Kids & Anxiety

Everyone experiences anxiety and worry from time to time, and children themselves pass through normal stages of fears. Worry in moderation is healthy, as it motivates us and prevents us from danger. But when worry is out of proportion to the situation and negatively impacts a child and family’s life, therapy can be a key to providing hope and relief.

Anxiety Disorders affect a surprising 1 in 8 children in the US. Research shows that children untreated for anxiety are at higher risk for developing additional issues, including poor school performance and missing out on important social experiences.

I help children develop necessary life skills to not only approach things they fear and better manage their internal struggles, and but to be happier and more resilient in adolescence and adulthood.

 

Therapeutic Approach:

At each stage, your child’s sessions will be catered specifically to their particular challenges, interests, and strengths.

Evidence-Based Approaches: First, I use evidence-based approaches of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to help your child learn to be more calm and relaxed, and experience a sense of control over their anxiety. Your child and I will collaboratively create a plan to approach their fears, implement their plan with parents’ support, and develop new ways to think about situations and themselves. As your child progresses, we may use certificates of accomplishments or celebrations to mark your child’s progress, keep them motivated, and increase pride and confidence.

Play Therapy: Next, play therapy is interwoven in our work including toys, games, crafts, and books to help anxious kids feel more comfortable and even excited to come to therapy. Play is also the best way that children learn, digest information, communicate, and engage. We will focus on identifying and processing feelings through play, art, and games to increase your child’s ability to articulate their feelings, rather than acting on them automatically through yelling, shutting down, physical meltdowns, or refusal to participate in activities.

Talk Therapy: For older children, talk therapy may be a larger component of our work, allowing your child to process their feelings and problem solve challenges. It can increase their sense of competence in managing the inevitable ups and downs of life.

Parenting Sessions: Finally, I provide parenting sessions to help you best support your child and reinforce skills learned in sessions. This will include education on anxiety in general, and techniques to help your child in particular. For some families, one or both caretakers have suffered with anxiety, and I particularly enjoy working with families to improve their own management of anxiety in order to help their children. Parenting is often one of the most important components to helping your child face their fears with new skills and a new attitude, with confidence and pride.

 

If your child struggles with any of the following issues, I can help:

  • Worries about multiple issues within life, beyond the usual level for other children their age
  • An intense fear of social and performance situations and activities such as being called on in class or starting a conversation with a peer
  • Easily upset and inconsolable around things they fear
  • Difficulties falling asleep on their own, including avoiding sleepovers
  • Perfectionism that holds them back from taking risks or keeps them working on projects well beyond the norm
  • Specific phobia that is an intense, irrational fear of a specific object, (ex. dogs), or a situation, (ex. flying).
  • Difficulties managing new situations, including new school, new teacher, changes in schedules, or extracurricular activities
  • Unwanted and intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and feeling compelled to repeatedly perform rituals and routines (compulsions) to try and ease anxiety
  • Sensory processing challenges that make their anxiety intensify
  • Physical manifestations of anxiety that do not have a medical explanation, including  stomach aches and headaches
  • ARFID (With children in separate feeding therapy as well as individual therapy with me)
  • “Stage fright” impacting their comfort and ability in taking part in recitals or school performances
  • Test taking anxiety, sometimes with a sense of the mind “going blank” despite knowing the answers, resulting in decreased academic performance or self confidence.
  • Anxiety that is so uncomfortable that your child feels hopeless or a sense of intense sadness