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Anxiety-Free Kids: An Interactive Guide for Parents and Children
Anxiety-Free Kids (2nd ed.) offers parents strategies that help children become happy and worry-free, methods that relieve a child's excessive anxieties and phobias, and tools for fostering interaction and family-oriented solutions. Using a unique companion approach that offers two books in one―a practical, reader-friendly book for parents and a fun workbook for kids―this solutions-oriented guide utilizes the cognitive-behavioral approach to therapy and integrates the parent in the child's self-help process.
Research has shown that if left untreated, children with anxiety disorders are at higher risk to perform poorly in school, to have less-developed social skills, and to be more vulnerable to substance abuse. Covering the six most commonly occurring anxiety disorders―generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, specific phobias, social phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder―this book gives kids and parents successful strategies for achieving relaxation, conquering worries, challenging faulty thinking patterns, developing positive self-talk, and facing one's fears.
Educational Resource
Research has shown that if left untreated, children with anxiety disorders are at higher risk to perform poorly in school, to have less-developed social skills, and to be more vulnerable to substance abuse. Covering the six most commonly occurring anxiety disorders―generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, specific phobias, social phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder―this book gives kids and parents successful strategies for achieving relaxation, conquering worries, challenging faulty thinking patterns, developing positive self-talk, and facing one's fears.
Educational Resource
332 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2008
34 people are currently reading
434 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 10, 2018
My pediatrician recommended this after I spoke to her about my son’s anxious behavior. Doing the cbt steps outlined has completely changed my outlook in dealing with him and also my own lifelong anxiety. He hasn’t finished the program, but the way we handle and speak about his fears is creating a more resilient child. A few days ago, he told me something scared him, but he was doing it anyway because he wouldn’t let fear be the boss of him. That’s a new kid!
March 27, 2017
Practical and helpful. I love that it is broken into parts for both parents and children. This book has some concrete tips and actions that really made a difference in helping my daughter's anxiety.
October 26, 2012
An accessible, good book that focuses on cognitive behavioral therapy to treat anxiety disorders in children. "If we change the way we think, we change the way we feel." There is a book for parents and one for kids; they both follow the same information, but the children's side is simplified. Each chapter guides the reader / user through CBT with information and activities.
Chapters cover (in other words, notes to myself :D) -
- Making a ladder with goals to face fears.
- Learning to relax the body through calm breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and relaxing imagery.
- Conquering worries by understanding useful vs useless worry, asking "What is the worst thing that could happen?" and "Could I handle it?", getting big picture perspective ("At the end of your very, very long and very, very wonderful life, will it really matter if _____?"), scheduling worry time, using positive self-talk, talking back to anxiety, and dealing with anticipatory anxiety.
- Changing thoughts by looking at the situation, thought, thinking error, and then using a replacement thought. Cognitive distortions / thinking errors include catastrophizing, all-or-nothing, filtering, magnifying, shoulds, mind reading, overgeneralization, personalization, selective attention, & probability overestimation. "To replace her thoughts, your child must 'consider the facts' and ask herself, "What proof do I have that this thought is correct?""
- Changing behaviors that include reassurance seeking, clinging, crying, picking, fidgeting, freezing, tantrums / meltdowns, scanning environment (for signs to make them relaxed), & rituals. Reinforce "you against your fear" with encouragement that she can win.
Can use distraction techniques such as: "Your child can focus on something that she can see (e.g., a tree, book, sneakers) and try to think of five or more different parts of it or ways to describe it (e.g., Wjat color is it? What shape is it? What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What could you use it for?" And, "Pick a color and think of five things that come in that color."
Can alter nervous behaviors, after accomplishing a some of the ladder goals, by helping child identify when they are happening & monitoring it on a calendar to track when none are exhibited.
Chapters cover (in other words, notes to myself :D) -
- Making a ladder with goals to face fears.
- Learning to relax the body through calm breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and relaxing imagery.
- Conquering worries by understanding useful vs useless worry, asking "What is the worst thing that could happen?" and "Could I handle it?", getting big picture perspective ("At the end of your very, very long and very, very wonderful life, will it really matter if _____?"), scheduling worry time, using positive self-talk, talking back to anxiety, and dealing with anticipatory anxiety.
