Worry time, not at bedtime

The activity

Ten minutes at the same time each afternoon for your child’s worries. If one comes up at another time, you listen, write it down and save it for then.

What it is for. A worry that can turn up at any time tends to turn up at the worst one. A short daytime slot at a set time gives the worries a place and your child some say over them, and stops every evening becoming a reassurance session that the worry outlasts.

• The first step. Choose a time you can keep most days, in daylight hours and well away from bedtime. Tell your child what it is for: “It’s all right to have worries. They get their own time, every day, and I’ll be there for it.”

Safety. Never promise that a worry will be kept secret. If what your child brings is about their safety or someone else’s, it is heard and acted on that day.

When to get help. This is practice, not a treatment. If worry is stopping your child going to school, sleeping or eating, or keeps them awake on most nights for more than a few weeks, talk to your GP, who can refer on to the right service. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other five steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Worry time.

It goes with

• When Reassurance Stops Working. For parents whose child is anxious and can’t be talked out of it, however often the adults around them try.
• Anxiety, by Age. For parents of a child whose worry has started to make decisions for them, with what helps at each age and when to ask for help.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Anxiety. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Sleep. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.