The Balloon Technique: How To Calm Nervous Children

Many parents use the balloon technique to help their children stay calm under pressure. The balloon technique is a simple game that teaches deep breathing and helps children deal with stress in everyday life.

Childhood is a time for new experiences. Some of these can be scary for young children.

Fortunately, there are many strategies and tools that can help children learn how to relax in stressful situations.

Children are not born with the ability to calm themselves when they are bored. They seek comfort from their parents as they grow up. Children learn by example and discover techniques that work for them.

The balloon technique is one of these methods. It teaches deep breathing, which helps your child relax.

But what is deep breathing, and why is it so important?

Deep breathing

This technique can reduce your child’s anxiety and make them feel in control. Breathing is closely connected to the nervous system.

This means that deep breathing helps to relax the muscles and calm the mind. The balloon technique is a way to teach children to breathe properly to reduce stress in difficult moments.

This is how the balloon technique soothes a nervous child

The balloon technique soothes anxious children. It is a very effective method for deep breathing, and it can be used for children who have difficulty controlling their impulses.

Keep in mind that this is a game and it should be fun for kids. At the same time, it teaches them how their lungs work and how to control them.

That is how it works

This is a very simple exercise. You’ll need some balloons. Inflate one and explain to your child that like the balloon, people can get very tense when they are nervous. 

The balloon analogy is ideal for teaching children how their bodies work. Tell your child that he or she should imagine that their lungs are balloons. When they are nervous, they get filled up with air. 

The first thing your child needs to do is hold an uninflated balloon against their lips. Then they should breathe deeply through the nose and exhale into the balloon.

While exhaling, try to inflate the balloon as much as possible. Repeat this five times without removing the balloon from your mouth.

But your child should stop if he or she starts to feel dizzy. 

When the balloon is full of air, it is also a good idea to let the air out slowly. This shows your child how to control their own breathing. Most children take quick and small breaths when they are nervous.

Children prone to anxiety should use this exercise twice a day to improve the health of their lungs. Once in the morning and once before bedtime is ideal.

Objectives

The balloon technique allows children to:

• Get to know their bodies
• Learn to relax under pressure
• Control their impulses
• Have a calm mind
• Stay in control during anxiety-provoking situations

Advantage

This method has several benefits for children who are prone to anxiety:

• It increases lung capacity
• It trains the muscles of the membrane along with the lungs themselves
• This technique relieves the feeling of shortness of breath
• Improper breathing is associated with problems with speech, vocalization and articulation of sounds
• The balloon technique strengthens the lips’ muscles by constantly inflating balloons

In addition, this play draws another important parallel with real life. Just like with an inflated balloon, we can burst if we do not let air out.

If we let anxiety take over our body, we will ultimately not be able to cope with the pressure.