The Heart of the Matter

for Spiritually Conscious Parents

by Mary Ellen Lucas

Anxiety which can express as worry, unease, and uncertainty can sometimes be triggered by stressors that are not in our control. Children may exhibit signs of anxiety with frequent physical ailments, poor attention, meltdowns, or apathy. What can a parent, grandparent, educator do to support a child who is feeling anxious?

As a counterbalance to anxiety, I suggest we look to a tree as a model. Trees wisely teach us that rootedness contributes to the health of the individual tree and their shared connection maintains the integrity of the entire forest.

The taproot is the main root of a tree. It’s the center from which all other roots grow, further stabilizing the tree. The taproot digs down deeply into the earth to find nutrients to sustain itself and joins with other root offshoots to work together for even more strength. Some trees don’t have taproots, yet they still form an extensive network of roots that intertwine with other root systems of neighboring trees.

I recommend adults first learn for themselves the technique of “grounding” or rootedness to help children deal with anxiety. It is important to develop a grounding habit when things are humming along smoothly rather than waiting for a child to have a meltdown. Practice often throughout the day by planting your feet solidly on the ground. By grounding regularly, it will then be much easier to maintain a calm centeredness with an overwhelmed child.

Teaching grounding to a child is as simple as pointing to a tree. Talk to them about how the root structure gives strength and helps the tree grow strongly. Then liken their own bodies to a tree. Pretend with a child that they have imaginary tree roots going out from the bottoms of their feet. Have them sink those roots into the ground, spreading them out under the earth. Practice this daily together.

Explain how when they feel upset, they are like a tree that has been uprooted by a storm. Then describe how grounding can help them get their body roots back down into the ground. They can become once again strong and calm and help the “storm” to pass. Have a child draw a tree standing strong and another tree laying down, uprooted by dark storm clouds, to further imprint the idea.

Create “cue” words to use together. Using these watchwords, adults can quickly lead the child to focus on the ground when bouts of anxiety creep up. Perhaps something like “become

a tree” or “get your roots back into the ground” would work.

If a child can’t ground because of heightened anxiety, the adult then needs to share their grounded taproot by extending nourishing stability. An adult linking to a child’s overtaxed nervous system by grounding themselves re-establishes for the child a stable connection.

I would like to share an example of this that happened while I was driving my grandkids to school. Upon my arrival, my ten-year-old grandson became upset. He thought he had more time to finish his homework. Five vocabulary words remained to be used in sentences. No problem, or so I thought, he could easily finish them on the car ride to school. However, my grandson’s sense of timing was thrown for a loop, creating a lot of apprehension which only seemed to grow on the ride to school.

Continuous tears streamed down his face as he worriedly lamented, “I can’t think of a sentence.”

More than anything, I wanted him not to be upset, so much so that I was willing to ‘fix’ the problem by doing his homework. I suggested sentences encouraging him to write them down. With his feelings of heightened anxiety, he couldn’t focus on what I was saying.

My attempts to reassure him by saying, “You can do it,” and “There’s plenty of time,” were met with an annoyed but nonetheless polite response, “Just be quiet, PLEASE!!!”

Squirming in the discomfort of knowing I wasn’t helping him; it was clear I needed to shift my focus away from the anxiety to get myself calmer within. I breathed more slowly and sank further down into the seat of my car to get grounded. As the long line of cars inched closer to the school’s drop off point, I was able to morph into a rooted-in-the-ground grandma.

As we reached the designated area, my grandson proudly and enthusiastically proclaimed, “I did it!” With the homework complete, the anxiety quickly receded.

It’s humbling to admit that despite the years of my own grounding practice, my first go-to strategy wasn’t

to ground. Instead, I got ensnared in the distress of watching my grandson struggle. When my attention turned towards steadying myself, an inner stillness took over, creating a pathway of neural support extending towards my grandson. Would he have been able to finish his homework without a grounded presence by his side? Probably. I believe though that my calmness eased his anxiety, helping him complete his homework.

Learning how to stay grounded amid life’s storms behooves us all. An African proverb states, When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.

Despite the winds of anxiety that blow periodically in and out of our lives, a strongly rooted person is not easily toppled. Practice becoming more grounded and centered within your own self. Then teach a child to ground. Children can rely on your rootedness of strength until they learn how to stand on their own.

Mary Ellen Lucas, an Interfaith / Interspiritual Minister, believes we can learn to make wiser choices that create pathways of connection and collaboration to ensure a better world for our children. Life on Little Puddle Pond is a series of children’s books she wrote with silly goose playfulness along with meaningful lessons. The books are pre-chapter books and appropriate for children four to eight years old. Available from online retailers worldwide.