Helping Children Gain Control Over an Anxiety Disorder

Helping Children Gain Control Over an Anxiety Disorder - NYTimes.com: "Is it any wonder so many children are anxious? As the recent horror in Connecticut demonstrates, children today may be confronted with unthinkable realities, events that their parents and grandparents could never have conceived. But much of what children fear is rooted more in imagination than in reality. Parents may be called upon to ease anxieties about everything from strange noises to water, from spiders in the yard to monsters under the bed. Comforting children seized with irrational fears can be a difficult task. One of the most common childhood fears involves separation from parents. Separation anxiety is a normal developmental stage that typically starts around 9 months and ends at about age 3. However, for Daniel Smith, author of “Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety,” the trauma of parental separation exploded at age 4 and continued through age 13. “I would become hysterical, nauseated, unable to enjoy anything whenever I was separated from my parents,” he recalled in an interview. . . ."


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