As a parent, there is nothing worse than feeling helpless when your child feels unhappy. When your child is suffering with anxiety, often simple soothing words are not enough, we may then be lost as to what to do. Some parents may suffer with anxiety themselves and struggle to cope, others may never have experienced it and struggle to know how it feels. Yet the idea of having our child see a therapist seems unimaginable. What will my child feel? Will they feel singled out? Would that make things worse? All these questions run through our minds…

So it is exciting to be able to explain that actually, parents may be the people best placed to help the child overcome their issues, and it is the parent who sees the therapist! This innovative way of delivering therapy has been developed by psychologists working at the University of Reading and is based on many years of research. I am delighted to be able to offer this type of help to parents and their children from my practice.

In normal times, around 15 % of children are thought to suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder, emotional or behavioural problem. During the lockdowns and school closures over the past year, that number is thought to have rocketed! Left unchecked, anxiety can result in serious problems such as school avoidance, problems making or getting on with friends and longer term issues with both anxiety and depression. And when a child is suffering with anxiety, it is likely that their parent probably is too! Anxiety is like a virus that can spread within a family.

This new approach to therapy is known as Parent-led CBT for Child Anxiety and is largely based on the cognitive behavioural therapy approach, but with an important twist. And that is, the therapist need never even meet the anxious child, meeting with the parent(s) and guiding the parents through learning the appropriate tools and techniques has been shown to be highly effective and resolving anxiety in children aged between 5 and 12 years. So, no need to worry about taking a child out of school, no need to be concerned about a child being stigmatised in any way, the therapy is simply delivered in the privacy of your own home and by the person who the child knows best – their parent.

How does it work? you might ask. This type of help is delivered during around 8 sessions with a therapist, often a combination of face-to-face meetings and online or telephone sessions. The critical point is that the therapist works with the parent to uncover the core fears that the child is experiencing and then guides the parent in helping the child to understand, and then to dispel their fears. 

Why does it work? might be your next question. The CBT approach helps people to understand what is happening in their brain and how their thinking patterns can be unhelpful, how this might mean they see things as a threat, and then, what can be done to change these thinking patterns to more helpful ones. It also looks at behaviour and how we can change things to help resolve anxiety and not to reinforce it. 

Considerable amounts of research over a number of years has shown that this approach works, and that it can work for children too. And the team from Reading university have shown that it also works when the parents are guiding the child.

Another way that parents can help their child to tackle fears and worries is with a technique that I teach called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or tapping). This is a much less structured approach than Parent-led CBT but has a benefit of being helpful for very young children. Based around using the fingers to gently ‘tap’ around points on the face and upper body, this technique has been shown to reduce the levels of stress hormones in the blood, helping someone to feel calmer and less threatened. 

What I often do is to develop a story about the child and a toy that explains how tapping can help someone to feel better. The parent then uses this as a bedtime story to introduce the practise of tapping to their child. 

However, tapping can also be used to teach any age child how to feel better and to deal with anxious feelings they may experience. It can be tailored to any age and is a skill that the child learns to use for themselves as, and when, they need it. Tapping was used in the US after the Sandy Hook tragedy when many children were left traumatised, to great beneficial effect.

So, don’t feel helpless any longer if your child is experiencing anxiety and you aren’t sure how to help. There are many tools that you, their parent, can learn and can teach your child that will help them now and in the future.

If you would like to talk more about this, just get in touch and I would be happy to talk.

Helpful resources:

Helping your child with Fears and Worries: A self-help guide for parents, by Cathy Cresswell and Lucy Willetts

The Tapping Solution for Parents, Children and Teenagers: How to let go of Excessive Stress, Anxiety and Worry, and Raise happy, Healthy, Resilient Families, by Nick Ortner