My 3 yr. old is scared of the wind. He freaks out if I open the windows in my home and refuses to go outside with even the smallest of breezes. I tell him it won’t hurt him, but I also refuse to close the windows when he’s acting like this. I encourage him [...]

  What if my teacher doesn’t like me? What if I don’t feel well and you are not there to help me? What if the other kids think I’m not as smart as they are? What if I can’t do long division? Can’t I just stay home?   Every fall, millions of American children begin [...]

  Teachers are among the most constant and important figures in children’s lives. Teachers, as well as school counselors, special education providers, extended care staff and administrators interact with children for many hours of a child’s day. They are therefore quite frequently on the front lines of helping anxious children navigate their days and manage [...]

  Check out Shirley S. Wang’s article, Tantrum Tamer: New Ways Parents Can Stop Bad Behavior in 11/08/11 Wall Street Journal   View Article Here   Ms. Wang reports about findings at Yale University and King’s College, London indicating that the ways in which a parent responds to a child’s disruptive behavior can significantly reduce [...]

  Tolerating the distress that an anxious child experiences when his fears are triggered can be challenging. Some parents have particularly low levels of tolerance for the distress of their anxious child and jump in to remedy any distress by any means they can. We have discussed in the previous three blog entries the myriad [...]

  Parents of Children with anxiety problems sometimes find themselves arguing with their child about his or her irrational fears. The child may insist that there is good reason to be afraid while the parent tries to convince the child that there is no sound basis for fear. Or, the child may throw a tantrum [...]

  Dr. Harold Koplewitcz indeed does seem to be the kind of informed advocate that our children need. Mental illness is a fact of life and very frequently has nothing to do with bad parenting or traumatic experiences, but rather with genetic predispositions. Neither a child nor a parent can do anything about the genes [...]

  Aid and Abet your child’s attempts to avoid the situation that triggers his fears. What does this mean? It means that you help your child avoid fearful situations and or that you actually encourage avoidance as a strategy to manage your child’s distress. There are countless ways that a parent can do this and [...]

  My previous blog entry focused on the “most important” advice I have for a parent of an anxious child: determine how you are unintentionally reinforcing your child’s fears, and stop doing that. I thought it might be useful to readers if I discussed, in detail, specific ways that parents reinforce their children’s fears. Just [...]

Learn how you may be unintentionally reinforcing your child’s fears and then gradually stop doing it.