What tools can I give my child who struggles with performance anxiety?
So let's look at anxiety for what it is. Anxiety in and of itself is our body's way of saying, “I am afraid.” I feel fear, and I feel fear because of social judgment — that I'm going to mess up. There's usually something happening inside of them.
One thing we now understand is that the body actually needs some anxiousness to help our mind perform at its highest level. If we're just calm, calm, calm, our body isn’t preparing for an intense event — a performance, a sporting event, playing an instrument, being on stage, or anything requiring high focus. We need some internal tension to reach our peak potential.
The problem is when it accelerates to the point where it overwhelms our body.
Helping children understand what’s happening to them physiologically — what’s happening inside their body — is a very effective way to help them. We have different states of mind: fight or flee, complete shutdown, and the ideal zone where we’re activated but not overwhelmed.
This relates to what Dr. Dan Siegel calls the “window of tolerance.” If my window of tolerance is narrow, something stressful can quickly push me into a heightened state of stress. So we want to teach our children (and ourselves) how to increase that window of tolerance so we can move through stressful events without being overwhelmed.
There are strategies to help increase that window — for example, deep breathing exercises or calming techniques. I was recently reading an interesting book titled Do Hard Things. It talked about how our internal dialogue during difficult moments matters: “Don’t fail, don’t mess up” is anxiety-focused. In contrast, self-talk like “You can do this” or “You can do something hard” is much more productive.
When we try to suppress thoughts — like “don’t mess up” — we actually become more likely to think about the very thing we’re trying to avoid. For example: “Don’t think about a pink elephant.” Immediately we do. Research shows that when we suppress thoughts, we’re more likely to fall into them.
So instead of saying, “Don’t mess up,” shifting to “Next play” or “Keep going” works better. In athletics, they teach: “Next play, next play, next play,” meaning move forward rather than hyper-focusing on a mistake.
These are initial strategies. It becomes more complex depending on how difficult the situation is, and we need to increase our skills accordingly. But often, helping our children understand that they’re already performing at a high level — and that higher intensity requires realistic expectations — allows them to adjust their mindset. They can still strive to be the best version of themselves without expecting perfection.
