Will Social Anxiety Keep Your Child From Succeeding in School?

With the ringing of the first classroom bell to signal the start of a new school year, two images often come to mind: children excited about seeing old friends and their favorite teacher, or the endearing scene of a shy child clinging to his mother’s leg.

But what if the latter scenario is not as innocent as popular culture depicts? In the most recent Care For Your Mind (CFYM) series, experts associated with the Anxiety and Depression Association of America shed light on a debilitating but little known disorder, social anxiety disorder (SAD) that effects 12% of youth. Often first appearing in grade school, this disorder can be treated and managed with the right support and professional help.

Mark Pollack, M.D. president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America believes lack of awareness about the disorder among medical providers and the general public prevent people from getting help for this treatable condition.

Parents can play a primary role in getting the support their children need, but only if they recognize the symptoms. In a CFYM poll 71% of respondents stated they did not think most parents would recognize SAD in their own children. Anne Marie Albano, Ph.D., Director, Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders underscores the need for parental recognition when she states that, “social phobia is a gateway disorder to depression, substance abuse, and lifetime impairment.” In her post she provides warning signs and symptoms parents should be aware of.

Dr. Albano also suggests that parents unwittingly exasperate the situation when they step in and speak for their children. For example, when unable to answer a question addressed to them, parents might make excuses, such as “Johnny is shy.” While well-intentioned, by managing a stressful situation for their children, parents inadvertently enable them to avoid dealing with the emotions and anxiety these situations provoke.

As the school year begins, we must also ask whether or not there is a role for schools in helping parents recognize the symptoms of SAD in their child and provide therapeutic support. Dr. Albano points out that the very place that is causing the stress, could be the best place to learn how to deal with it.

Many schools offer screenings and teachers are taught how to identify the disorder. Once permission has been obtained from parents, schools provide in-school or after school therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered to be one of the more successful tools to support children living with SAD. The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) describes CBT as a “form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors.” CBT is usually associated with an end date. The goal is not long protracted therapy, but rather brief intervention to provide the child with tools to help them manage stressful situations that trigger SAD symptoms.

Teaching about SAD in traditional health classes is another way to create awareness about the disorder. Unfortunately, however, the symptoms of the disorder such as fear of talking to adults or authority figures can prevent a child from seeking help.

Given these facts, positioned alongside the positive results of early intervention, seeking funding for in-school screening and treatment is an idea that is long overdue. Why not bring it up at the first parent teacher organization or school council meeting? Talk to school administrators and teachers to gain support. Make it your calling to be an advocate for children.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/09/02/will-social-anxiety-keep-your-child-from-succeeding-in-school/

Is the crippling anxiety over exams what we want for our children?

The driving despair that has foreshadowed A-level results may well be a price too high

Ecstasy after the agony: A-level students for whom the effort paid off Photo: Christopher Pledger/The Telegraph

Today is a big day at Pearson Towers and in homes across the land. The Daughter will get her A-level results, which should be nerve-wracking, only the anxiety has been superseded by a deeper dread.

For today is also the day she goes in for an operation. “Look on the bright side, Mum, I won’t be upset if I don’t get the A in History because I’ll be unconscious,” she says, trying to joke away our fears, hers and mine. We know the surgeon is among the best in the country, we know the procedure should be relatively straightforward. We know that in 10 days she should be better, much better, than she has been for years. We know, we know, but no one wants their child put to sleep, do they?

And yet, in some bizarre way, I realise that I am almost grateful for the fact of the surgery. My child’s vulnerability has blunted the claws of the nightmare Tiger Mother I know I would have been given half a chance. It has taught me perspective, which is seriously lacking in an age obsessed with exam grades and league tables, itself a kind of national sickness for which there is only one known cure: AAA.

One 19-year-old who will not be opening her results with trepidation this morning is Amy Latham. A couple of months ago, it was reported that Amy, a pupil at the Queen Elizabeth School in Wimborne, Dorset, appeared to have killed herself while suffering dreadful anxiety over A-levels. In the weeks before her disappearance, Amy had expressed fears about her exams on social media. On June 5, she posted on Twitter: “Option 1: stay in, cry over Macbeth notes, fail English A-level Option 2: go out, cry over ignored responsibilities, fail English A-level.” On May 15, she said: “Someone kill me before I f--- up my English exam for the second time.”

Those tweets make me want to weep. For one thing, a young woman who could come up with Options 1 and 2 had no difficulties with English. Even in her dread, Amy was wittily alert to the cruel irony of her situation. She sounds fabulous. How could a bright young woman like that be so terrified of messing up her A-level that she chose to hang herself? Let me try and guess.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11031251/Is-the-crippling-anxiety-over-exams-what-we-want-for-our-children.html

Back-to-School Anxiety: A Parent’s Guide

Back-to-School anxiety hits students of all ages. But you and your children don’t have to suffer in silence.

Victor Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, walks us through the roots of school anxiety, and what we can do to help students handle their fears.

Preschool

Root of Anxiety: Until preschool, life has centered on home, parents or familiar caretakers. Then, bam! Young children have to negotiate interactions with strange teachers and other kids.

How to Help: First, stay calm because your anxiety is contagious. And prepare your child by arranging play dates away from home and even overnight stays with trusted friends and family. Let them know they’ll be OK, but in a matter-of-fact way that makes them think you really believe it.

Kindergarten – 3rd Grade

Root of Anxiety: Can I live up to teachers’ expectations? Learn my multiplication tables? Handle homework?

How to Help: Here’s where you begin to teach your children the good study habits that will lead to school success. Don’t do homework for them, but help them discover how to get from point A to B; how to recover from mistakes; how to be persistent. Playing board and card games are good ways to teach these lessons indirectly.

