{Child} Anxiety 101

I dropped my daughter at Preschool this morning and as I was leaving to head home and write, I noticed that they were setting up chairs for a meeting in the gym. This jogged my memory about an email I'd received recently about a free Child Anxiety Workshop with Buffy Smith, PhD. Yup, it was today. I've been to this very workshop twice before, so I could have skipped it, but no. I love these things. These discussions. I am a sucker for exploring ideas. I can't get enough of it.

And Anxiety? It's something I have personally experienced before. Acutely. Subtly. It's something that affects my day-to-day. I think it's something that is a part of all of our lives, a feature of modern existence maybe particularly in this city I'm fortunate to call home. Here's the thing: Knock wood, but my kids don't strike me as anxious beings. There aren't particular issues I'm worried about with them. Rather, I am interested in this topic more generally to the extent that it affects, and should affect, life and parenting.

And so I decided it was a privilege to be able to go to this event and that I would take notes and communicate them here. Because I know that this topic affects all of us. I also know that we don't all live in big cities with elite schools that offer this kind of thing on a random Tuesday morning. So, this post is not intended to be artful but informative. Here goes. Oh, and a caveat: This is all culled from my notes and it is entirely possible that I misheard or misinterpreted something Dr. Smith said! {Oh, and leave a comment below for the chance to win three books Dr. Smith mentioned.}

anxiety can be a good thing.

As someone who considers herself a Type-A anxiety-prone creature, this was obviously good to hear. Dr. Smith said that anxiety is often connected to growth, that when our kids are developing and hitting certain milestones, they often experience a concomitant anxiety. These are called Developmental Anxieties. Obviously, we want our kids to grow and evolve so we must be prepared to witness certain anxieties in our kids, and help them cope. Moreover, there are anxieties whose sources are external. These are called Environmental Anxieties. Again, facing these stresses (enumerated below) is part of life and can ultimately be a good thing and make our kids more tough and resilient.

Developmental Anxieties

Again, these are anxieties that have to do with development of the child. Examples include:

1. Stranger Anxiety. When a child is fearful or wary of strangers. Often begins around 6 months or so.
2. Separation Anxiety. When a child is anxious about separating from his/her parents/caregivers/known entities. This can continue in school years and beyond. Dr. Smith said that many adults experience separation anxiety every Sunday night as we ponder leaving the nest and experiencing another week in the world.
3. New Situation Anxiety. When a child is anxious about new situations like birthday parties, classes, trips, etc.
4. Real/Pretend Distinction Anxiety. When a young child is just learning to distinguish between what's pretend and what's real, this can cause anxiety. An example is a fear of monsters.
5. Real Danger Anxiety. When a child develops fears about real life dangers - i.e. burglary, natural disasters, diseases, death, etc.

environmental anxieties

Again, these are types of anxiety whose sources reside in the world instead of the child herself. Possible sources:

1. Loss. A child's experience of losses bigger (death, divorce) and smaller (end of school year, saying goodbye to a friend or teacher) can create anxiety.
2. Change. Many children are sensitive to changes in routine or schedule.
3. Discrepant Expectations. Kids often experience anxiety when there are different sets of expectations at play, i.e. when parents are separated and each parent has different rules at his/her home or when two parents within the same household have different approaches/rules/expectations.
4. Performance Anxiety. A biggie here in NYC, young kids often experience anxiety when they are expected to perform on tests, in school settings, etc.

nature versus nurture

Anxiety is an area where the ubiquitous nature versus nurture debate should have considerable billing. Different kids, depending on who they are and how they are being raised, will respond to anxiety in markedly different ways. Three things that affect how an individual child might respond to anxiety are:

1. Temperament. Depending on a child's temperament, he/she will be more or less porous to sources of stress and more or less able to cope with the anxiety said sources cause.
2. Life Experiences. Children who have weathered difficult life experiences might be more prone to anxiety. Then again, Dr. Smith noted, it is often the kids who have been through a lot who have developed the most resilience and are therefore better able to cope with anxiety when it comes.
3. Environmental/Parental Response. Our kids' ability to cope with anxiety is related to how we as parents and caregivers cope with anxiety. A sobering thought, no? In essence, we need to be careful to process the world and its stresses in a way that models how we'd like our children to respond to these very stresses. Easier said than done, I know. And the doctor also noted that this doesn't necessarily mean we should never let our kids see us anxious or upset.

anxiety is normal. unless it isn't. {when to seek help.}

One of the fellow moms in the workshop asked this very good question, namely: when should we begin to worry that our child's anxiety is bordering on pathological and it is time to seek help? Dr. Smith noted two factors that we should keep in mind:

1. Duration. If the child's anxiety goes on and on and no longer seems to relate to discretely stressful situations or sources (see above) and Anxiety seems to become the "lay of the land" for this particular child, it might be time to get a professional opinion.
2. Interference. If the child's anxiety has developed to a point where it seems to be interfering with the business of childhood (i.e. the ability to play, eat, sleep, attend school, etc) then it is probably time to look into things.

this is not just about kids, is it?

The workshop was instructive and fascinating, but what intrigued me most is that virtually every single thing Dr. Smith said about children can be applied to adults. We all go through our days experiencing anxiety. We all run up against stressful situations, internal and external. We all have different temperaments, life experiences. We were all raised by different parents. Anyway, the point is that this is not just about our kids and how to raise them well and help them thrive in an increasingly anxiety-provoking world (hello Krim Tragedy, Hurricane Sandy, Newtown, Boston), but how to help ourselves do the same.

And I figure that information - and conversation - are good places to begin.

Hope that you all found this somewhat interesting/helpful/insightful. The cool thing is that I approached Dr. Smith after the session and told her that I would love to consult her on an ongoing basis about parenting questions and she seemed really open to this. How amazing to have an expert to call upon when having these discussions, right?

Oh, and Dr. Smith mentioned three recent books in the parenting literature that she thinks are worth checking out: How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, Teach Your Children Well by Madeline Levine, PhD, Quiet  by Susan Cain. I own and loved the first, but plan to go ahead and order the other two. Also, I will be giving away one copy of each book to a randomly-selected commenter below.

Have you personally experienced anxiety? Have your kids had any bigger or smaller issues with anxiety? Do you agree that anxiety is part and parcel of modern life? How have you coped with anxiety or helped your kids cope with it? Do you have any particular questions or anxiety-related topics you'd like me to explore here on the blog?

{PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT HERE BEFORE 12PM EST ON FRIDAY, MAY 10 FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THE 3 BOOKS NOTED ABOVE!}