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FREE Calm Down Cards Download at the End

The rising numbers in people with anxiety shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, especially in the current pandemic climate we have going on. But what I am always shocked by is the amount of children with anxiety. A study just last year said 12.5% of children are diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder, and that’s just those that are diagnosed.

Ahem…let me just climb aboard my soap box for un momento…The mental healthcare system in this WORLD is broken. “But Ari, in CT I can make one phone call and have an appointment covered and there’s no stigma” Around the world that isn’t the case, maybe you can get coverage but there most def. is a stigma, or there is no stigma but also no coverage. Or worse, in some places not only is it not affordable nor is it covered, but it’s also got a nasty stigma attached that makes many steer clear. Okay I’m done.

My son has not been officially diagnosed, but as we both come from families riddled with both diagnosed and undiagnosed anxiety disorders we know the signs when we see them. With children it can be incredibly difficult to not only be diagnosed, but even if your not, find ways to cope and navigate through the murky waters of stress and anxiety.

Think of a child’s brain like a new necklace that was just delivered, but it came loose in the package. It’s all tangled so you have to spend a good amount of time untangling, getting the knots out, figuring out which way is the right way and which is wrong. You might make a few mistakes along the way. And when it’s finally untangled you may have to reattach some charms, and polish the chain as well. Kids are trying to untangle their feelings, some of which they don’t even know how to express or explain yet. This is when mistakes, those extra knots and tangles, come in. Eventually they figure it out and learn their way through it, and with some polish and practice it will stop being so hard. But then you ship that necklace loose again-this time in a box instead of a bag, and you start all over.

While this could be a post dedicated to all of the coping mechanism we use, I’m going to focus on one, calm down cards. We’ve been able to use these, or something similar since he was 3. They are just a visual reminder of the tools we use to calm down. Let’s face it, in the eye of panic you sometimes can’t hear another soul. This gives him the opportunity to find his was out of that panic without getting angry at us for telling him to calm down.

Click on the image above to open the PDF link