Présentation de l'éditeur
Anxiety is the number one mental health problem facing young people today.
Childhood should be a happy and carefree time, yet more and more children today are exhibiting symptoms of anxiety, from bedwetting and clinginess to frequent stomach aches, nightmares, and even refusing to go to school. Parents everywhere want to know: All children have fears, but how much is normal? How can you know when a stress has crossed over into a full-blown anxiety disorder? Most parents don’t know how to recognize when there is a real problem and how to deal with it when there is.
In Freeing Your Child From Anxiety, a childhood anxiety disorder specialist examines all manifestations of childhood fears, including social anxiety, Tourette’s Syndrome, hair-pulling, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and guides you through a proven program to help your child back to emotional safety.
No child is immune from the effects of stress in today’s media-saturated society. Fortunately, anxiety disorders are treatable. By following these simple solutions, parents can prevent their children from needlessly suffering today—and tomorrow.
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Extrait
CHAPTER 1
"I Can't, I'm Too Scared"
UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN'S FEARS AND WORRIES
From the children:
When I was little my mom worked the "graveyard shift" at the hospital. Every night I was so worried that meant she was going to die and I'd never see her again.
When people tell me to lighten up, that things aren't so bad, it makes me feel much worse. They must think I actually like being this way.
Views from parents:
It is very hard to see my daughter in pain and so scared. Before we got treatment, I felt there was nothing I could do to alleviate her pain. I felt so helpless, being the parent and not knowing what to do; that was the worst feeling.
Teachers think I'm nuts because my daughter is picture perfect at school. She's the model student--never a problem. But at home she totally falls apart, her anxiety is so intense, it makes normal life impossible for us. I wish they could see her at home so they would understand what I'm talking about.
Anxiety in Children: Too Much of a Good Thing?
"Don't run into the street, stop climbing on that, careful, that will break." These are words that most parents have to say over and over again, but that most parents of anxious children will probably never have to utter. In fact, parents may find themselves kept in check by their worrying child--"Did you lock the door? Is the gas tank full? Did you send in the permission slip?" Though it can often be confusing or frustrating to parents that their child must feel every wrinkle in the day and race ahead to prepare for every eventuality, we must understand that anxious kids are just doing what their brain tells them to do. Anxious children are highly cautious, overcorrecting for the possibility of danger. In fact their wiring has them seeing danger when it's not there. Born with a mind that casts tall, scary shadows on ordinary things, they spend their days enduring great distress over things that their peers don't even notice. Anxious kids may recognize that they are different, but they don't know why, assuming that this is just how they are.
Because we don't see things as anxious kids do, we may be impatient, judgmental, and perhaps even overprotective, but not necessarily effective. The more that we can understand about what our children are seeing and feeling when they are anxious, distortions and all, the more we can empathize. If we don't empathize, we lose our audience. They won't stick around for the lesson, because they think you don't understand the problem in the first place.
Children's fears are a source of concern, distress, and even embarrassment for parents. When it's their child who is hiding in the corner at the birthday party, in tears at the school play, or unable to go on the school camping trip, parents are stuck. Rather than getting mobilized to help
