Right. I know we’ve talked a lot about anxiety, but I really feel like I want to make sure I get this question in.
It says, “My 11-year-old gets very emotional, pulling at his hair when we try to correct an action. I’m worried if it’s normal.”
Pulling hair—I wonder about that as a coping mechanism for stress.
In this situation, I’d want a little more information, like the first time they observed it. It may be that the hair pulling is how the child deals with internal anxiety.
If that’s the case, we want to give them resources to understand what’s happening inside themselves without judgment, but with awareness—deep breaths, regulation. Ask them, “When you’re pulling your hair, what’s that like?”
Notice the curiosity. Instead of immediately saying, “Stop pulling your hair,” we approach it with, “I wonder what that means for you. What’s that like?” Curiosity often works better than telling them to stop, which usually makes them continue.
If they say it helps them deal with stress, then we can try other coping strategies. First, we need to know what the behavior is doing for them. Once we understand, we can experiment with new strategies.
It’s important to remember that this is a coping strategy. If we take it away, we need to replace it with something else that helps them when they’re anxious.
Anxiety is physiological—it’s the body saying, “I don’t feel safe” or “I feel stressed.” In the brain, the amygdala is the emotional center and acts like a fire alarm. When it’s firing constantly, it can overwhelm the rest of the brain with alerts.
We need to teach the brain to calm through the prefrontal cortex, the part that helps regulate emotions. This can be accessed through deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, yoga, calming music, or prayer.
The more we can access the prefrontal cortex, the more control we have over our emotions. That’s the skill we’re working on—helping people, especially children, learn to regulate emotions by engaging the thinking part of the brain.
