Childhood Anxiety Disorders: When to Worry About an Anxious Child - 0 views
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I recommend asking the parent to complete the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale for a quick, reliable measure of anxiety in young children who can’t necessarily express their feelings.
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To help determine whether anxiety is impairing or interfering in children’s lives, I ask the following questions using the acronym FISH. (This can be applied to children of all ages.) Frequency — What is the frequency of the child’s anxious behaviors? Is it every day? Once a week? Once a month? Intensity — How intense is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? Severity — How severe is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? How long — How long have anxious behaviors occurred?
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The following tendencies among children should send up red flags: Overestimating a threat: “I’m going to get COVID. I’m going to die.” Difficulty tolerating uncertainty: “I don’t know what’s going to happen if I go to school. What’s going to be there? I don’t know that I can handle it.” Underestimating the ability to control a situation: “I never will be able to handle all this uncertainly. It is going make me really sick to my stomach or feel like I’m going to die.” Feeling increased responsibility: “If I get sick and I get my parents sick, it’s my fault. They will never forgive me.”
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There are several ways to do this. We can work directly with the child. We can work with the child and parents together. Or we can work with parents alone. All these instances emphasize teaching the child non-avoidance behaviors.