A fun workshop aims to help children deal with anxiety and self-regulate their emotions, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN
BEN JONES was two and a half years old when his mother, who was holding him in her arms at the time, picked up a cherry, popped it in her mouth and ate it.
“From that moment on, Ben did not eat easily,” his mother, Fiona McAuslan, recalls. “For instance, we could take one baked bean and put it on his tongue and he would start gagging.”
Ben, who is now 13, turned out to be very bright and a high achiever, but was also an anxious child. “He has to stay organised. If he doesn’t know exactly what the plans are for the day when he gets up, he would like to be told.”
Both the anxiety and the eating problem have been greatly eased by a course at Donabate/Portrane Educate Together national school in Co Dublin, which combines emWave technology to monitor stress levels, a series of classes in “belly breathing” and fun lessons about how the brain works.
When they got a letter from the school offering Ben a place on its new programme, his parents were delighted. The programme originated through contact between the school principal Maeve Corish and the Connolly Counselling Centre, according to Suzanne Condron, a consultant psychologist with the centre.
“The objective of the workshop is to educate the children about how their brain works and to enable them to take control of their own behaviour. By the end of the workshop the child will have a better understanding of how their brain operates and will be able to self-regulate their feelings and emotions.”
Condron uses three puppets to help explain the three layers of the brain to the pupils: a snake puppet represents the old, reptilian brain which keeps us physically alive; a monkey puppet symbolises the more recently developed mammalian brain which, among other things, influences our emotional behaviour; and a policeman puppet represents the most recently evolved section of the brain which does the thinking and tries to moderate the carry-on of the other two, with varying degrees of success.
If we had a traumatic experience in the first three years of life, we operate very much out of the older parts of the brain which produce anxiety, sadness and fear. In the classes, when the children start to feel anxious or sad, they learn to say “Right, that’s the snake”.
“We have to turn him off like a light switch in your head. Belly breathing turns off the switch,” says Condron.
The emWave technology helps to measure and relieve stress, but the heart of the programme is the belly breathing and the education of the children about stress. The programme lasts for 10 weeks with the first and last weeks devoted to discussion with the parents about their children.
The software is used to take periodic readings of the children’s breathing patterns. “We also teach the children exercises that prove very effective for mastering the belly breathing. One such exercise is ‘Teddy Surfing’. The child lies flat on the floor and places a small teddy on their tummy. As they breathe into their belly and out through their nose the teddy rises and falls. In other words, he is surfing on their belly. Another exercise which we use is a laughter meditation. It involves evoking belly laughs as this promotes belly breathing. It is also a good ice-breaker.”
Guided meditations and progressively relaxing each part of the body are all part of the programme. Progressive relaxation “helps the children to understand the difference between feeling tense and feeling relaxed”.
For Ben, “the group work was fantastic,” says Fiona, “because they created a light atmosphere. Ben always had a good sense of humour but now it has become quite delicious. He’s still a very high achiever, very high energy. He’s not Eeyore, he’s Tigger.”
After the end of the programme, he continues to see Suzanne for help with his eating issue. His attitude to food is also becoming more relaxed as he himself is relaxing. “He is actually almost beginning to experiment with trying things.” He is now prepared to negotiate about his eating – good news for Fiona, a professional mediator.
She emphasises that even if Ben was not continuing to see Suzanne weekly, and had only done the programme of 10 workshops, “we would still have felt this was great. He has some great relaxation skills.”
For more information about the Connolly Counselling Centre, see counsellor.ie
