Up to half of children with an anxious parent or parents become anxious adolescents and adults.
Anxiety prevention programs in schools have shown modest results, but a recent study reveals that family therapy intervention is more effective.
In the research, children who participated in family therapy intervention with their parents had less anxiety overall than the groups of kids - and their families - who received written anxiety information only, or had no intervention.
Hope for Kids of Anxious Parents
The family therapy involved eight, hourlong sessions with a licensed therapist over a two-month period. A year after the therapy intervention only nine percent of the participating children had developed anxiety. In the group that received written anxiety instruction 21 percent of the kids were experiencing anxiety, as were 31 percent of those in the non-intervention group.
“The finding underscores the vulnerability of offspring of anxious parents,” says psychiatrist and researcher Golda Ginsburg. “If we can identify kids at risk, let’s try and prevent this.”
To ward off anxiety, the families who participated in therapy learned to identify signs of anxiety and ways of reducing it such as using problem-solving skills, or practicing safe exposures to anxiety-provoking situations.
The children were also taught to recognize scary thoughts, and how to change them. For instance, if a child fears dogs and sees one down the street, they can initially acknowledge the fearful thought, “That dog is going to harm me.” Then, the child tests the thought by asking questions such as, “Is that dog likely to hurt me?” If the dog is sitting or lying quietly, wagging its tail, not growling or showing teeth, then it is not a present threat.
A Checkup Method
Though our natural temperament and negative experiences have much to do with the development of anxiety, there are aspects of anxiety inadvertently taught by parents who model anxious behavior. Most of the adults involved in the study had struggled with anxiety as children and adolescents, and were highly motivated to help their kids avoid anxiety’s limiting influence.
Ginsberg and her fellow researchers are motivated as well, and working on a follow-up study to see whether the positive effects of family therapy maintain over time. They wonder whether regular mental health checkups - and recommended preventive interventions - would be of value for families, and lower overall healthcare costs.
“I’d say we need to change our model of mental health to a checkup method,” said Ginsburg. “Like going to the dentist every six months.”
Source: Science Daily
Photo credit: Greg Clarke
