Anxiety Activities for Kids and Teens

Watching your child or teen struggle with anxiety can feel overwhelming. You might notice them worrying excessively about school, avoiding social situations, or experiencing physical symptoms like stomachaches or difficulty sleeping. The encouraging news? Anxiety in young people is highly treatable, and there are many engaging, effective activities that can help children and teens develop the skills they need to manage anxious feelings.

Understanding Anxiety in Young People

Before exploring specific activities, it’s helpful to understand what anxiety looks like in children and teens. Anxiety isn’t just worry; it’s a complex experience that can show up in many ways:

Physical signs might include headaches, stomachaches, muscle tension, rapid heartbeat, or difficulty sleeping.

Emotional signs can involve excessive worry, fear of making mistakes, irritability, or feelings of dread about everyday activities.

Behavioral signs often include avoiding situations that cause anxiety, seeking frequent reassurance, difficulty concentrating, or changes in eating habits.

It’s important to remember that experiencing anxiety doesn’t mean something is wrong with your child. Anxiety is a natural emotion that everyone experiences, and learning to manage it is a valuable life skill that will serve them well into adulthood.

The Science Behind Anxiety Activities

Research has shown that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is highly effective for treating anxiety in children and adolescents, with studies finding that approximately 55-60% of children recover from their anxiety diagnosis following a course of 10-16 sessions. What’s particularly encouraging is that NIH researchers found that CBT actually alters brain activity in children with anxiety, helping normalize brain function in areas responsible for emotional regulation.

The activities we’ll explore draw from these evidence-based approaches, offering practical ways to build coping skills at home, at school, and in daily life.

Creative and Expressive Activities

Art Activities for Emotional Expression

Art provides a wonderful outlet for children and teens to express feelings that might be difficult to put into words. Art activities give children an outlet to express their anxiety in a creative way, and you can use their creations to start conversations about their emotions.

Relaxation Stones: Have your child paint calming pictures or designs on smooth stones using acrylic paint. Once dry, spray them with clear gloss. These stones can serve as a source of comfort, particularly for children who have social anxiety, and can be carried in a pocket or backpack.

Collage Creation: Provide old magazines, newspapers, and printed materials. Have your child cut out images and words that make them feel happy, safe, or calm, then create a collage. This simple yet fun process allows children to flex their creative muscles while maintaining a sense of calm.

Coloring: Coloring is one of the most relaxing activities for anybody with anxiety, especially children. It encourages focus without requiring significant effort, helps develop fine motor skills in younger children, and gives kids a sense of control over what they’re creating.

Superhero Creation: For younger children, tap into their imagination by having them draw themselves as a superhero with special powers. Have them write a newspaper story about how their superhero helps the world. This can make a child feel more positive about themselves and functions as a form of positive self-talk.

Calming Crafts and Sensory Activities

Calming Jars: Mix warm water, glitter glue, and glitter in a jar. When shaken, the swirling glitter slowly settles, providing a visual focus that can help calm racing thoughts. Children can shake the jar when feeling anxious and watch it settle as they practice deep breathing.

Stress Balls: Fill a balloon with flour, rice, orbeez, or Play-Doh using a small funnel, then tie the end and double wrap it in another balloon for extra security. Stress balls make great fidgets for nervous kids and serve as helpful distractions.

Slime Making: The process of making slime is fun, and it’s also an awesome therapeutic tool for sensory-seeking kids. Add lavender oil for additional calming benefits. Just a few minutes of running slime through their fingers can help reduce baseline anxiety levels.

Cognitive and Thought-Based Activities

Worry Management Techniques

Worry Box or Jar: Children decorate a box however they like, with Mod Podge, glitter, markers, or stickers. Explain that the box will be a spot where they keep their worries when they don’t have time to think about them. They write their worry on a piece of paper and place it in the box to be addressed at a later time. This gives kids a sense of control over their anxiety, and parents can set aside a certain time of day to talk about their fears.

Challenging Anxious Thoughts

Many anxious thoughts stem from unhelpful thinking patterns. Teaching children to recognize and challenge these thoughts is a core skill in managing anxiety.

Thought Detective: Help children gather evidence for and against their anxious thoughts. You can play thought detective with different thought examples, asking them to decide if thoughts are helpful or unhelpful.