- Changing thoughts by looking at the situation, thought, thinking error, and then using a replacement thought. Cognitive distortions / thinking errors include catastrophizing, all-or-nothing, filtering, magnifying, shoulds, mind reading, overgeneralization, personalization, selective attention, & probability overestimation. "To replace her thoughts, your child must 'consider the facts' and ask herself, "What proof do I have that this thought is correct?""
- Changing behaviors that include reassurance seeking, clinging, crying, picking, fidgeting, freezing, tantrums / meltdowns, scanning environment (for signs to make them relaxed), & rituals. Reinforce "you against your fear" with encouragement that she can win.
Can use distraction techniques such as: "Your child can focus on something that she can see (e.g., a tree, book, sneakers) and try to think of five or more different parts of it or ways to describe it (e.g., Wjat color is it? What shape is it? What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like? What could you use it for?" And, "Pick a color and think of five things that come in that color."
Can alter nervous behaviors, after accomplishing a some of the ladder goals, by helping child identify when they are happening & monitoring it on a calendar to track when none are exhibited.
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September 11, 2023My older kid has anxiety, but has been resistant to doing therapy or really anything. What I've been looking for are resources for parents to help their kids with their anxiety. Things I can say to her to help calm her down or shut down the perseverating she often does. Generally there was some good information here, although the program would be a lot more useful for a kid with specific fears rather than generally being anxious about everything. I also took issue with a number of aspects of the book.
First, the title and the general tone that once you do this program your child will be cured of their anxiety. I'm not looking to cure my child nor do I think someone with anxiety can be or needs to be cured. It's a part of them and how their brain works and even if they challenge one fear or learn strategies to mitigate the anxiety, it can still crop up and is still there and that's fine. They just need to have strategies for dealing with it when it does come up. In theory that's what this book does and in that regard I think it was fine, but the undertone of needing curing and being able to cure was icky.
Second, there are people like my own child for whom anxiety has always been a part of how they move through the world and they don't see their anxiety. As her parent I see how it gets in her way and can make her miserable, but she doesn't see that. Which means when we talk about therapy or doing these workbooks or whatever, she doesn't see a need to do them. The book recommends forcing your child to do the program, which I know for my kid would be totally counterproductive and honestly feels like a violation of her bodily autonomy. I know a lot of parents want to deal with anxiety because they need to force their child into a world that is unfriendly to how they function, but that's an issue with the world not the child and violating their autonomy doesn't seem like a great way to help them. My child has no sense that there is a world out there with diminished anxiety, so she's not interested in doing the work. I think she will eventually realize there is, but not right now and forcing her to do something isn't going to give her that perspective. This is why I want some tips and tricks as a parent for how to understand what's going on in her brain and how best I can help her *without* forcing her to do things she isn't prepared to do.
Third, there's some diet bullshit in here. She recommends a book and a diet that is so clearly a scam about removing sugar and gluten from kids diets. And OMG I almost threw the book across the room. This lady is not a doctor or a dietitian so should steer very clear of giving any dietary advice. Most kids do not need to be put on diets (unless there is a medical reason like diabetes or a true gluten allergy) and a diet will do more harm than good for their mental health. There is no science to back up the diet she recommends, if you want to know more look into the work of Christy Harrison and Dr. Laura Thomas.
Ultimately I was mixed about the book and can't say if it was helpful or not for my situation and can't really say if I would recommend it to other parents. If your local library has it and you can skim it without buying it first then I would say it might be worth looking into. But for the love of all things holy, ignore her stupid diet bullshit.
First, the title and the general tone that once you do this program your child will be cured of their anxiety. I'm not looking to cure my child nor do I think someone with anxiety can be or needs to be cured. It's a part of them and how their brain works and even if they challenge one fear or learn strategies to mitigate the anxiety, it can still crop up and is still there and that's fine. They just need to have strategies for dealing with it when it does come up. In theory that's what this book does and in that regard I think it was fine, but the undertone of needing curing and being able to cure was icky.
