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By Tamar E. Chansky, Ph.D.; 308 pages. Subtitle: Powerful, Practical Solutions to Overcome Your Child's Fears, Worries, and Phobias

It's natural for parents to worry about their kids. But when the kids are worrying more than the parents, that's cause for real concern. Stress is becoming more and more of a problem for our overworked, overbooked kids. When does stress become anxiety, and anxiety become a disorder?

This book can help you figure that out, and give you an idea of what to do next.

About the Guide Rating



Pros

• Covers a very wide range of anxiety-related problems and disorders.
• Explains anxiety to parents and helps them explain it to their children.
• Includes useful diagrams for visualizing anxiety and responses to it.
• Boxes offer practical, easy-to-find ideas.
• Calm tone helps to ease anxiety about anxiety.

Cons

• The burden is still on parents to figure out what's serious and what's not.
• Some strategies may need to be adapted for kids with special needs.
• Case studies may not relate directly to your child.
• Parents with anxiety issues of their own may be led to obsess over their child's worries.

Description

• Part I: Anxiety Disorder Basics
  Chapters 1-5; understanding, diagnosing and managing anxiety
• Part II: All Worries Great and Small: Common Childhood Fears and Worries and Problem Anxieties
• Chapter 6: From Everyday Worries to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Chapter 7: From the Mini-Scaries to Real Phobias

• Chapter 8: From Shyness to Social Anxiety and Selective Mutism
• Chapter 9: From Clinginess to Separation Anxiety and Panic Disorder
• Chapter 10: From Superstitions and Rituals to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and PANDAS
• Chapter 11: From Nervous Habits to Tourette Syndrome and Trichotillomania
• Chapter 12: From Acute Stress to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Part III: Anxiety: Beyond the Diagnosis
  Chapters 13-16; includes sleep, school, and the real world

Guide Review - Book Review: Freeing Your Child from Anxiety

The start of middle school was tough on my daughter. A creature of routine, she hated leaving her comfy elementary school and going to a strange new campus. The teachers rattled off loads of instructions in the first few days and my language-processing-challenged girl was convinced she was missing something important and would be in big trouble. Every night she begged me not to make her go back; every morning, she threw up before getting in the car. Although after a week or so the more extreme signs of anxiety died down, she suffered headaches and stomachaches on and off for months.

It was against this background that I sought out “Freeing Your Child from Anxiety,” and while, like most such books, it wasn’t a magic cure, it did help. It gave me some guidelines for how to effectively talk to her about her fears and frustrations, and it gave her an effective framework in which to place those out-of-control scary thoughts. We used the description of the “worry brain” vs. the “smart brain” to talk through her worries and come up with more realistic interpretations. She appreciated the illustrations, and I appreciated the sample dialogues.

In the end, what may have calmed her the most was seeing that there was a whole book about this stuff, and so she must not be the only kid in the world to be so freaked out by things. And what may have calmed me the most was reading some of the case studies here and realizing my daughter wasn’t really so bad off after all.

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