Children's Mental Health: Listen Up! - Anxiety in Children and Young People

Thank you for all of that, Jose.

And, um, is there anything that parents or teachers or other people who are involved in a child or young person's life can do to support them when they're going through treatment for an anxiety disorder?

Yeah, this is key.

This is, um, really an important point because the way parents and teachers, um, react or respond to a child where, wh- who's developing an anxiety disorder will be key in terms of accessing help and support, and also in terms of sometimes defining how the anxiety disorder evolves or develops.

So the main thing to consider as a parent or as a teacher is that the child is not being difficult.

The child is really struggling.

Um, the fear response from the child is a genuine response, even though we might see what they fear most, the feared situation, as not dangerous, and we might really not quite understand why the child feels so overwhelmed by it.

The, the, the response in them is very genuine, is, is, is, is real.

So we need to be mindful of that.

So the child might behave in ways that we might misinterpret as misbehaving, but actually is not.

It's not misbehavior.

It's important that parents validate those feelings, but without reinforcing them.

It's a really fine line between being able to validate feelings without reinforcing them.

So for example, if a child comes to, uh, to, to you as a, as a father and asks, um, or wants some, some, some reassurance about a, a feared situation, instead of saying or res- r- responding with, "Don't worry, you'll be fine," um, saying something like, for example, "I can see that you really struggle with this and that this is difficult for you, but don't worry about this.

Together, we can overcome, we can, we can get on with it.

We can overcome it." So that's a very different...

This sounds similar, but it's a very different way to respond.

Firstly, because it, it's, it's, um, empathic, validates a worry, and also it offers, it gives a positive, optimistic message to the child that actually difficulties can be overcome.

So th- this is very subtle but is really important as a parent.

Uh, as a, as a parent or as a teacher, we also need to, to encourage the child to face those fears in a way that is manageable.

So sometimes we need to have a plan, do this, uh, jointly done with the child in terms of breaking down those fears into small steps that are manageable.

But rather than completely avoiding them altogether, which we just mentioned that, uh, it just, um, it would increase a- avoidance and, and in time, it will make the anxiety disorder worse.

So we call this great- gradual exposure, and it's part of the therapy.

So we can, as parents and teachers, help with that.

So, for example, if a child struggles with school for a specific reason, we might think of a plan to tackle that issue at school rather than a- agreeing with the child to be off school for the next month.