Family Challenge - Workshops & Seminars

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Preventing and Treating Anxiety

For most children and teenagers, the experience of worry, nervousness, and fear is a normal part of growing up. For example, starting primary or high school, making new friends, doing assignments, taking tests, presenting in front of the class, participating in sporting competitions, choosing a career, and eventually attending job interviews. Anxiety forms both an adaptive and necessary defensive response in adjusting to school and social environments.

For some, however, the stress of going to school, the fear of performing and interacting with peers, the pressure of maintaining good grades and choosing career options is so intense that they start to withdraw from everyday activities. To make matters worse for anxious youth, peers are quick to target apprehension in the schoolyard. Teasing and bullying often lead to the child or teenager not wanting to attend school at all. This problem is more prevalent than you may think.

Of all difficulties experienced during childhood, anxiety is recognised to be of the most common and significant. A recent Australian study found that about 15% of all teenagers experience severe anxiety. Left untreated, anxiety can negatively influence the way young people think about themselves (leading to poor self-esteem, hopelessness, and depression), and result in both dysfunctional behaviour and serious psychiatric problems. In recognising the seriousness of anxiety problems among our youth, health professionals, school counsellors, teachers, and family members are challenged to identify and address these problems.

The question is not so much "does my child experience anxiety?, but rather, "when does the level of anxiety become cause for concern and what are the symptoms?" There are a number of signs to look out for that may indicate concern:

(1) the manifestation of physical illness symptoms (e.g., nausea, stomach cramps, head aches, insomnia), and using such reasons for not wanting to attend school, social, or sporting events;
(2) constant thoughts and fears about their own and others safety;
(3) finding it difficult to meet or talk to new people and needing reassurance to try new things;
(4) worrying excessively about things before they happen (e.g., school, social or sporting events);
(5) becoming upset about being or sleeping away from home (e.g., panicking or having tantrums when separated from parents); and
(6) being preoccupied with cleanliness (e.g., hand washing, arranging things, feeling contaminated).

Over the past decade, clinical research programs in Australia have led the way in producing therapeutic techniques for both the prevention and treatment of anxiety in children and teenagers. One such program, FRIENDS, has received considerable acclaim as the only clinically validated program for anxiety in Australia, satisfying federal government guidelines for evidence-based research. Developed through extensive scientific research and clinical validation over the past ten years, the FRIENDS program serves to prevent the development of serious mental disorders, emotional distress, and impairment in social functioning.

The program teaches young people how to cope with and manage anxiety and depression by understanding the relationship between thoughts and feelings, challenging negative self-talk and building self-esteem, learning to develop and implement problem solving strategies, making better quality friends and using social support networks, systematic exposure to FEAR (False-Evidence-Appearing-Real), progressive muscular relaxation training, positive behavioural reinforcement, and promoting positive family skills. For more information about the FRIENDS program, click here.

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