The purpose of learning coping skills is to help your child prepare for managing their emotions during exposure therapy, or what we call “mission plans” in LUNA. As you will learn in the upcoming section, mission plans are the main strategy that will help your child overcome their anxiety. As such, if your child is struggling with coping skills, there is no need to worry! They will still be able to do mission plans, and they will still be immensely helpful. Learning coping skills may be particularly hard for autistic children, so as long as they have tried their best, feel free to move on to mission plans. You can always come back to these sections later.
Remember to be proud of yourself!
Congratulations on being one step further along in the journey to help your child manage their anxiety! Maybe you have even learned some techniques to help you with your own stress! Take a moment to thank yourself for the hard work you have put into this program and forgive yourself for things that did not go as planned.
