BOUNCE Approach®AnxietyCPD CertifiedOn-DemandND-Affirming
Reducing Anxiety in Children
Explore the science of anxiety through a Polyvagal lens — and learn how the A-B-C Method builds Awareness, Balance, and Change to help children interrupt the anxiety cycle and develop genuine emotional resilience.
With around 1 in 5 children and young people estimated to have a probable mental health difficulty, anxiety is one of the most common challenges adults supporting children will encounter. Yet anxiety is frequently misread — presenting as avoidance, defiance, or shutdown rather than the nervous system response it actually is. This training explores what anxiety is, how it presents physiologically and behaviourally, and how it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle that needs interrupting at the body level first.
The A-B-C Method — Awareness, Balance, Change — offers a practical, neuro-affirming framework for helping children understand their emotional states and build new patterns of response. Grounded in Polyvagal Theory and aligned with The BOUNCE Approach®, the training includes easy-to-use strategies and creative activities that work in school, home, and therapeutic settings. Suitable for anyone supporting children who experience anxiety, overwhelm, or emotional dysregulation.
Objectives
Learning Objectives
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
1
Explain what anxiety is
Describe anxiety clearly and accurately — including how it is defined clinically and what distinguishes everyday worry from anxiety that significantly impacts a child’s daily functioning and wellbeing.
2
Identify the common types of anxiety
Recognise the most common anxiety presentations in children and young people — and understand how each type shows up differently in behaviour, body, and daily life.
3
Understand how anxiety impacts a child’s biology
Explore what happens in the brain and body when a child experiences anxiety — including the role of the stress response, cortisol, adrenaline, and the nervous system in driving the physical and emotional symptoms children experience.
4
Place anxiety within the BOUNCE Scale and Polyvagal Framework
Understand how anxiety maps onto the BOUNCE Scale and Polyvagal Theory — and how this framework helps adults read what state a child is in and respond in a way that actually meets the nervous system’s need.
5
Explain the common cycle of anxiety
Understand how the anxiety cycle works — how avoidance provides short-term relief but reinforces the anxiety over time, and why breaking the cycle requires more than reassurance or encouragement.
6
Understand how anxiety becomes a habit and why it is hard to break
Explore how repeated anxiety responses become ingrained neural patterns — and why the nervous system defaults to familiar threat responses even when the danger has passed.
7
Apply the A-B-C Method to interrupt the anxiety cycle
Understand the A-B-C Method and how it can be used with children to identify triggers, challenge unhelpful thought patterns, and build more helpful responses — reducing anxiety over time through consistent, structured practice.
