Ways to Help Child Anxiety during New Year’s Celebrations

This article provides helpful information for parents who need help calming child anxiety during New Year’s celebrations. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Holidays are generally difficult for adults and children that suffer from anxiety or a specific anxiety disorder. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day is no exception and can be especially stressful for kids. Depending on the type of anxiety your child or students struggles with, any of the following could trigger anxiety at anytime:

• Social parties
• Fireworks
• Unfamiliar foods
• Large crowds

When an anxious child experiences anxiety, it can cause meltdowns, physical symptoms, fight or flight or sometimes panic attacks. Many times, these stressors in children are only compounded by well-meaning loved-ones that do not understand why your child is not excited and equally joyful during each and every holiday party. You may even need to prepare family and friends ahead of time that the festivities may affect the child’s anxiety.

If you see your child off in the corner, avoiding social experiences with other family members and friends, or if they continue to need noise-cancelling headphones, this may be a sign of stress or anxiety during holiday gatherings.

Why New Year’s Triggers Child Anxiety

There are many reasons why an anxious child may have trouble during New Year’s. Many of these situations can be avoided, or you can bring items that calm the child to prevent meltdowns altogether. You may need to carry a bag with a few items they need or ask your friends and family to provide them with a quiet place where they can retreat if needed.

It’s important to remember, New Year’s gatherings tend to be full of fun sensory stimuli. While many games, decorations, whistles and other activities are fun for families and friends, it can cause an anxious child’s sensory system to become overloaded. When we add events that heighten or escalate that sensory stimuli around the child, it creates unwanted anxiety in the child.

You may not even know the child is experiencing anxiety until a meltdown actually happens. Here are three ways a child’s anxiety may be triggered during New Year’s.

Parent Anxiety

Anxiety may already begin to build up even before the New Year’s festivities, but not by the child. When parents are feeling anxious about going to parties or gatherings, the child tends to feel that energy from the parent. It’s not uncommon for us as parents to be running around preparing food, making sure the kids are dressed and ready, packing up the car and making sure we are out the door on time. If we are anxious ourselves, we may be more likely to yell at the kids about why they aren’t dressed and ready to go. Or, we may be worried about making sure we’ve packed everything for the event itself. If you already know your child struggles with anxiety, you may have to adjust or pivot your plans to create a more calm and peaceful transition to New Year’s gatherings. When you are calm, the child tends to follow your lead.

Parents can pack as much as they are able to in the car the night before, especially if the child needs some type of calming bag. Clothes can be set out the day before and you can even let family and friends know you may be a few minutes late. Taking some deep breaths, playing games in the car, making jokes and listening to music can calm anxiety both in us and our children during these stressful moments.

New Year’s Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a big trigger for kids struggling with anxiety, and the New Year’s holiday often brings uncertain events. While many of these activities are fun, some of them may scare or create child anxiety. A few triggers may be:

• Loud fireworks
• Banging pots and pans
• Bright lights
• Too many people
• Unfamiliar kids
• Unwanted hugs or affection

All of these can be sensory triggers that add to the child’s anxiety. If you notice your child starting to become uneasy, it’s a great time to pull out their calming bag and find them a quiet place where they can relax and zone out until they are feeling better. The child may need several minutes to calm down depending on how fast the anxiety comes on. You can also provide some deep pressure to their joints and muscles to help relax and calm their body. Deep breaths always calm the heart rate and allows the child time to release any unwanted emotion rising in their chest or stomach.

Routine and Sleep

By the time New Year’s rolls around, your child has most likely been involved in many holiday and family activities. Their sleep patterns are off and their regular routine is probably gone. When a child has had little sleep and is no longer following their routine for several days or weeks, it can create anxiety build-up. If you are planning New Year’s activities and you know your child has a tendency to become anxious, you can plan a few days in advance for the festivities. Slowly begin putting them to bed a little earlier and allow them to catch-up with sleep when needed. Try to do more activities and play dates at your house to help them be comfortable in familiar places. If it’s possible, clear their calendar of events and lessons a few days prior to New Year’s. This way, they’ve had time to regulate and recuperate from the previous holiday’s events. 

