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21 JUNE 2010

NO 1592

Anxious children

Last summer I was supervising a group of students throughout the province of BC who were doing their practicums in child and youth mental health. As I was reading through their learning plans I noticed a common theme whereby they were all excited at the prospect of co-facilitating a group for children that was focused on anxiety. It didn’t matter where these students were placed in terms of region, some were in the far north, and others in more urban centres, but each office seemed to have a high number of referrals of school-aged children who were experiencing anxiety to the point that it had become debilitating.

I found this quite concerning and began to wonder what was happening to these children to render them so anxious and worried. I was able to consult with one supervisor who was a registered psychologist supervising two of my students. He informed me that, according to their statistics, within the next year, one in five children will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder!

According to this psychologist, there was no one factor, but rather many variables, that could be attributed to this increase in childhood anxiety. Following this conversation, I decided to visit the website for the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) for more information. I was able to find some articles that explained how academic and social pressures are main causes of childhood stress and anxiety.

Expectations
Anyone who works in the school system knows that schools tend to put a lot of pressure on children to perform and succeed, and these pressures become more intensified as they get to the higher grades. Students in Grade Ten are now doing career planning and organizing their courses so they can get into university to fulfill their dreams of becoming a successful, well-educated and well paid adult.
I’m sure glad that no one asked me what I wanted for my future when I was in Grade Ten. I’m quite sure that I wouldn’t have been able to answer the question since I couldn’t think past the next math test, or more likely the next dance where I might be able to attract the attention of a boy that I liked. But I digress. The point is that as an early adolescent I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to determine my future, but somehow this has become an expectation of today’s youth.

Another source of stress identified is the expectations that parents place on their children to excel in academics and sports. These parents unwittingly add to the stress in their children’s lives by placing high, and sometimes unreasonable, expectations on their children in the hopes that they will become high achievers and more likely to get accepted at the most prestigious universities.

As someone who works in a university, I see the effects of these parental pressures all the time. Many students enter university without a clear understanding of why they are there. Many believe that in order to be successful, they must have a university degree, but often they lack the motivation and interest to do well. This tends to create more stress, and subsequently we see many students who suffer from anxiety and depression.

Wimps
This is not an unusual occurrence as noted in an article titled “A Nation of Wimps” written by Hara Marano. In this article Marano outlines how parents of today’s children and youth have become over-involved, over-indulgent and hyper-vigilant in regards to physical and emotional safety, to the point where they’ve rendered their children vulnerable to a variety of mental illnesses.

The emphasis on safety starts in the early years, where parents have been quite successful at getting all-rubber-cushioned surfaces in outdoor playgrounds, and sanitizing gels in lunch boxes. This is what Marano calls the “wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees,” where parents are no longer on the perimeter benches letting kids figure things out for themselves. Instead, they are usually found in the playground co-playing or “play-by-play coaching.” (A quick visit of the Child Safety Link website reveals some extreme safety measures recommended to parents in order to protect their children from various hazards.) This over-involvement contributes to a dependency that is hard to shake as the kids get older. The end result is that kids become not only risk-adverse, but psychologically fragile and riddled with anxiety.

Another potential cause for this dynamic between parents and children, may have something to do with an over emphasis on technology and a de-emphasis on nature. Richard Louv has written a book called Last Child in the Woods where he describes how children today are suffering what he calls “nature deficit disorder.” In the past children were encouraged to explore their natural surroundings without parental interference, but today it is rare for children to be allowed unstructured activities that involve nature. In a 1991 study, researchers found that the radius children were allowed to roam outside their homes decreased to a ninth of what it was 20 years before. Another study found that 41 percent of children ages 8 to 11 worry about being safe in their neighborhoods.

Parents have a perception of the world now as being more unsafe which contributes to their practice of driving kids everywhere and supervising all activities. This fear is real, but the dangers perceived by parents are not so real. Louv asserts that children’s lives are out of balance where they are not using their full senses to explore and understand their world. This imbalance could contribute to the increase in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obesity, anxiety and depression.

It is at the college and university level where the “fragility factor” is now making its greatest mark (Marano, 2004). We now have regulations at the university level that govern interactions with parents requesting information on grades and how to contact instructors. Parents continue to pursue contact and information with the university system in the same way that they did when their son or daughter was in high school. Many get frustrated and confused when they bump up against our privacy regulations which restrict their access to grades, particularly when they are paying the tuition.

As a family therapist I see many families who struggle with finding the balance between parental protectionism and supporting their children into becoming independent and self-reliant adults. Most parents have come to believe that they are failing their children if they don’t continue to advocate and mediate on their behalf when they encounter adversities. It also appears that their children have come to rely on their parents to intervene on their behalf when they find themselves in some challenging situations.

So, where is the balance? I think Child and Youth Care workers who work with families, particularly of young children, can help parents identify areas where they are denying their children opportunities for developing their own resistance and resilience. We need to reframe for parents, how letting go and allowing their children to struggle, is actually a good thing. We need to challenge some of the policies around developing children’s self-esteem where everyone is treated special and receives a reward whether it’s deserved or not. These common practices result in a false sense of competence that turns into anxiety and depression when faced with hardships and failures.

The purpose of this article is not to blame parents, but to bring awareness to the shift within our culture that has resulted in parents becoming somewhat anxious themselves, and subsequently too involved in the lives of their children. We put a lot of pressure on parents which has inadvertently resulted in children experiencing a lot of stress as well.

This is a situation that requires more than just sending kids to an “anxiety group.”

MICHELLE KOROLL

Koroll, M. (2006). What's going on with children today? Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 19, 4. pp. 54-55.

REFERENCES

Canadian Mental Health Association. Children and self-esteem.

KidsHealth. Childhood Stress.

Child Safety Link.

Marano, H. E. (Nov/Dec, 2004) A Nation of Wimps. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers: New York, New York.

Louv, R. (2006) Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature deficit disorder. Algonquin Books: New York

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