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If a Child Is Anxious or Angry a Journal Might Help

By Sandy Schroeder

When a child is anxious, or upset, we need ways to help them regain their balance. In a fast-moving, often frantic society, a child’s reactions may become jumbled as they try to understand what’s going on. Finding quiet times to talk often helps, but keeping a journal might be another way for them to explore their feelings and sort through their problems, according to the Washington Post.

How a Journal Works

Psychologists say keeping a journal can help a child feel ownership and control over their emotions. This can be important when events in the world or in their lives feel threatening and out of control.

The journal can be something that is accessible whenever the child wants, providing a place to doodle, write, scribble or color. It can be whatever they want and need it to be. They can add pictures or notes capturing whatever is going on in their lives.

It can become a daily habit and a way to vent, offloading the day. Recording their impressions in a journal may mean the child is less likely to express their feelings with angry outbursts or internalize it with headaches or stomachaches.

Immediate triggers are usually identifiable. Moving to a new house, getting into a fight at school, a divorce or a death in the family can all spell trauma for a child, but global and national news can also confuse and worry them.

Helping a child digest and handle news such as the tragedy in Parkland, Fla., calls for direct help from family, and perhaps ongoing ways to channel the child’s thoughts and emotions.

Just as helping to prepare care packages for the recent hurricane and flood victims helped kids, communicating in some way with the families in Florida might be good.

Reaching Out with Letters

One psychologist suggested a child who is saddened and burdened by the tragedy, might be encouraged to write a letter to the students, teachers, and staff at the school, expressing their sympathy. The child may or may not send the letter, but just putting their thoughts down on paper may help them work through the impact of the event.

If you are a parent, you know children are always tuning in to their parents’ conversations, TV news, and comments from friends, neighbors, and others around them. They pick up all sorts of information and impressions that they may not understand or know how to process. Sometimes they simply tuck it away or hide out. The more ways we can help them understand it and deal with it, the better off they will be.

To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Colorado Springs, Colo.

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