Kids learn to handle anxiety

Alfie Langford, 10, used to get mad at his brothers when they annoyed him, but thanks to a new programme addressing rising anxiety levels in schoolchildren, he now has new skills to call on.

‘‘You can do stuff like breathing slowly, walking one foot by one, or by sitting down and doing something you like,’’ the Takaka Primary School pupil said. ‘‘It teaches you how to calm down and get out of your emotional mind.’’

For Alfie, walking around was a tool he used to calm down when he was feeling upset.

‘‘I’ve had to use it quite a bit, because I get really angry at my brothers all the time. They keep on annoying me by hitting me or punching me or stealing my stuff.’’

Alfie is one of hundreds of Golden Bay schoolchildren who have been taught behavioural therapy to equip them with skills to navigate difficulties in their lives. The 10-week pilot programme was led by Takaka-based mental health service provider Te Whare Mahana.

Te Whare Mahana therapist Jay Indik oversaw the programme, and said the centre wanted to extend its clinical expertise into the community after identifying rising levels of anxiety in schoolchildren.

A Ministry of Health report released in November 2017 estimated that 79,000 young New Zealanders were in ‘‘psychological distress’’, meaning they have ‘‘high or very high probability of anxiety or depressive disorder’’. This was 21,000 more than the previous year.

Te Whare Mahana offers New Zealand’s only residential dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) intensive mental health programme. A type of cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy, DBT was developed to help people cope healthily with stress, regulate emotions, and improve relationships with others.

Alfie said the course had taught him ‘‘a bunch of things’’ that could help with anxiety or getting really angry.

‘‘They taught us about the three states of the mind: the responsible mind, wise mind and emotional mind.’’ The wise mind was the one in the middle, which helped people to connect with their emotions while being responsible.

Year 6 pupils from Takaka Primary, Central Takaka School and Motupipi School had weekly sessions over the 10-week course, with three separate sessions for parents.

Instead of using DBT as a clinical treatment, the school programme taught children and their parents skills to help them

‘‘I’ve had to use it quite a bit.’’ Alfie Langford, 10 Takaka Primary School

understand their emotions and make pro-social choices in difficult situations.

The skills taught included mindfulness, interpersonal connectedness, tolerance and emotional regulation.

Indik said the course looked at what made a successful transition from primary school to high school.

‘‘The number one thing is having a can-do attitude, a sense of going into a new situation and feeling like you are open to it. You recognise the challenges, and can plan and overcome the anxiety around them.’’

Parents were taught how to validate their children and how to balance being strict with being structured and nurturing, he said.

Indik said feedback to the course had been positive, and there were plans to make it a regular programme and to follow up with the children when they were in high school.

Alfie’s father, Takaka farmer Wayne Langford, said it had been rewarding to see his youngest son implement some of the skills he had learnt in the programme.

Early one morning, he found Alfie walking around on the deck. When asked what he was up to, Alfie said he was ‘‘using my wise mind to get away from my emotional mind by concentrating on walking around the deck’’, as his brothers had been picking on him.

Langford said the sessions for parents had been equally beneficial.

‘‘We learnt different ways to talk and interact with the kids, different ways they might react to situations and how we could deal with them.’’

He said the programme was fantastic, and he thought it would benefit older teens as well.