Children’s tips for dealing with anxiety go viral on Twitter

Here’s Clark’s advice for dealing with anxiety, along with a few brief explanations of context from his mother.

“You have to say the affirmation with your mouth and heart.”

“Another mom on Twitter talked about saying affirmations to their kids before school. We tried it. Sometimes I say to him, ‘Say it as you please.’ I guess he translated that.”

“You say, ‘I’m so brave in this encounter! I am loved! I smell the fragrance!'”

“He knows you can be scared of something, so he talks about being brave in the face of things. I like the grammatical structure. I never fixed it because I like it better. I don’t know where ‘I smell good’ comes from, but I like it. I will use it a lot. ”

“You have to take a big step. You must mean it. Like Dolly on a dinosaur. Because you understood it. ”

“He really loves Dolly Parton ‘Multicolored coats. ‘ When the kids were making fun of her at school, she still went in and bravely started a conversation with those kids. I don’t know where the dinosaur thing came from.”

“Never put a skunk on a bus.”

“I don’t know if it has anything to do with anxiety.”

“Think of the donuts of your day!”

“We used to go to this little record store. Got a room in the back and the whole profile for a dollar. I’ll take him down there with a dollar bill, and he’s back with a Burl Ives record from the ’50s. There’s a song on it called ‘Donut song.“It goes,” Look at the donut, not the hole. “After we listened to that song a lot, it became our thing. Every night when he goes to bed, he tells me about his donuts of the day.”

“Even if you cry a little, you can think of chips!”

“When he’s sad, I sometimes tell him to think about what he’s looking forward to. French fries are high on his list.”

“You have to take a deep breath and you have to do it again.”

“I taught him breathing exercises when he was upset.”

“Even if it’s a lucky day, you might get a hug.”

“There were many times when I couldn’t do anything. I told him, “Even if it’s a bad day, when I get home, I’ll hug you.”

Ms. Todebush said she was surprised by the reaction. Some are concerned that such a child even needs anxiety coping skills. She said that Clark was an only child, and that he had no cousins ​​or other children around during the pandemic. She added that she is working with him on coping skills to make the transition to school easier. His advice on the way to school made her realize how much he was paying attention. “Overall, he’s doing a lot better,” she said.

But most of the thousands of comments posted were positive, she said. These include:

“Who is this child and is he willing to participate in Zoom sessions?” a follower asked.

One fan said: “Giggle at the insights, but in reality, I’m here for the fries pandemic,” one fan said.

“Haven’t we all been on a bus ride with a skunk, metaphorically?” ask another.

An artist who saw the theme even started selling a t-shirt that depicts Dolly Parton on a dinosaurand promised the proceeds would go to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Ms Parton has not yet commented on the post or on the t-shirt.