Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study aimed to explore the self-soothing behaviors of children with anxiety disorders, focusing on the strategies they employ to regulate distress and the meanings they attach to these practices. A qualitative research design with a descriptive–exploratory approach was employed. Twenty participants, including children diagnosed with anxiety disorders and their parents, were recruited from clinical and counseling centers in Tehran using purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis in NVivo 14. Data collection continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Credibility of the findings was ensured through peer debriefing and member checking. Analysis revealed four overarching themes of self-soothing behaviors: emotional regulation strategies, physical and sensory-based soothing, cognitive and imaginative coping, and social and relational soothing. Within emotional regulation strategies, children used breathing exercises, positive self-talk, distraction, comfort-seeking, and ritualized calming. Sensory-based soothing included movement activities, tactile comfort objects, oral soothing, grounding techniques, and protective postures. Cognitive and imaginative coping encompassed fantasy play, mental distraction, self-instruction, internalized parental coping, spiritual rituals, and thought-blocking. Relational soothing involved seeking parental and sibling support, peer and teacher assistance, nonverbal expression, withdrawal, and participation in group rituals. Both adaptive and maladaptive strategies were identified, reflecting the multidimensional nature of self-soothing in anxious children. The study highlights the centrality of self-soothing behaviors in the lived experiences of children with anxiety disorders, emphasizing their reliance on emotional, sensory, cognitive, and relational strategies. Findings demonstrate the importance of culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate interventions that strengthen adaptive self-soothing while addressing maladaptive patterns. The results contribute to clinical practice by informing the design of integrative, context-sensitive therapeutic approaches aimed at enhancing children’s resilience and emotional well-being.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".