Calm Child Anxiety during New Year’s Eve

There are ways to help an anxious child around this heightened time of year. Here are five tips that could be a big help for parents.

Foster Awareness and Problem Solving

It’s natural to hear an upset child’s worry and know there is nothing to fear. However, oftentimes they don’t know that even if you do. In these cases, it’s important to help foster awareness of their own emotions so they can articulate and understand their feelings in stressful situations. During an episode of anxiety there is a massive push of chemicals and one of the by-products is the logical part of the brain gets put on hold and the emotional side takes over. Before it gets to that point, help them create a plan so they are prepared and understand their emotions before it escalates to meltdowns or emotions that are difficult to calm. Start by asking your child a few of the following questions so they can gauge their emotions and if they need to make a change:

Notice…how you feel when you start to become anxious.

Do you know…what the trigger is that is making you feel out of control?

What’s your plan…to calm your body or emotions?

Where will you go…if you are feeling anxious or out of control?

What can you use…to calm your body or emotions?

Who will…help you if you feel like your anxiety is building up?

The key is to practice these steps when the child is not feeling anxious. That way, when anxiety begins to build, they have already established a plan when an unexpected situation comes up. Hopefully, their calming plan will instantly kick-in if they’ve practiced before their emotions take over. This is also an important method to help kids communicate better with themselves as well as with you. Knowing what they are feeling and when it’s happening can help you find a safe place for them before their emotions become too much for them to handle.

Try out the FEEL method

If a child feels anxiety coming on or if they are feeling out of control, they can try the GoZen method. Their four-step method can help kids regulate and can also show them your support for what they are going through by doing it with them. Try a few of the following steps with your anxious child:

1. Freeze: Pause and take some deep breaths with your child.
2. Empathize: Your child wants you to know that anxiety is scary.
3. Evaluate: Figure out some solutions together.
4. Let Go: Let go of your own guilt. You are a great parent in teaching your child tools to manage their anxiety.

Discuss upcoming plans and schedules

As parents, most appreciate a balanced schedule and an idea of what items need to be accomplished in a day, week, month, etc. This is the same for children. Perhaps even writing down a basic daily schedule could help a child with anxiety to better mentally prepare for upcoming events or tasks. Preparing them for events several days in advance can help them talk about any concerns or worries they may have before the event. No matter if it’s recitals, New Year’s parties, group functions, tests and other stressful events, giving kids a run-down of what is happening in their schedule gives them an opportunity to be ready for what’s coming up.

A great time to talk about these events is in the car when you driving or when they wake-up so they have time to process their day while they are getting ready. Try and avoid talking about stressful events prior to bedtime. This can cause kids to remain awake and may create sleep disruptions throughout the night. 

Transition from the “What if” thoughts to reality

Sometimes an anxious child can spend a great amount of mental time in the future asking the question “what if?” “What if I am late to school?” “What if Tammy doesn’t talk to me?” “What if I can’t find my dad after soccer practice?” It is natural to spend some mental time in the future, but it becomes an issue when it is all consuming. The young person focuses on what could happen instead of reality. Try some mindfulness with your child by helping them focus what has actually happened. Many of their “what if” worries may not even happen throughout the day so it’s important to talk with them about it before they get carried away. If they get stuck in the “what ifs,” it’s a good opportunity to help them with solutions, alternatives and a plan for scenarios that may happen. If there are unrealistic worries or fears, it’s important to help them understand when something will or won’t happen and reassure them they are safe. Bringing them back to the present and focusing on the here and now is most important. 

Allow some worry time

If your child is having a major meltdown or persistent worries that happen daily, allow a 5 to 10 minute worry window where the child can freely express their stressors. In this window, there are no worries that are not valid. After the time frame is up, help your child say goodbye to their worries for the day. You can even snuggle up to them and read a book about The Worry Monster and how this child copes with anxiety. 

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