De-catastrophizing: Examine the best, worst, and most likely scenarios when a child is catastrophizing. This helps them see that the outcome they’re fearing might not be as likely as they think.

Challenging Questions: Teach children to ask themselves questions like “Will this problem matter in an hour, a day, a week?”, “What would I tell a friend with this worry?”, and “What is another possibility?”

Positive Self-Talk: Generate and practice positive self-talk statements. This might look like going through different self-talk statements and having the child decide how helpful they think each one is.

Changing Negative to Positive

Changing negative thoughts to positive thoughts involves identifying negative thoughts and then coming up with positive thoughts one can have instead. This helps kids overcome negative thinking that often accompanies anxiety and allows them to express themselves more positively.

Physical and Movement Activities

Exercise and Active Play

Regular physical activity has been shown to reduce anxiety symptoms in children by promoting the release of endorphins and reducing stress hormones. The wonderful thing about exercise for anxiety is that it doesn’t need to be complicated or structured.

Simple Movement Ideas:

• Throwing and catching a Frisbee
• Skipping rope
• Swimming
• Walking around the neighborhood
• Indoor rock climbing
• Batting practice
• Dancing to favorite music
• 20 jumping jacks for a quick anxiety reset

Try to get your child engaged in physical activity every day, especially before an anxiety trigger like a test at school. Exercise helps clear their head and lower stress levels.

Yoga and Mind-Body Practices

Teaching children relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, or yoga can help them learn to calm their bodies and minds when feeling anxious. These practices combine physical movement with breath awareness, making them particularly effective for emotional regulation.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This technique teaches children to recognize and release physical tension. Studies have found that high school students who practiced progressive muscle relaxation twice a week for eight weeks had lower stress, anxiety, and depression than their classmates.

How to Practice:

1. Find a comfortable position
2. Starting with the toes, tense each muscle group for 5 seconds
3. Release and relax for 10 seconds
4. Work up through the body: feet, calves, thighs, abdomen, chest, arms, hands, neck, and face
5. Notice the difference between tension and relaxation

Breathing and Mindfulness Activities

Deep Breathing Exercises

Deep breathing helps activate the body’s relaxation response, signaling to the nervous system that you’re safe and helping to calm intense emotions naturally. Research indicates that slow, guided breathing can improve heart rate control and lower blood pressure.

Simple Breathing Technique:

• Breathe in through the nose for 4 counts
• Hold gently for 4 counts
• Exhale through the mouth for 6 counts
• Repeat several times

Bubble Breathing: For younger children, have them pretend they’re blowing bubbles. Breathe in through the nose, then blow out slowly and gently as if blowing a bubble.

Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment without judgment. Research supports its effectiveness in reducing anxiety symptoms in teens, and studies have found that teens and young adults who participated in mindfulness programs had lower stress and used more helpful ways to manage their emotions.

Getting Started:

• Begin with just 5 minutes daily
• Sit quietly and notice breath, sounds, or body sensations
• When thoughts arise, gently label them and return to the focus point
• Gradually increase time as comfort builds
• Use guided meditation apps or recordings if helpful

Activities Specifically for Teens

Journaling and Self-Reflection

Journaling holds a lot of power as it helps organize thoughts, gain clarity, and shows patterns of how we behave and react during certain situations. One research study found that journaling or drawing about a stressful event two times a day, for one week, helped reduce depression and anxiety.

Journaling Prompts for Teens:

• What am I feeling right now, and where do I notice it in my body?
• What triggered this feeling, and what thoughts came with it?
• What’s one thing I’m grateful for today?
• What’s a challenge I faced recently, and how did I handle it?
• What would I tell a friend who was going through something similar?

Music and Creative Expression

Whether it’s painting, drawing, playing an instrument, or listening to music, art and music therapy offer an outlet for expression and can be incredibly therapeutic. Studies using mobile apps found that teens who created emotion-based playlists improved in emotion regulation over several months.

Music Strategies:

• Create playlists that match current mood, then playlists for desired mood
• Play an instrument or sing as emotional expression
• Listen to calming music when needing to soothe intense emotions
• Use upbeat music to boost energy when feeling low

Positive Mantras and Affirmations

Finding your own mantra or using positive affirmations can impact your mindset and serve as a beacon of strength during tough times. Research shows that affirmations can help decrease stress, increase wellbeing, and improve academic performance.

