathing with a game called Breath Doctor. After getting agreements from family members, her six-year-old daughter Elsabet enrolled them to be patients in this game.

Acting like a doctor, Elsabet used her toy stethoscope to listen to the breath in the lungs as her “patients” breathed. She asked them to cough. She told them to lie down and breathe so she could see how their chest expanded with air. She instructed them to breathe from a lower place in the abdomen. She even carried a clipboard and drew pictures on paper to show what their breathing pattern looked like. This game helped everyone gain awareness about their own breathing.

Here are some questions to ask when playing the Breath Doctor Game:
· Do you hold your breath?
· Is breathing hard or easy?
· How do you inhale? (e.g., smooth, jerky, flowing, catching, deeply, shallowly)
· How do you exhale? (e.g., long, short, catching, deeply, shallowly, smoothly)
· What different words would describe how you inhale and exhale?
· Does it feel good to breathe? If not, what word would describe it?
· How do you breathe when you sit? When you stand? When you lie down?
· How is breathing in these positions alike or different?
· How do you breathe when you walk? Run?
· How is breathing different when you move than when you sit?

Once children find out how others breathe, they observe their own breathing more carefully. Have them watch their breathing in a mirror. As they inhale, tell them to lace their hands on whichever body part rises. As they exhale, ask them to describe the motion. This teaches breath awareness, which you can reinforce with such statements as: “Good. You know where your breath is. With practice, you’ll get it all the way down here (pointing to the abdomen).”

Most importantly, this kind of breathing activates pent-up emotions, allowing tears, laughter and anger to rise to the surface. When children release their emotions, they feel lighter, happier and more connected to others.

Deep breathing helps your children cope with their emotional strains…even when terrorists shake their world.