Relax about anxious children
Worry less, make time for joy
RADNOR » Do you think your child is overly anxious, perhaps to the extent of having a clinical anxiety disorder? Take a deep breath and relax. Actual cases of anxiety disorder are few and far between, said Katherine K. Dahlsgaard, a clinical psychologist who spoke to parents at Radnor High School recently.
Dahlsgaard’s talk marked the fifth year for the Radnor Speaker series, a joint program of Radnor Township School District PTOs and the Agnes Irwin School, said Wendy Hill, head of school at Agnes Irwin. Dahlsgaard, a child psychologist and anxiety expert who specializes in the evaluation and treatment of anxiety disorders and is the clinical director of the Anxiety Behaviors Clinic and the Picky Eaters Clinic in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, also spoke to students Thursday about cognitive techniques to manage anxiety.
Dahlsgaard cited a 2009 study of thousands of children from 5 to 17 years old that showed only 2.2 to 9.5 percent suffer from an anxiety disorder.
“The odds are in your child’s favor,” Dahlsgaard told the parents. Also, it’s normal for teenagers to be anxious about things like college admissions, friendships, excelling at school, homework, athletics or social media. “Normal anxiety is adaptive,” she said.
And there are stages in a child’s life where anxiety is a milestone of intellectual development, such as separation anxiety at 18 months. That shows “they’ve developed a strong bond with you,” she said. While it makes it hard to drop toddlers off at day care, their screaming, clinging and crying is normal behavior. Another example is when children develop fears of ghosts and goblins. This shows they are developing “imaginative play,” which is “a huge cognitive achievement.”
It’s also normal for teenagers to have increased social anxiety. It’s adaptive for them to be more concerned about what their peers think than what their parents think because they are learning to become independent. “Think about your parents,” said Dahlsgaard. “They let you take the fall because they believed you could handle it.”
But signs of problematic anxiety are where children start to avoid certain things like going out in thunder storms and staying inside even if it looks like it might rain. When she works with her patients she has them experience whatever they are fearful of repeatedly so they learn that it won’t actually hurt them. As a parent, “you can insist your child not avoid vaccinations, attend play dates, attend school, and sleep in their own bed. You, as parents are well within your rights to insist,” she said.
Cognitive behavior therapy works well for anxiety disorders, although there are some safe pharmaceutics, as well, she said. She recommended that parents become their children’s coaches, rather than “helicopter pilots.” Kids need to learn that anxiety is “temporary and bearable” like anger or any other emotion. The best time to learn lessons such as life is not fair, is when they are still at home, “right here, right now,” Dahlsgaard said.
“You are now the head coach of team resilience,” Dahlsgaard said. Coaches put kids in situations that are physically and emotionally uncomfortable to make them stronger and to “help them to win when the stakes are high,” she said. “Stressful experiences can be good for your child’s brain,” she said.
She also urged the several hundred parents and educators in the audience to cut back on worrying. A technique she uses is to allow herself to worry five minutes a day. If she starts to worry at other times, she makes herself wait until the designated worry time. You can care about your kids without constantly worrying about them, which is counterproductive, she said.
She also counseled the audience to find time for joy and “schedule joy time into your day, every day.” Each night before you go to sleep, think of 10 good things that you did for your child or children and how it made you feel, she suggested.
Dahlsgaard said, “80 percent of what I do is train parents,” when asked whether parents could expose their children to situations that they fear to gradually reduce their anxiety.
One parent asked about her 19-year-old who does not want to go away to college. Dahlsgaard said not to worry about it.
“It will not last forever,” she said. “I am a big fan of community college for the first couple of years.”