School anxiety is becoming a bona fide epidemic. Children are feeling unbearable panic that manifests itself as school anxiety, separation anxiety and social anxiety. Some people blame the child for just wanting attention or blame the parents for spoiling their children. But anxiety causes real panic and real suffering.
The struggle just to get through the day when battling anxiety can be so exhausting that a child ends up feeling weak and disinterested in life. Anxiety begins in the psyche and then takes up residence in body where it causes all sorts of havoc. The body caves in at the breastbone, the shoulders get tight and the neck turtles forward. This new body alignment becomes habit or “normal” posture to a child.
Muscular tension that results from anxiety tends to re-align posture to the point where a child actually looks different. A young person can begin to resemble a tired little old lady instead of a vibrant child.
Body language is a significantly large percentage of communication. Statistically, the words we say are only about 7% of communication. The other 93% is tone of voice, eye contact, diction and body language, with body language weighing in the most heavily.
When anxiety and low self-esteem live in the body, instead of a spunky, happy child open to friendship and fun, others see a dejected, fearful child. Body language that says, “Leave me alone,” “I’m sad,” “I’m scared” causes others to respond accordingly. Body language screams out loud – without a word being uttered! How sad that when a child needs friendship and support the most, his body language is saying, “stay away!”
Slumped posture also changes breathing patterns. When the body collapses, you have to work harder to breathe because the breath path is now crooked. It requires physical effort to get the breath to move through the body, causing a further energy drain.
So what’s the solution? Unfortunately just telling your child to stand up straight never works! Here are a couple suggestions to help your child regain her natural posture.
Superhero Self-Esteem™ Posture Exercise 1
Children are extremely intuitive. Keeping that in mind, here’s a game to play with your child. Look through the pictures of people in a magazine or book. Have your child tell you what message a person is sending with their posture. No judgment, just observation. You can begin by giving your opinion and you child will follow your lead.
Then adjust your posture to different attitudes and moods and ask your child what she thinks your posture says. Be ready for anything. Remember this is not judgment, but observation.
Then have your child look in the mirror while messing with his posture and let him tell you what it is telling other people. This will give both you and your child a new awareness. At this point you can begin to make changes.
Get Superhero Self-Esteem™ Workshop in Brief FREE! go to http://www.SuperheroSelfEsteem.com
Sally Morgan
Sally Morgan is passionately motivated to save children from the agony of growing up with low self-esteem. As an expert vocal trainer and coach, Sally has brilliantly converted the techniques she developed to train her rock star voice students, into a program that boots kids’ confidence with a unique inside-out method. It is her tender care for children that makes Sally the perfect hip grandmother to help kids become confident and know that they are capable of anything!
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Super Hero Self Esteem
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