Adams Media - Anxiety: A troubleshooting guide for parents

As with any serious health issue, learning to manage the symptoms of anxiety is a topsy-turvy journey, much like being swept up in a tornado where life can seem as if it is spiraling out of control. Sometimes you will not know where you are going, and it may feel like you have landed in a surreal dream, ill-equipped to handle your new and unfamiliar surroundings. After you realize that your child is struggling with an anxiety disorder and the initial storm has passed, you may feel like the weight of it all has dropped on you like a house out of the sky.

You and your child may encounter many trials and perhaps some distractions and deceptions on the road to recovery. At times, the journey may take twists and turns, and seem to double back on itself, all while the oppressive threat of anxiety lurks around every corner. There is no easy fix to anxiety, you and your family will need to travel the road together, gathering insight and experience to find your way back home. Although at times you might feel discouraged and exhausted, keep faith in the process with your sights on the horizon; its promise and glow will pull you forward during even the bleakest of times.

This book will provide you with the resources, tools, and information you need to make the right choices for your child and family. You will gain courage, knowledge, and esteem as you replace your current worry with a future filled with confidence and security. Though you may have to say goodbye to some familiar but unhelpful coping methods to make way for the new, you will come to realize that what you feared most was perhaps only an illusion, which vanishes as you acquire new information and tools to combat anxiety.

The lessons offered in the book will guide you from diagnosis to the causes and forms of anxiety through how to find professional help, and create strategies and resources for the everyday management of anxiety. Sometimes, as life unfolds, everyone needs a little guidance and support along the way. It is so easy to be consumed by the weight of your feelings that you do not realize the vast resources you have within. You forget to go in and grab them, even if that just means asking for help or reading something to get a better perspective. As you and your child work through the various issues related to anxiety, this book will help you see that you both have the courage, the strength, and the knowledge to enjoy a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted life.

If youd like to learn more about anxiety, check out The Everything Parents Guide to Children with Anxiety , available in print (978-1-59869-686-8) and eBook (978-1-60550-796-5) formats.

It is true that kids today have to keep pace with a faster lifestyle than any other generation in the past. They are faced with greater academic expectations and responsibility, have additional pressures due to a changing family structure, and look forward to an uncertain worldview economically and politically. In short, growing up is probably very different from how you remember it and, for some, a lot more worrisome.