Hi, I would like to hear from others who are helping their young people to cope with increased anxiety levels in their teens. In particularly if they are health related. I currently try and use exercise, relaxation, time alone and distraction ...
Melly
From an educational perspective NT teenagers' anxiety seems to have a lot to do with relative time and the speed of growing up - the consequences of what causes anxiety seems too immediate and too cataclysmic to form a perspective. So it is a common enough experience for tutors supporting NT students with anxiety to have to try to unravel the threads according to priority, offer solutions to the solvable worries (especially if that's making course or assignment adjustments - things tutors can sort), and reassuring students that their anxieties are not as unique or insolvable as they might suppose.
Translating this to students on the autistic spectrum is vastly harder. The bottleneck effect is much more severe. The predisposition to try to work out responses to numerous unlikely outcomes is hard to stop. The spiralling process of negative reinforcement - calculating worse and worse scenarios is very hard to break (what if, then what if, then what if). However I cannot find enough information around on how to ease the load. It is an area where we could do with research on making life easier. Tutors can still address course matters quickly, and access help with non-academic problems that can be easily resolved, which can reduce the pressure temporarily. But I have never felt comfortable giving autistic spectrum students the advice I would readily give NT students, because the capacity to self-help is less clear, and there are dangers.
One is to develop a way of interrupting the worry loops. I've my own system now of telling myself arresting phrases such as "I've had enough of this!" and "no its not that bad", but it took years to make these work. Some psychologists advocate substitute pain to distract, like wearing a thick rubber band on your wrist and snapping it against the inside of your wrist to stop unwelcome thoughts (trouble is many people know about this and assume you are seeing a psychiastrist - or they ask embarrassingly why do you have elastic bands round your wrist?).
Another remedy is to carry a notebook and write everything in it - thoughts, worries, reminders. Thjis gets things down on paper where you can find them again, that might otherwise be going round in your head.
By writing out worries and what you can do about them you can prioritise or categorise them, and do something to resolve those readily addressed, so as to reduce the number of worries coming through the bottleneck.
I note Communication magazine (spring 2011) p30-31 has other suggestions for writing down such as worry symptoms and solutions, which is similar.
However the anxiety spirals facing young people with aspergers/autism are particularly bad, and I feel research is needed to establish reliable and meaningful solutions rather than just "maybe that might work" offerings. Having good anxiety reduction strategies could be a breakthrough for many.
From an educational perspective NT teenagers' anxiety seems to have a lot to do with relative time and the speed of growing up - the consequences of what causes anxiety seems too immediate and too cataclysmic to form a perspective. So it is a common enough experience for tutors supporting NT students with anxiety to have to try to unravel the threads according to priority, offer solutions to the solvable worries (especially if that's making course or assignment adjustments - things tutors can sort), and reassuring students that their anxieties are not as unique or insolvable as they might suppose.
Translating this to students on the autistic spectrum is vastly harder. The bottleneck effect is much more severe. The predisposition to try to work out responses to numerous unlikely outcomes is hard to stop. The spiralling process of negative reinforcement - calculating worse and worse scenarios is very hard to break (what if, then what if, then what if). However I cannot find enough information around on how to ease the load. It is an area where we could do with research on making life easier. Tutors can still address course matters quickly, and access help with non-academic problems that can be easily resolved, which can reduce the pressure temporarily. But I have never felt comfortable giving autistic spectrum students the advice I would readily give NT students, because the capacity to self-help is less clear, and there are dangers.
One is to develop a way of interrupting the worry loops. I've my own system now of telling myself arresting phrases such as "I've had enough of this!" and "no its not that bad", but it took years to make these work. Some psychologists advocate substitute pain to distract, like wearing a thick rubber band on your wrist and snapping it against the inside of your wrist to stop unwelcome thoughts (trouble is many people know about this and assume you are seeing a psychiastrist - or they ask embarrassingly why do you have elastic bands round your wrist?).
Another remedy is to carry a notebook and write everything in it - thoughts, worries, reminders. Thjis gets things down on paper where you can find them again, that might otherwise be going round in your head.
By writing out worries and what you can do about them you can prioritise or categorise them, and do something to resolve those readily addressed, so as to reduce the number of worries coming through the bottleneck.
I note Communication magazine (spring 2011) p30-31 has other suggestions for writing down such as worry symptoms and solutions, which is similar.
However the anxiety spirals facing young people with aspergers/autism are particularly bad, and I feel research is needed to establish reliable and meaningful solutions rather than just "maybe that might work" offerings. Having good anxiety reduction strategies could be a breakthrough for many.