Examples might include:

• “I can handle this”
• “This feeling will pass”
• “I am stronger than my anxiety”
• “I’ve gotten through hard things before”

Social Connection and Support

Teens should be encouraged to talk about their feelings with someone they trust. Social support can come from family, friends, or mental health services. Peer support groups can be a comforting space for teens to share their experiences with others who are going through similar

Organizational and Problem-Solving Activities

Breaking Down Big Tasks

To-do lists can help ease anxiety around big projects by breaking them into smaller steps. Homework logs can help children visualize all of their schoolwork in a streamlined way that helps them tackle their lists.

Task Management Tips:

• Break large projects into small, manageable steps
• Prioritize tasks, often starting with the easiest item
• Check off completed items for a sense of accomplishment
• Use visual organizers or planners

Teaching Problem-Solving Skills

Anxiety can often be a response to perceived problems or challenges. Teaching teens structured problem-solving skills can help them feel more in control.

Problem-Solving Steps:

1. Identify the problem clearly
2. Brainstorm possible solutions without judging them
3. Consider the pros and cons of each option
4. Choose one solution to try
5. Evaluate how it worked

Exposure and Facing Fears

One of the most effective approaches for reducing anxiety involves gradually facing feared situations rather than avoiding them. While this might sound counterintuitive, research shows that approaching situations we fear is the most effective way to decrease anxiety.

Creating a Fear Ladder:

1. List situations that cause anxiety
2. Rate each from 1-10 based on difficulty
3. Start with lower-rated situations and gradually work up
4. Practice each step until it becomes more comfortable
5. Celebrate progress at each level

After exposure activities, it’s important to process them together. Ask: What was it like to imagine these worrisome things were happening? How big was your worry before and after using coping skills?

Making Activities Work: Practical Tips

Start Small and Build Consistency

Choose 2-3 activities that resonate with your child and practice them regularly. It’s better to do a few techniques consistently than to try everything sporadically.

Practice During Calm Moments

When you’re mid-meltdown, it’s not the time to introduce a new coping skill,your brain is in survival mode. Practice during predictable, calm moments when your child feels safe and supported.

Make It Age-Appropriate

Younger children might prefer crafts, movement activities, and imaginative play. Tweens might enjoy a mix of creative activities and cognitive strategies. Teens often benefit from journaling, music, mindfulness, and problem-solving approaches.

Model the Skills Yourself

If you are in a situation with your teen where they could use a relaxation skill but are not doing so, give a gentle reminder to encourage them and then model the skill yourself. Children learn powerfully from watching the adults in their lives.

Be Patient and Flexible

Not every activity will work for every child. If something doesn’t resonate, try a different approach. Some skills work for some children but not for others, and some skills may work in certain situations but not in others.

Celebrate Effort, Not Just Results

Acknowledge when your child tries to use a coping skill, even if they’re still feeling anxious. Building these skills takes time, and every attempt is progress.

When to Seek Professional Support

While these activities can be tremendously helpful, sometimes additional support makes an important difference. Consider reaching out to a mental health professional if:

• Anxiety significantly interferes with school, friendships, or family life
• Your child experiences panic attacks or severe physical symptoms
• Avoidance behaviors are increasing despite trying coping strategies
• You’re concerned about your child’s safety or well-being
• Your child has been using coping skills but isn’t seeing improvement

Research shows that treatment of anxiety should begin with therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy for children and adolescents with anxiety produces marked reductions in anxiety symptoms and disorders that are maintained over the long term.

Moving Forward with Hope

If your child or teen is struggling with anxiety, remember that you’re not alone, and effective help is available. The activities we’ve explored are backed by research and have helped countless young people develop the skills to manage anxious feelings and build resilience.

According to research findings, reducing stress and promoting mental health among adolescents might lessen motivations for unhealthy coping behaviors. By teaching children and teens healthy coping activities, we’re giving them tools that will serve them not just now, but throughout their lives.

Every child is unique, and what works for one might not work for another. The key is to explore different activities, stay patient and encouraging, and remember that learning to manage anxiety is a skill that improves with practice. With time, support, and the right tools, your child can develop the confidence and resilience to navigate anxiety and thrive.