Topic - Anxiety Timeline. Anxiety, sadness and pain are like earthquakes. When they start, your biggest fear is “How bad is this gonna get and how long is it gonna last?”
These feelings are a lot scarier for children. When sad and bad things happen, put their feelings into the perspective of time.
Evan came into my office in September. His dog, Buddy, had just died. I told him the sad feelings would stop and happy memories would start at Halloween.
Many emotional crises resolve in 8-10 weeks and Evan’s did.
My close friend died at age 37. Our 7-year old son became sad about us dying. We sat him down, tore open a grocery bag and drew a long line with him at one end and us about two-thirds of the way down.
“We’ll die when you’re our age. You’ll have teenage kids, a wife, house, job and a car” all the while drawing it out.
He said, “That’s a really long time!” He never brought it up again.
Anchor feelings into their experiences to get the message home.
