We like to think of childhood as a time of carefree wonder and imagination.\u00a0 Days filled with running through fields, looking under rocks, climbing trees and experiencing new things with anticipation and curiosity.\u00a0 For some children these same activities are not met with joy but with anxiety and fear.\u00a0 Anxious children are often intelligent, sensitive and creative.\u00a0 These are the good qualities that can overcome the anxiety which typically thinks, feels and imagines the worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sarah is a sweet little nine year old girl.\u00a0 Her parents brought her for therapy because she was crying uncontrollably when it was time to go to school.\u00a0 She also had difficulty staying overnight at her grandparents, was afraid to go for sleepovers at friends, worried if her parents were late to pick her up and didn\u2019t like to try new things.\u00a0 She could read, write and draw very well but would not do it because she might make a mistake.\u00a0 Sarah had Separation and Perfectionist Dragons.<\/p>\n
It is imagination that creates fears and imagination can be used to tame those fears.\u00a0 In working with anxious children it helps to externalize their fearful thoughts into the form of dragons which they can learn to tame.\u00a0 The first thing we do after talking about the situations that make them fearful and identifying the dragon\u2019s name is, to make the dragon in art.\u00a0 The dragon can be made from clay or colorful plasticine or painted on paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The next thing we do is learn how to tell when the dragon is nearby.\u00a0 The child learns where in their body they feel the anxiety.\u00a0 Some children get \u2018butterflies\u2019 in their tummy,\u00a0 feel hot in their face or all over, have fast heartbeats or other anxiety symptoms.\u00a0 This sensitivity can let them know it\u2019s time to do some dragon taming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dragons are tricksters.\u00a0 They scare us by saying bad things will happen to us and try to make us believe this is true because of the way our bodies are feeling.\u00a0 We need to make the dragon tell the TRUTH.\u00a0 There are four questions in the Dragon Taming Kit that we must pull out and ask the dragon.\u00a0 What has happened before when we were in the situation?\u00a0 What else could be happening? What has happened to other people? What is most likely happening now?\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Sarah asked her Separation dragon what happened the last time she went to school, he had to tell her \u201cNOTHING HAPPENED\u201d, in fact she had lots of fun.\u00a0 When she asked him what else could be happening when her parents were late to pick her up, he had to tell her that maybe they were in traffic or stopped for a coffee.\u00a0 When she asked him about what happened to other children who went to sleepovers he had to admit that they had a lot of fun.\u00a0 When she made him tell the truth about what was likely to happen if she slept over at her grandparents, the poor dragon just said \u201cYou\u2019re going to have fun\u201d.<\/p>\n
The other two things in the Dragon Taming Kit are RELAXATION and COURAGE.\u00a0 Once the child gets good at making the dragon tell the TRUTH, it\u2019s time to learn how to help the body RELAX.\u00a0 Slow breathing through the nose can help the heart stop beating so fast.\u00a0 Relaxing each muscle one by one and\/or imagining a special place can make the dragon lie down and go to sleep.\u00a0 Spending time teaching your anxious child relaxation skills can help them learn to do this automatically whenever a dragon shows up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The last thing in the Dragon Taming Kit is COURAGE.\u00a0 What completely tames the dragon is doing the thing he tells you that you cannot do.\u00a0 You cannot have COURAGE without fear. You would not need COURAGE if you were not afraid.\u00a0 With COURAGE you take your first step in doing whatever it is you are afraid to do.\u00a0 When Joey was afraid to eat butter because his dragon told him it would make him sick, his first step was just to put a little butter on his finger and smell it.\u00a0 Then he had to taste a little bit.\u00a0 Then he started eating things with butter in it.\u00a0 Before he knew it the dragon was tamed and he was not afraid to try the things he had been avoiding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dragon taming takes practice.\u00a0 It is important not to give up but keep at it day after day. Once the child has made gains in overcoming a fear, it is important to maintain the gain and not go back to former ways.\u00a0 Using the anxious child\u2019s gifts of imagination, intelligence and sensitivity will teach them lifelong skills in TAMING WORRY DRAGONS.<\/p>\n
\u00a0by Beth Newell, Psychotherapist, Expressive Arts Therapist, C.C.C.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We like to think of childhood as a time of carefree wonder and imagination.\u00a0 Days filled with running through fields, looking under rocks, climbing trees and experiencing new things with anticipation and curiosity.\u00a0 For some children these same activities are not met with joy but with anxiety and fear.\u00a0 Anxious children are often intelligent, sensitive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001017,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativearts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n