Edward Możejko - Between anxiety and hope : the poetry and writing of Czesław Miłosz

ITS EASY TO FEEL OVERWHELMED WHEN YOUR CHILD SUFFERS FROM ANXIETY, BUT THERE ARE MANY THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP.

Anxious Kids offers parents a new perspective on their childrens anxiety, encouraging them to view each episode as an opportunity to empower their kids with the skills to manage anxiety, and thrive.

Bestselling parenting author Michael Grose and wellbeing expert Dr Jodi Richardson explain why more children than ever before experience anxiety. In plain language that can be shared with children, the authors outline the origins and biology of anxiety to make sense of it key knowledge such as why it happens, the flood of physical symptoms that comes with it, how to calm it down and why each strategy works.

Grose and Richardson also give advice on a range of important steps parents can take to develop emotional intelligence, tolerance of discomfort, mindfulness, resilience, thinking skills and flourishing mental health. In so doing, parents can reduce the impact of anxiety, enabling children of all ages to live their lives in full colour.

You are about to make a big difference in the life of your anxious child. As you read on what these changes involve will become more apparent to you, but for now, let us simply tell you that the understanding, knowledge and strategies youll learn here, and apply in your family, will make a profound difference to your childs life, now and over their lifetime.

Children who experience anxiety feel different. Sometimes they think theyre broken. Of course, we know theyre not. Far from it. They can also feel very alone and think that no one will ever be able to understand what theyre going through, let alone help them. Understanding that anxiety is a well understood and manageable condition brings anxious kids such relief. We hope that just by reading that you breathed a sigh of relief too, and your shoulders dropped a little further away from your ears. Because what we do know is that anxiety often runs in families. So its possible you, or your childs other parent, know anxiety all too well. And theres little that increases the anxiety of parents more than perceiving their kids are struggling. Especially when theyre struggling with their mental health.

We understand. This is personal. Weve both experienced anxiety for as long as we can remember. We know what its like to be the anxious kid who worries about everything, who cant always breathe properly, who jumps at shadows and knows somethings not right but has no idea what to do about it. We both grew up with at least one parent who was anxious and who had never even heard of anxiety as a condition, let alone understood it, or knew how to help themselves, or us as kids.

Weve written this book so that you have the understanding our parents never did. So that you can recognise anxiety in your child, and help them to understand and manage their anxiety in a way that moves it from centre stage to background noise.

Anxiety doesnt have to be a shadow that clouds the days of children and teenagers. As you share with them what you learn as you read on, in age-appropriate ways (we help you with that too), youll feel less anxious and more confident to play a key role in supporting your child or teen, to give them the gift of understanding themselves and to skill them up to observe anxiety as background noise that they can notice and accept, before turning their attention to what really matters living life in full colour.

As the parent of an anxious child, youre most certainly not alone. Millions of families all over the world are right there with you. Though its helpful to know, we understand that it doesnt make the challenging role of parenting an anxious child any easier. What will is developing and deepening your understanding of childhood anxiety and the important role you play in helping them manage it.

As part of a family, the impact of a childs anxiety is felt by the child, their parents and their siblings. Its natural to feel frustrated, saddened, worried and unsure when youre parenting an anxious child. There are times when a childs anxiety impacts on the family in ways that are hard to manage. From the kids being late to school or not wanting to go at all, to parents not making it to work or being unable to get much done because they are so worried, it can be disruptive to the point of exasperation and exhaustion.

This section of the book will help you begin to understand anxiety on a deeper level. Youll learn how common it really is, factors that contribute to it, how it can be mistaken or misunderstood, why it wont go away on its own, how your family has come to choreograph its very own anxiety dance, and much more.

Were taking this journey with you. Were in this together. Step by step your knowledge will grow and with that youll feel more empowered with each passing chapter to support your child in ways that are productive, helpful and enable them to move towards living a rich and full life.

First things first

The future has never been so bright for anxious kids. The mental health landscape, which once was dry and barren, is now green and filled with hope and the promise of recognition; of understanding, of acceptance, empathy and compassion; and rich in resources, support and help.

While parenting an anxious child can feel overwhelming and difficult at first, we want you to think about it differently. We want you to take a moment to recognise that you, your anxious child and your family have been presented with an opportunity.

To be anxious is to be human. Everybody experiences it. It can be a temporary experience under stressful circumstances or it can be a thread through the fabric of who we are. Over a lifetime, one in four adults will experience an anxiety disorder. Of those, half will have their first symptoms by the time theyre fifteen years old. Many go undiagnosed for years. If you too have anxiety, theres every chance it went undetected for far too long. That was certainly the case for us.

Noticing that your child is showing signs or symptoms of anxiety is a gift to them. We cant change what is happening right in front of us, and we cant undo it. What will help your anxious child to flourish, despite their anxiety, is first and foremost someone recognising they need help.

From that point forward, anxious children can get the understanding, support, skills, strategies and, if needs be, the treatment that will help them to manage their anxiety now and over the course of their life. Its not a diagnosis that needs to sap you or your child of the hope for a vibrant, meaningful and fulfilling life. Its a treatable mental health condition, and the sooner addressed the better.

Beginning to understand anxiety

Anxiety triggers part of the brain to fire up the fight-or-flight response or, as some aptly call it, the fight, flight, freeze or freak-out response, to protect us from danger. Its an emotion, and like other emotions it has a start, a middle and an end.