Helping your anxious child : a step-by-step guide for parents /
Ronald M. Rapee, Ann Wignall, Susan H. Spence, Vanessa Cobham, Heidi Lyneham.
- Second edition.
- vi, 283 pages ; 23 cm
This revised and expanded edition of the best-selling Helping Your Anxious Child offers parents the most up-to-date, proven-effective techniques for helping children overcome anxiety. The authors recommend that the readings and activities take place across a two to four month period and should be approached on a chapter-by-chapter basis to be effective, as each chapter builds on skills and techniques developed in earlier chapters. There are Parent Activities which are undertaken in advance of sitting down with a child, and there are activities, exercises and lessons at the end of each chapter which will help a child to learn how to manage anxiety, and each of which has some guidance notes for the adult. For example, Chapter Three opens with a discussion on how anxious people can tend to catastrophise, such as over-estimating the consequences of being late for an appointment or having an minor error in some homework. The authors propose realistic thinking to help alleviate anxiety induced by assuming the worse outcome, which they recommend calling "detective thinking" when discussing with a child. This is evidence-based reasoning, and the adult example given is feeling anxious about being called into your manager's office unexpectedly and jumping to the conclusion that there will be a negative outcome. By considering past experience, other general information, alternative explanations, and role reversal, it is likely that the negative belief will be exposed as unlikely. If not, considering the actual implications (e.g. "I'll be criticised, but it doesn't really matter: I can deal with it") is realistic, not fatalistic. This is followed by worksheets based on this premise for adults to explore evidence and responses to their own worries. The adult is then primed to help a child using the same premise but with age-adjusted language and activities, and with examples and suggested scripts to assist the adult. There is also an appendix with guided activities on how to help a child relax.