6 Ways to Help Kids Handle Uncertain Times

Overview: Is your child feeling anxious about the world? Discover practical ways to help kids handle uncertain times with confidence and better manage stress. Learn healthy strategies to reduce anxiety and foster resilience in your children.

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We are living in historically important times right now. Since 2020, our anxiety levels have risen exponentially. From a global pandemic to terrorist attacks to hurricanes. So much is happening in our world and it has put most of us on edge.

Our kids are looking to us to see how they should respond to rising prices, increased tensions, and everything else that’s going on around them. Our higher levels of stress are causing them to feel anxious as well.

So, what are we to do? How can we help our kids handle these uncertain times with more peace and less anxiety?

Here are 6 Ways to Help Kids Handle Uncertain Times:

1 – Talk about What’s Happening

One of the most important things we should do is talking to our kids about current events. The amount of information we share with them will differ depending on the ages of our kiddos.

But if your kids have any access to the news or the internet, I can guarantee they are hearing a lot more concerning news than what many of us did while we were growing up. Encourage them to ask questions. Share your own concerns with them.

Be sure to remind them we aren’t alone in this and that our hope comes from our knowledge that God has this in control and that nothing will happen without him allowing it. That doesn’t mean that we will be free from experiencing tragedy in our lives. But if He allows to go through something hard, we know we aren’t going through it alone.

2 – Give Them Ways to Work Through Their Feelings

We’re all experiencing a wide range of emotions right now, from fear to uncertainty to anger. And kids and animals alike can sense when we’re more keyed up than usual. As parents, sometimes it’s hard for us to know how to help our kids voice their concerns and work through them in a way that’s therapeutic.

Deep breathing is one technique we can teach to our kiddos. I made a video about how to do this deep breathing a while back.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation is another way to help kids release tension. Have your child lay on the floor and starting with their head, have them try to squeeze their muscles as hard as they possibly can and then release them. Then move down to the next part of their body and do the same thing. Do this until they’ve gone through all of the muscle groups in their body.

Reframing thoughts is another technique for helping to work through anxiety. Have your child verbalize something they’re concerned about and then help them to restate that thought in a way that is more realistic.

For example, if your child is concerned about our hurricanes and his thought is, “If a hurricane hits where I live, I will die” you can help him to begin thinking more realistically such as, “If a hurricane comes, my family will either evacuate or do what it takes to stay safe.”

Another helpful exercise is to encourage our kids to write out their thoughts and feelings in a journal. There are lots of wonderful journals that will help guide our kids through tough situations so that they can come out on the other side in a much healthier place. Here are some options for you to consider.

Be Brave (Ages 8+) – These activities and fun exercises will help you feel braver, understand your feelings, make choices about how to react, talk to others about your worries (if you want to), and grow in courage, confidence, and positivity.

No Worries (Ages 8+) – The supportive activities in this book are designed to tackle child anxiety and stress, help the child to work out how and why they feel worried, encourage them to talk to others about their worries (if they want to), and feel calmer.

Hello, Happy (Ages 8+) – The age-appropriate drawing and writing exercises in this book will help the child to define and understand their feelings, deal with emotions, and discover paths to happiness, peace, and positivity.

3 – Provide Positive Distractions

With so much scary stuff happening around us, it’s important than we are intentional about giving our kids positive distractions to take their minds off of these concerns. This is a great time to go on a hike together, play in the backyard, have a movie night, play games, read books together, etc.

Lots of us shifted our priorities because of circumstances in the past few years and are spending more time with our families, which is a good thing. Let’s be intentional about making lots of positive memories together.

4 – Work on our Own Mental Health

It’s easy to get wrapped up in taking care of our families during uncertain times, but we need to make sure we are also thinking about our own mental and emotional health. Self-care is important and it’s usually the first thing we ignore when we need it the most.

If you think you don’t have time to recharge, try waking up and having time alone before your kids get up, giving your kids some quiet time in their rooms, or enlisting your spouse to watch the kiddos so that you can have some alone time.

5 – Get Outside as Often as Possible

If you or your kiddos are struggling, remember that fresh air and sunshine are healing! If it’s at all possible, try to spend some time outside. Let your kids run in a wide-open field, take a walk in the woods, walk on the beach… even just sitting in the backyard in a lawn chair while watching your kids play is restful.

Even better, get in some exercise and run around in the back yard with your kiddos.

If your children are old enough, try to go for a walk on your own. Even if you’re walking laps around your house. We live in the country are we have a long driveway, so I enjoy walking up and down that while talking to God. It is an amazing way for me to get my prayer time while exercising.

6 – Stay Active

It’s so easy to mindlessly stare at our phones or other screens, which isn’t good for our mental health. Get the kids doing chores. Teach them life skills like cooking and cleaning. Try to keep it fun and do things together so that it’s more enjoyable for everyone.

Staying active, checking things off your list, exercising, learning a new skill, etc will help you to feel good as you’re accomplishing more during your day.

We’re living in radically changing times and are constantly being bombarded with information that can cause us or our kids to feel anxious. If we take some of the above action steps, we will teach our kids valuable skills that they can take with them and use throughout their lives.

Have you recovered mentally from the last few years? How are your kids? How are you trying to help your kiddos work through their anxiety? Please leave a comment below!