Effects of Anxiety and Stress

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Audio Description: A slide reads effects of anxiety and stress. At the bottom are logos for Penrickton Center for Blind Children, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.

Patty Obrzut: Now let's talk a little bit about stress and anxiety. Remember that a massive anxiety cannot be removed just by someone telling you to not be afraid of whatever it is you're afraid of. Some people are afraid of spiders, some people are afraid of water, and having someone tell you don't be afraid of the water doesn't make a person feel better. So, the same thing takes place with children with special needs. 

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Title: Anxiety
Content: A massive anxiety cannot be removed by demands or requests to do what you are afraid of doing.
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If they're anxious about a toy that vibrates or they're anxious about new situations telling them just not to be afraid is not going to help the child at all. Let's compare a child's anxiety level to someone demanding that you jump out a four story window.

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Content: No use to tell a child not be afraid of what he/she is afraid of... it will only reinforce child's resistance.
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Number one, you're going to be afraid to do so. If someone tries to grab you and persuade you to do so you're going to use all of your energy to try to avoid that person, and to avoid jumping. 

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While using energy to resist child is unable to learn anything at all.
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Now, you're going to use all of your energy to resist, and you're going to be unable to learn anything else at all.

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You're going to become afraid that that person's going to come back at any moment and ask you to jump out the window again. The more often someone tries to get you to jump out the window, the more time you're going to spend being afraid that that person's going to return. 

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• Child may be afraid throughout the day and unable to think of anything else.
• Child would be unable to concentrate on anything other than fears.
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As time goes by you're not going to be able to think of anything else throughout the day, other than when is that person going to come back and ask me to jump out the window. So, you're not going to be able to do anything else but worry. 

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Now, I know it sounds a little bit ridiculous that I'm using the story about jumping out a four story window, but let's compare it to a child who's maybe afraid of rice. And you have a container of rice. And you ask that child to put their hand in the rice. And they pull their hand away, because they're afraid of that texture or that sensation. But you insist that they put their hand in the bucket of rice. So, maybe you even grab the child's hand, and insist that they put their hand in the rice. And that child pulls away, or is crying.

When you leave, all they're going to think about is is that person coming back to ask me to do that activity again. And sure enough, here you come again, three days later, asking them to do the same activity. So, as time progresses, if you continue to encourage that child to do that activity, in that manner, they're going to become more and more fearful that you're going to return, and ask them to do the activity. Therefore they don't trust you, and they're not willing to play with you.

I always tell everyone a story. If you come to visit me at Penrickton Center when I walk in the room with the children, usually I have four kids coming up to me saying, "Hey Patty, you want to do this?" or "Can we do this?," or they're just crawling on me. And that's the sign that I'm doing a good job. If kids want to spend time with you, you're probably playing at their emotional level.

But if a child is avoiding you when you enter the room, then you really want to look at the techniques that you're using when you interact with children, because for some reason they're not trusting you.

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Audio Description: A slide reads active learning space, www.activelearningspace.org, May 2017. At the bottom are logos for Penrickton Center for Blind Children, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Perkins School for the Blind.