Attention Magazine June 2023

As experts in the field of ADHD remind us, some children with ADHD and executive function challenges can also struggle with significant anxiety-related symptoms. For many of these children, the world can feel like a very scary and dangerous place.

Children can learn to see their anxiety symptoms in an entirely new light, however. They can learn to be “worry wise,” in the words of Tamar Chansky, PhD, a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of childhood anxiety and related disorders. Their journey begins at WorryWiseKids.org.

Chansky and her colleagues developed this comprehensive online resource to provide children, parents, teachers, and healthcare providers with specific evidence-based tools for overcoming anxiety and related conditions. Visitors to the website learn how to distinguish normal childhood anxiety from more problematic anxiety-related symptoms, including the common red flags to look for. The variety of different anxiety-related disorders are also explained and in a very user-friendly way. The website also provides a review of the possible causes of anxiety-related disorders, along with different treatment options.

Parents and other caregivers learn how to sensitively talk to children about anxiety symptoms, and help children understand ways they can become “worry wise.” Most importantly, conversations are specifically tailored to age and developmental levels. Child-friendly resources are also provided, so that children can access in help them along their new and more hopeful journey.

Among the website’s other impressive features is a section devoted entirely to helping highly anxious children succeed in school. Helpful interventions to include in school accommodation plans are discussed, as are specific strategies and accommodations teachers can incorporate into the child’s school day.

WorryWiseKids.org offers many other valuable tools, strategies, and resources for helping children struggling with anxiety, all provided in a way nonprofessionals will find easy to understand and implement. Before exploring them, however, the visitor is reminded that left untreated, childhood anxiety disorders tend to not go away by themselves, and can lead to more serious problems down the road. But, as Chansky reminds us, childhood anxiety disorders are entirely treatable, and WorryWiseKids.org provides an excellent guide to how best help highly anxious children enjoy significantly improved lives.

Last highlighted as a promising practice in Attention magazine in 2012, WorryWiseKids.org continues to serve as a trusted web-based resource for helping anxious children master their symptoms and improve their lives. Today, Chansky is a frequently sought speaker on the subject. For comprehensive information about parenting an anxious child, read her latest book on effective strategies for improving the lives of anxious children.

A clinical and consulting psychologist, Mark Katz, PhD, is the director of Learning Development Services, an educational, psychological, and neuropsychological center in San Diego, California. As a contributing editor to Attention magazine, he writes the Promising Practices column and serves on the editorial advisory board. He is also a former member of CHADD’s professional advisory board and a recipient of the CHADD Hall of Fame Award.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Tamar Chansky, PhD. Freeing Your Child from Anxiety, Revised and Updated Edition: Practical Strategies to Overcome Fears, Worries, and Phobias and Be Prepared for Life—from Toddlers to Teens. (Harmony, 2014).

To keep current with Chansky’s articles about anxiety, parenting, and resilience, subscribe to her blog: tamarchansky.com.

Learn more at https://worrywisekids.org/.