4th – 6th Grade

Root of Anxiety: Schoolwork now centers around long-term projects, and school social life forms into cliques – two scary propositions for many children.

How to Help: Before school starts, plan activities that stress persistence, organization and deferred gratification. Making model planes, ships and trains teach organization and tenacity. Studying an instrument teaches how to navigate short-term frustration for long-term gains. Even video games – yes, video games — help kids persist until they get to the next level.

Middle School

Root of Anxiety: It’s a wonder anyone makes it through these wonder years when romantic and sexual feelings begin to blossom, social competitiveness reaches fever pitch, and even thoughts about college and future success emerge.

How to Help: Be sensitive to the turmoil, and help kids find a range of pleasurable activities outside school that enable them to find success and forge friendships – sports teams, community center groups; theater clubs. Share stories about your middle school struggles, but don’t give a happy, pat ending (which probably isn’t true). Kids see through that and turn off to future fables.

High School

Root of Anxiety: High school students are battered at both ends – raging hormones that feed charged emotional and sexual situations, and real concerns about their futures – college, jobs, marriage. They’re bombarded by advertising that tells them they’re not good enough (that’s how you sell products), and by adults that pressure them to succeed. This is the age where depression, anxiety, food and obsessive disorders emerge.

How to Help: Try to find time – family dinners, vacations, driving in the car – to share your definition of success: hopefully, it’s not which designer bag you carry or elite college you attended. And recognize that your emotional state is catching, and try not to worry about the same things that are plaguing your kid.

College

Root of Anxiety: Separation anxiety emerges again as your freshman prepares for life away from home, maybe for the first time. New college students worry about fitting into a whole, new social world and failing academically. If they’re paying for their own education, financial worries may also keep them up at night.

How to Help: Make sure they leave for college knowing how to do their own laundry, handle a debit card, and whom to ask for help when they need it. Talk to them about the life/work balance, which they’ll have to navigate throughout their lives. And discuss practical things like food choices, sleep routines, and how drugs and alcohol never solve problems.

When It’s Time to Get Professional Help

Most back-to-school anxiety is normal and manageable. But sometimes fears – yours and your kids’ – take over.

Here’s when to seek professional help.

• Anxiety is more intense than usual.

• Anxiety doesn’t get better over time.

• Anxiety interferes with eating and sleeping.

• Activities that usually reduce stress, don’t work.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/back-to-school-anxiety-a-parents-guide.html

Primary school children should have therapy to cut anxiety, say scientists at University of Exeter

       Children as young as nine would benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy, scientists said

Children as young as nine should receive cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in school to help them combat anxiety, scientists say.

New research from the Universities of Exeter, Bath, Cardiff and Oxford found such prevention programmes “significantly reduce” anxiety symptoms in Year Five pupils.

The study, of more than 1,300 youngsters aged between nine and ten, also highlighted the benefits of CBT lessons in the classroom for all children – regardless of their anxiety level.

Researchers say the issue is “very common” in children, with 10% affected by an anxiety disorder by the age of 16.

Lessons in CBT involve teaching pupils how to identify and manage their emotions, replace anxious thoughts and develop problem-solving skills to cope with anxiety provoking situations.

Lead author Professor Paul Stallard, of the University of Bath’s Department for Health, said introducing the lessons would be a proactive, preventative approach.

“Schools provide a convenient location to deliver emotional health prevention programmes for children,” Prof Stallard said.

“Whilst there are a number of school based programmes, few have been scientifically evaluated to determine what effect they have on children’s emotional health.

“The results of our study are very encouraging and show that FRIENDS, a CBT programme, teaches children skills to effectively manage their anxiety.”

In the project, Preventing Anxiety in Children through Education in Schools, the researchers conducted a randomised controlled trial to test the effectiveness of CBT lessons for 9-10-year-olds.

The researchers enrolled 1,362 pupils from 40 state schools in the South West and followed them for one year.

School year groups were assigned to receive either classroom-based CBT lessons led by teachers, CBT lessons led by health facilitators or standard school provision.

Schools classed as following “standard school provision” were those following social and emotional aspects of learning currently within the curriculum.

Pupils were given nine hour-long CBT lessons, which were provided to whole classes as part of the school curriculum.

Results showed the most effective method of reducing anxiety occurred when external health facilitators conducted the lessons, rather than teachers.

Both children with low and high levels of anxiety saw a reduction in their symptoms in the 12 months of the study.

In the study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, the authors write: “Universally delivered programmes offer the potential to reduce present symptoms, enhance overall emotional wellbeing, and potentially shift population means over time.

“Our findings support this theory and show that children in the low-anxiety health-led FRIENDS group showed markedly lower anxiety symptoms at 12 months than did those in the usual school provision group.

“Because fears, anxiety and stress are common in children, anxiety prevention programmes might be especially suited to universal delivery.

“However, our data suggests that the same programme can result in different effects depending on those who deliver it.”

The team are now assessing whether reductions in anxiety are maintained after the children transfer to secondary school.

Professor Harry Daniels, from the Department of Education at the University of Oxford added: “These are important findings.

“The intervention offers an affordable and practical response to the challenges of promoting emotional health in schools.

“The need to improve the mental health of children is being increasingly recognised as a global priority given the associated health risks, and the economic and social costs, if such anxieties are not dealt with early on.”

Classroom-based cognitive therapy (FRIENDS): a cluster randomised controlled trial to Prevent Anxiety in Children through Education in Schools was published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Primary-school-children-therapy-cut-anxiety-say/story-21656914-detail/story.html