To correct children’s anxiety, you can use games. When organizing them, it is important to follow some rules that will create a comfortable playing environment for an anxious child.
Rule 1. Never compare a child with other children, do not give them as an example. If you want to emphasize the dynamics in the child’s work on some quality of his own, then it is better to compare his progress with his own results yesterday, a week or a month ago.
Rule 2. Avoid competitive moments in games. Let the child play for his own pleasure and benefit, and not for the purpose of winning. It is also undesirable to set an anxious child a time frame for completing a task or to adjust it. By doing this, you are unlikely to speed up his actions, but you will certainly raise the level of anxiety.
Rule 3. Introduce the child to a new game carefully, giving him the opportunity to calmly get acquainted with it, observe the pattern of actions (if any). If you feel the child’s resistance, his unwillingness to participate in the game, in no case do not insist. You can force a person to perform some actions, but you cannot force them to play for real! So in such difficult cases, try to be creative in order to interest the child and reduce his anxiety. To do this, change the rules of the game, taking into account the characteristics of your son or daughter, use visual material already familiar to the child, start playing with someone else, showing the child an example. In a word, act according to the circumstances.
Exercise order
If the child is highly anxious, then it is better to start working with him with relaxation and breathing exercises, for example: “Balloon”, “Ship and Wind”, “Pipe”, “Rod”, “Screw”, “Waterfall”, etc. See Education child relaxation
A little later, when the children begin to get used to it, you can add the following to these exercises: “Gift under the Christmas tree”, “Fight”, “Icicle”, “Humpty Dumpty”, “Dancing hands”.
An anxious child can be included in collective games if he feels comfortable enough, and communication with other children does not cause him any particular difficulties. At this stage of the work, the games Dragon, Blind Dance, Pump and Ball, Headball, Caterpillar, Paper Balls will be useful.
Games «Hares and Elephants», «Magic Chair», etc., which increase self-esteem, can be carried out at any stage of work. The effect of these games will be only if they are held repeatedly and regularly (each time you can add an element of novelty).