Seven Steps to Help Your Child Worry Less: A Family Guide

By Kristy Hagar, Sam Goldstein, Robert Brooks and Edward Hallowell

This guide for parents offers practical strategies to help teach children relaxation techniques, correct ways of thinking to combat worry and anxiety, and empowering behavioral interventions. Parents are encouraged to understand why children worry and to recognize if a child needs help with excessive worry. Explained are how to create a plan to help a child, effective strategies to reduce worry, and how to build a child's self-esteem and confidence so he or she can become more resilient. Additional guidance for medical professionals and for teachers is provided.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Specialty Press A.D.D. Warehouse
• Release date: Apr 1, 2003
• ISBN: 9781886941106

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Copyright© 2002 Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., Kristy S. Hagar, Ph.D. and Robert Brooks, Ph.D.

Reprinted 2011

All rights reserved.

No part of this book, except those portions specifically noted, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means now known or to be invented, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the publisher.

ISBN 1-886941-46-7 ISBN-13 978-1886941465

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Goldstein, Sam, 1952-

Seven steps to help your child worry less : a family guide/Sam Goldstein, Kristy S. Hagar, Robert Brooks; illustrated by Richard A. DiMatteo.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-886941-46-7 (alk. paper)

1. Worry in children. 2. Fear in children. 3. Anxiety in children. 4. Child rearing. I. Hagar, Kristy S., 1966- II. Brooks, Robert B. III. Title.

BF723.W67 .G65 2002

649’.6--dc21

2002075463

Cover design by Kall Graphics

Illustrations by Richard A. DiMatteo

Copyedited by Julia L. Parker

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

Specialty Press, Inc. 300 Northwest 70th Ave., Suite 102

Plantation, Florida 33317

[phone] • [phone]

www.addwarehouse.com

And when he came to the place where the wild things are

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

till Max said BE STILL!

and tamed them with the magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking.

Maurice Sendak

Where the Wild Things Are

Dedication

For Janet, Allyson, and Ryan

S.G.

For Chuck and Rachel

K.H.

With love to Marilyn, Rich and Cybèle, and Doug and Suzanne

R.B.

Thanks to Kathleen Gardner for her editorial support and Harvey C. Parker for appreciating our ideas.

S.G.

K.H.

R.B.

FOREWORD

Worry is an alarm signal that goes off in our brains. When it sounds appropriately, it serves us well, but when it goes off when it shouldn’t, it makes us miserable. It impedes our progress, leads to underachievement, and causes us to make mistakes. It can make us physically ill. I call this kind of worry toxic worry, and it is a growing public health problem in the United States today. Toxic worry blights lives. It can infest your mind when you are just a child and can grow to monstrous proportions by the time you are an adult. Millions of otherwise healthy American adults suffer immense damage from chronic, toxic worry.

For most of human history people believed that the only treatment for toxic worry was to endure it, that it was simply part of the human condition, the price we humans had to pay for having an imagination. Indeed, the great 18th Century essayist and student of the mind, Samuel Johnson, called excessive worry a disease of the imagination.

Now, however, as we are beginning to better understand how the brain works, we are devising effective remedies for dealing with toxic mental states, including depression, worry, mania and even psychosis. Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of the past fifty years has been the remarkable progress science has made both in understanding the biology of the mind and in offering safe and effective treatments for its toxic states.

One area of utmost concern is children. Unfortunately, toxic worry is common in children these days. For parents, teachers, and all others who care about children, it would be a godsend if we could have a reliable guide to help us help children learn to manage worry before it becomes toxic, keeping worry in the normal zone. Not only would this help children at a young age, but it would also dramatically reduce the likelihood of their suffering from severely disabling worry as adults. The sooner one learns positive mental habits, the more likely these will endure throughout life. The authors of this book have done a spectacular job in composing such a guide. It will help all who care about children help them deal with worry in such a way that it does not impair their lives now or when they become adults.

It is just as important that children learn to deal with worry and other toxic states of mind as it is that they learn to read or do math. It takes great expertise to teach these emotional skills; Goldstein, Hagar, and Brooks have succeeded brilliantly. As you read this book, and learn about the power of optimism, as well as its teachability, and you learn of the force of resilience, as well as its learnability, I hope you marvel, as I did, of the progress we are making, as a society, in child-rearing. Isn’t it wonderful that we parents now have access to a book such as this one that enables us to address systematically and effectively a common emotional problem like toxic worry? For centuries, if a child worried excessively his diagnosis was that he was weak. And the treatment was to ridicule him in the hope that he would toughen up, or punish him, in the hope he would at least stay silent in his suffering.

Now, thank goodness, we can offer diagnoses based upon genetics and physiology, rather than on misleading ideas about moral fiber; and we can offer treatments that actually help, rather than make the sufferer feel and do worse. From that standpoint, it is a much better day to be a child—or an adult—than it ever has been.

