Helping Your Child with Fears and Worries 2nd Edition: A self-help guide for parents

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Parents and carers can get help and advice about children's mental health from Young Minds' free parent helpline on 0808 802 5544, from Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 4pm. Worry isn't all bad. It can be helpful as long as it doesn't last too long, become too intense, or happen too often. If your child is old enough, it may help to explain what anxiety is and the physical effects it has on our bodies. It may be helpful to describe anxiety as being like a wave that builds up and then ebbs away again. It's also common for preschool-age children to develop specific fears or phobias. Common fears in early childhood include animals, insects, storms, heights, water, blood and the dark. These fears usually go away gradually on their own. Teenagers are more likely to have social anxiety than other age groups, avoiding social gatherings or making excuses to get out of them.

Worrying about 'what-if' questions can spiral out of control. Jain and Tsabary suggest the 'best case-worst case' scenario exercise to help a child more accurately assess risk and helps prevent them from "over-worrying." Life Sciences> School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences> Anxiety and Depression in Young People (AnDY)Focus – rather than worry about the past, future or the unknown, focus on the present moment, the here and now Help them practice. When possible, help kids break a new thing into small steps. Let them practice one step at a time as they build toward their goal. Celebrate each success. Life Kit Now Is A Good Time To Talk To Kids About Civics Encourage kids to (re)discover their 'flow' Validate. Let kids know you understand. Say it’s okay to feel how they feel. Tell them their feelings are normal. Try not to say, "There's nothing to worry about." This can make kids think they shouldn't feel the way they do. Instead, listen calmly and accept how they feel. That makes it easier for kids to share. Encourage. Praise your child's effort and progress. Tell them what they said or did that made you proud. Help them relax so that stress and worry don't build up.

Severe anxiety like this can harm children's mental and emotional wellbeing, affecting their self-esteem and confidence. They may become withdrawn and go to great lengths to avoid things or situations that make them feel anxious. What are the signs of anxiety in children? Tsabary says adults often think terms of dualities: positive or negative, success or failure, good or bad. These fixed ways of looking at the world can paralyze people and are inadvertently taught to children. Children often find change difficult and may become anxious following a house move or when starting a new school. Jain tells children to think about their values: What's important to them? What values does their family live by? She says children can then start to "reconnect with a voice that was the loudest thing in your life when they came into the world."

Repeated routines or rituals that impact on a young person’s day such as being on time for or coping at school, being able to socialise and engage in hobbies or interests, being able to get up or go to sleep. Withdrawn and uncommunicative or not wanting to be left alone at all- this may seem uncharacteristic or age inappropriate for some teenagers. Children can feel anxious about different things at different ages. Many of these worries are a normal part of growing up. Renee Jain, founder of GoZen!, an online platform to help kids manage their anxiety, and Dr. Shefali Tsabary, a clinical psychologist, are authors of Superpowered: Transform Anxiety Into Courage, Confidence and Resilience . Life Kit 6 Tips For Making A Career Change, From Someone Who Has Done It Encourage a growth mindset

Children can be scared of all sorts of things, real and imaginary. They can show signs of fear as babies and start expressing it in words when they talk. The good news is, their fears usually go away gradually. So when your child is feeling scared, how can you help them feel better?Significant impact on health and wellbeing such as not sleeping or eating for a sustained period of time. May show signs of physical compromise (ill health) as a result of this. They might say, 'I don't really care. I feel like it's more dangerous to go in a plane,'" Jain says. When a child feels really anxious, the feeling overpowers the part of their brain that thinks logically about risk. So, for example, Jain says if they are anxious to fly in a plane, and you say, "you drive in a car every day. And statistically, that's actually more dangerous than flying," to the child this logic doesn't matter. Helping your child with fears and worries: guided self-help manual for therapists working with groups. First and foremost, it's important to talk to your child about their anxiety or worries. Reassure them and show them you understand how they feel.

The good news is, their fears usually go away gradually. But what should you do if your child is scared now? How can you help them feel better?Encourage, reward and praise a young person not to avoid; the more a young person avoids, the harder it becomes and the more anxious a young person will become. Instead, encourage the young person to face their fear- the more they face it, the easier it will become. Our ‘Helping your Child’ Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based programme is designed to give parents the skills needed to support their child and is suitable for children aged from 5 to 12 and includes: There may also be other times in a child's life when they feel anxious. For example, many children feel anxious when going to a new school or before tests and exams. Some children feel shy in social situations and may need support with this. When is anxiety a problem for children?