By Reid Wilson & Lynn Lyons, LICSW. (2013)
From Amazon.com: “With anxiety at
epidemic levels among our children, Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents offers a contrarian yet effective approach to help
children and teens push through their fears, worries, and phobias to ultimately
become more resilient, independent, and happy.
How do you manage a child who gets stomachaches every school
morning, who refuses after-school activities, or who is trapped in the bathroom
with compulsive washing? Children like these put a palpable strain on
frustrated, helpless parents and teachers. And there is no escaping the
problem: One in every five kids suffers from a diagnosable anxiety disorder.
Unfortunately, when parents or professionals offer help in
traditional ways, they unknowingly reinforce a child’s worry and avoidance.
From their success with hundreds of organizations, schools, and families, Reid
Wilson, PhD, and Lynn Lyons, LICSW, share their unconventional approach of
stepping into uncertainty in a way that is currently unfamiliar but infinitely
successful. Using current research and contemporary examples, the book exposes
the most common anxiety-enhancing patterns—including reassurance,
accommodation, avoidance, and poor problem solving—and offers a concrete
plan with 7 key principles that foster change. And, since new research
reveals how anxious parents typically make for anxious children, the book offers
exercises and techniques to change both the children’s and the parental patterns of thinking and behaving.
This book challenges our basic instincts about how to help
fearful kids and will serve as the antidote for an anxious nation of kids and
their parents.”