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Anxious thoughts are a common problem for parents and children alike - arising from school, work, relationships and uncertainty about the future.

When these thoughts become frequent fixtures in the mind, they can lead to unhelpful coping mechanisms - like avoiding worrying situations, having tantrums and changing eating habits. If these thoughts take over they can even lead to depression.

So, how do you tackle these anxious thoughts as they appear? How do you help your child to do the same? Psychologist Dr Anna Colton explains how you can stop these thoughts in their tracks…

Dr Anna's technique

• If you recognise an anxious thought, interrupt it and command it to stop!
• You don’t ask it politely, you command it: STOP!
• You may have to tell the thought to STOP many times if it comes back again. Interrupt it again!
• Interrupting this thought is important, as we're refusing to engage in the thought, which is stops it from developing into a spiral of negative thinking, and further anxiety.
• You can add things onto the ‘STOP’, like ‘Stop - I don’t want to engage’ or ‘Stop – I don’t want to go down this path’.
• The more you practice this, the easier it will be and the longer the gaps between having these anxious thoughts will be.

Try this technique yourself, or, if your child is struggling with anxiety, you could talk them through it step-by-step.

For more ways to tackle anxiety, take a look at the Parents' Toolkit collection.

����ý Action Line has further information and support around mental health for young people and adults

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