As you read this book, not only do I hope you will learn and put into practice the superb techniques the authors offer, I also hope you will take pride in where we’ve come, and be glad that, at last, we are learning not to regard emotional pain as a sign of moral weakness.

Indeed, worriers—the audience this book addresses—are some of the bravest among us. They stare into a frightening furnace in their imaginations every day. They are also among the most creative and intelligent among us; after all, it takes a lot of creativity and intelligence to conjure up all those worries. But they need relief from unnecessary suffering, relief which this book beautifully provides. They can then take the mental energy they have freed up from worrying and put it into leading happier, more fulfilling lives. We have come a long way indeed.

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.

Boston, Massachusetts

May 2002

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Seven Steps to Help Your Child Worry Less

A Walk Down Bonneville Street

Worry: A Common Problem

Seven Steps to Help Your Child Worry Less

Tips for Health Care Professionals and Educators

Track Your Progress

Summary

Step 1

Why Do Children Worry?

What is Worry?

What is Fear?

When Does Worry Become Anxiety?

Types of Anxiety

Causes of Worry, Fear, and Anxiety

Summary

Step 2

When Your Child Needs Help

When Do Worry and Fear Become Anxiety?

Deterimining How Much Your Child’s Anxiety Interferes with Everyday Life

Seeking Professional Help?

Deciding Upon a Plan

Targeting-the-Worry Questionnaire

Summary

Step 3

Geting Started: Helping Your Child Become an Active

Participant in the Process

Nurturing an Optimistic Mindset

Be Empathic

Destigmatizing and Demystifying Worry and Anxiety

Teaching Your Child about Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors

Setting up a Worry Scale and a Worry Thermometer

Developing Strategies with Your Child

Changing Negative Scripts and Mindsets

Summary

Step 4

Strategies to Reduce Anxiety

Breathing Techniques

Relaxation

Guided Imagery

Self-talk and Mental Distraction

Debriefing

Desensitization

Summary

Step 5

Developing a Plan and Putting it Into Action

Writing a Worry-Less Plan

Dealing with a Worry Wart

Making a Plan for Children with Obsessive-Compulsive Worry

Enlisting Siiblings’ Participation

Addressing the Child’s Worries with Others

Summary

Step 6

Keeping the Plan in Place:

Common Problems and How to Solve Them

Becoming Inpatient

Too Much Reassurance

Making Excuses and Permitting Avoidance

Being Too Directive

Becoming Frustrated and Angry

Not Knowing When More is Needed

Summary

Step 7

Instilling a Resilient Mindset in Your Child

Feeling Special and Appreciated

Accepting Our Children for Who They Are

Nurturing Islands of Competence

Learning from Mistakes

Developing Responsibility, Compassion, and Social Conscience

Summary

Conclusion

Mastering Worry, Fear, and Anxiety

Resources

Index

Special Addendum One

A Guide for Medical and Mental Health Professionals Using the Seven Step Approach

Special Addendum Two

Helping Children Worry Less: A Guide for Teachers

INTRODUCTION

Seven Steps to Help Your Child Worry Less

A Walk Down Bonneville Street

The Gordon Family

It is 8:00 p.m. one Monday night in November. The days have grown shorter and it is dark outside. Seven-year-old Michael is dawdling as he reluctantly gets ready for bed. Michael is afraid of the dark and of having bad dreams. Although he recognizes that there are no monsters under his bed or burglars in the house, he has a difficult time convincing himself of this fact. He cannot comfortably settle down to sleep. As a result, Michael resists bedtime and sleepovers. He has developed a variety of behaviors that often lead to conflict with his parents as he attempts to delay bedtime.

The Barkley Family

At the Barkley household next door, ten-year-old Susan is complaining to her mother that she feels ill and doesn’t want to attend school the next day. Although Susan has not experienced problems with learning, attending school has always been difficult for her. Susan experienced stress when separating from her mother in kindergarten. In an attempt to ease her daughter’s worries, Mrs. Barkley attended the first two weeks of kindergarten, sitting in the back of the room. However, Mrs. Barkley’s attempts were futile, as separating each morning remained difficult for Susan throughout her kindergarten year. Although Susan currently attends school each day, she constantly worries that something bad might happen at home while she is gone. Her parents have grown weary of her complaints, and, in response, have encouraged her to try harder to not worry. For the most part, Susan has stopped telling them how she feels, but she experiences a pit in her stomach and a sense of nausea each morning when she leaves for school. She has tried to convince her parents to allow her to be home-schooled. Susan’s parents recognize her struggles and worry that this problem may follow Susan into her middle school years.

The Gardner Family

Down the street in the Gardner household, Kathy has just finished her homework. Kathy has always been very diligent about completing assignments, mostly enjoying larger projects such as writing reports and creating posters. Kathy enjoys school and is perceived by her teachers as a good student who is well-liked