Second, there are people like my own child for whom anxiety has always been a part of how they move through the world and they don't see their anxiety. As her parent I see how it gets in her way and can make her miserable, but she doesn't see that. Which means when we talk about therapy or doing these workbooks or whatever, she doesn't see a need to do them. The book recommends forcing your child to do the program, which I know for my kid would be totally counterproductive and honestly feels like a violation of her bodily autonomy. I know a lot of parents want to deal with anxiety because they need to force their child into a world that is unfriendly to how they function, but that's an issue with the world not the child and violating their autonomy doesn't seem like a great way to help them. My child has no sense that there is a world out there with diminished anxiety, so she's not interested in doing the work. I think she will eventually realize there is, but not right now and forcing her to do something isn't going to give her that perspective. This is why I want some tips and tricks as a parent for how to understand what's going on in her brain and how best I can help her *without* forcing her to do things she isn't prepared to do.
Third, there's some diet bullshit in here. She recommends a book and a diet that is so clearly a scam about removing sugar and gluten from kids diets. And OMG I almost threw the book across the room. This lady is not a doctor or a dietitian so should steer very clear of giving any dietary advice. Most kids do not need to be put on diets (unless there is a medical reason like diabetes or a true gluten allergy) and a diet will do more harm than good for their mental health. There is no science to back up the diet she recommends, if you want to know more look into the work of Christy Harrison and Dr. Laura Thomas.
Ultimately I was mixed about the book and can't say if it was helpful or not for my situation and can't really say if I would recommend it to other parents. If your local library has it and you can skim it without buying it first then I would say it might be worth looking into. But for the love of all things holy, ignore her stupid diet bullshit.
August 9, 2020
This book contained a road map and lots of good tips to help your child manage their anxiety and overcome particularly strong problems impacting the child's and family's life. It's essentially do-it-yourself cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). It's divided into the main parent book and a version for the child to read (or have read to them - I would argue that for most kids young enough for this to be aimed at, including my 9y0, they can't or won't read this on their own ). The child book is in the form of perforated tear-out pages in the back, which is my only real complaint about the book. That's very sloppy and leaves a makeshift stapled together kids "book" and then a weirdly empty cover of the adult book afterward. The child book should be a separate small booklet packaged with it, or just sections incorporated into the rest of the text since much of it repeated the same material.
Other than that though I thought it was mostly good and has been somewhat helpful in assisting with managing my daughter's rather severe anxiety as we navigate trying to find a therapist during these quarantine times. We haven't followed the full plan because she found the practice of talking about all her fears at once and writing them all out to plan a big chart about it very distressing, which caused us to temporarily abandon the effort. But some part of what we talked about stuck so she did start to take it upon herself to want to face some fears, and we've just winged it using the general principles and mostly without use of the children's "book". The most important take-away is the importance of stopping enabling and validating the fears and I do think that has made a big difference after the initial discomfort of it. I would recommend this to families looking to treat anxiety on their own or who are struggling to connect with a therapist for their child.
Other than that though I thought it was mostly good and has been somewhat helpful in assisting with managing my daughter's rather severe anxiety as we navigate trying to find a therapist during these quarantine times. We haven't followed the full plan because she found the practice of talking about all her fears at once and writing them all out to plan a big chart about it very distressing, which caused us to temporarily abandon the effort. But some part of what we talked about stuck so she did start to take it upon herself to want to face some fears, and we've just winged it using the general principles and mostly without use of the children's "book". The most important take-away is the importance of stopping enabling and validating the fears and I do think that has made a big difference after the initial discomfort of it. I would recommend this to families looking to treat anxiety on their own or who are struggling to connect with a therapist for their child.
December 19, 2016
Good resource for teachers and parents of children that deal with anxiety. I really liked the PMR and guided relaxation scripts as well as the interactive component for children if doing as a parent/child self-study.
May 23, 2022
This work book has been really helpful for both of my kids. Parent's read the chapter, then there is a smaller chapter with an exercise to do with your kid(s).
March 15, 2015
Excellent resource for parents of kids suffering from any sort of anxiety. Zucker presents some general information on anxiety, but focuses on the practical fairly quickly. She presents a step-by-step method for helping a child to overcome their anxiety through Cognitive Behavior Modification (change behaviors by changing thoughts). Even better than the very helpful process is a separate section of the book designed for kids to read on their own, along with exercises that the parent and child can do together at each stage. A must read for anyone who has a child (or children) suffering from anxieyt.
February 17, 2014
Not only has this this book been a huge help for me, the pull-out kids companion guide with activities has helped me engage my children and make them a part of this as well.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews