Your Anxious Child

  Anxious Nation is a provocatively intelligent look into the global crisis of anxiety and mental health as it affects Americans, especially it crippling impact on children and adolescents. In this podcast I talk with Laura Morton about her new film which opens on May 3 with livestream event. For more information go to anxiousnation.com  

If you have a child with OCD, Natasha Daniels is a resource you want to know about. She has a variety of online course such as "How to Teach Your Kids to Crush OCD" and "Crushing OCD Classs for Kids & Teens" and actually much more.  She can be found at natashadaniels.com

Judith Warner is author of AND THEN THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME: Making Sense of Middle School which is the topic of this podcast. It is a time period most of us remember all too well and a time when many anxiety disorders become quite evident. She has also written New York Times best sellers: Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety and We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times and is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She has written a highly readable book which explains this vulnerable phase of development with clarity and precision.   You can read her other articles on her website https://judithwarner.com/

To talk about reading on a podcast concerning anxious children may seem a little far a field. However, reading is an essential skill in which if you struggle with it, school  becomes a very stressful and anxiety provoking environment. Reading also helps in many different ways in dealing with anxiety. Unfortunately, we are in bit of a reading crisis, where recent surveys have shown the 2/3 of 4th graders are not proficient readings. Claire N. Rubman, PhD is a psychologist who specializes in reading and we are talking about her new book This May Be Difficult to Read: But You Really Should (for your child's sake)  For more information Dr Rubman website is https://difficulttoread.com/    

David Carbonell, PhD is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of anxiety disorder since 1985. He is the author of several books on anxiety: Panic Attacks Workbook, The Worry Trick, Fear of Flying Workbook, Outsmarting Your Anxious Brain The Intrusive Thoughts Toolkit (coauthored)and he has a very helpful website anxietycoach.com In this interview we talk about some of the basic in the treatment of anxiety disorders and how he has found it helpful to conceptualize anxiety as a trick. 

Randy Frost is a emeritus professor of psychology at Smith College. He is the co-author of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding the Meaning of Things.   He is widely considered to the world's expert on the topic of hoarding and has published over 100 scientific papers on OCD, hoarding and perferctionsism. Eric Storch, PhD is a professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at Baylor College of Medicine. He is an expert on OCD and  related conditions in childhood with over 100 publications on these topics   Also Randy Frost and I have published a paper on hoarding in children Edward H. Plimpton, Randy O. Frost, Brianna C. Abbey and Whitney Dorer "Compulsive Hoarding in Children: 6 Case Studies" International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 2009,, 2 (1) 88-104

Dr Kissen is a clinical psychologist who is the CEO of Light On Anxiety CBT Treatment Center. I talked with her about her recent book on using cognitive behavior therapy to help with parental anxiety. 

In this interview, I talked with Ellen Hendriksen, PhD about social phobia and her book How To Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety She is clinical psychologist  who works at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) in Boston MA. Her website ELLENHENDRIKSEN.COM contains a number of helpful resources for dealing with Social Anxiety and a very helpful online course on Social Anxiety.  I have found the way in which she talks about Social Anxiety in terms of a worry that a fatal flaw will be revealed in four potential ways a very helpful tool in my work, but there much more as you will see in the interview 

Michael A. Tompkins, PhD has just published the anxiety & depression workbook for teens: simple cbt skills to help you deal with anxiety, worry, and sadness with New Harbinger Publications. He a cofounder of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy, an Assistant Clinical Professor at the Universtiy of California at Berkleley and an adjunt faculty at the Beck Institute for Cognitve Therapy. Among his other publications relevant to this podcast are My Anxious Mind: A Teens Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic and Zero to 60: A Teen's Guide to Manage Frustration, Anger and Everyday Irritations. Given the documented increase in the prevalence of depression and anxiety in teens, this is a timely and important topic that I was fortunate to talk with Dr Tompkins about.  

Jeremy W. Pettit, PhD and Ryan M. Hill, PhD,  experts on suicidal ideation and suicide in teens talk about their new book overcoming suicidal thoughts for teens: cbt activities to reduce pain, increase hope, build meaningful connections I apologize for the sound quality in this interview, there were some unexplained technical problems, but the content is still very important and worth your listening time.

Ed Tronick, PhD is one of the leading authorities on infant development. His collaboration with the famous pediatrician, Berry Brazelton, MD was instrumental in the development of Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale. His Still Face Experiment with mothers and infant monumental in demonstrating the social competence infants. A link to a video demonstration is listed below https://youtu.be/YTTSXc6sARg

Robyn L. Stern, LCSW, is a licensed social and therapist in New York where she specializes in Body Dysmorphic Disorder, OCD and BFRBs. This is a condition someone becomes preoccupied with perceived defects in their appearance which are not apparent to others.  This is an important psychiatric condition to know about. It is more frequent than OCD, and can lead to unnecessary cosmetic surgery. In this interview I talk with Robyn Stern who is passionate advocate for BDD awareness She knows first hand about what it is like to suffer from BDD and she has two very compelling videos in which she bravely tells her story. I would strongly recommend watching these videos.  https://youtu.be/77JthR5HXv8 and https://fb.watch/go3vJ3C-2q/

Heather White is the author of One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet. She is the founder of OneGreenThing.org and has two decades of experience in environmental advocacy including serving as a presidential campaign staffer for Al Gore and numerous other activities. Climate change is the big challenge for the younger generation and many therapist such as myself are noticing how much it comes up with our young clients. Heather White discusses the importance of a intergenerational discussion of climate change, how doing one green thing a day can create the necessary cultural shift to deal with this crisis and most importantly how to identify the ways in which you and your child can play a part. The program of action Heather White describes are crucial in managing the understandable anxiety that comes with thinking about climate change. 

Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy have written a wonderful book How to Tell Stories to Children. Anxious children can greatly benefit from stories that parents tell them and this book tells you how to get started. As they explain storytelling "... becomes like a Swiss Army knife for parents-a multi-tool that helps a child learn new skills, build empathy, soothe difficulty emotions, and make meaning out the challenging moments in life". Story telling is as much and probably more  about building a connection with your child than making a narrative. As they explain "The goal is not perfect story. The goal is connection". And if we are going to help our anxious children, it begins with connection.   You can learn more about this story telling method at HowToTellStoriesToChildren.com and there is also a podcast on itunes with the same name

Jon Hershfield, MFT is the Director of The Center for OCD and Anxiety at Sheppard Pratt in Baltimore Maryland. He is the author of several books on OCD and is prominent figure in the world of OCD treatment. In this interview, we talk about his book for teens the ocd workbook for teens: mindfulness & cbt skills to help you overcome unwanted thoughts & compulsions  with illustrations by Sean Shinnock, New Harbinger Publications.  Jon Hershfield has provided a workbook that provides both an explanation of  the treatment of OCD and relevant exercises presented in a very adolescent friendly fashion. This is a valuable resort for clinician, parent and teen. 

Perfectionism in children and adolescence is a growing problem with serious implications. Drs Molnar and Flett are leading investigators on perfectionism and children. In this interview they provide an overview of perfectionism, discuss an intriguing study they did on the effect of the pandemic and provide a cautionary word about perfectionism and suicide.  Danielle Molnar, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University in Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Her blog/vlog on her most recent research findings can be found at https://brocku.ca/dphwb-lab-blog-the-young-and-the-perfectionistic Gordon Flett, PhD is a professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. His most recent book with Paul Hewitt is Perfectionism in Childhood and Adolescence: A Developmental Approach. 

I interviewed Stephanie Meyers, MS, RDN about her recent book End the Mealtime Meltdown: Using Table Talk Method to Free Your Family from Daily Struggles over Food and Picky Eating  newharbingerpublications.  She is a registered dietitian nutritionist and founder of Families Eating Well, a nutrition practice training parents to coach healthy eating habits in kids. She can also be found on Instagram under tabletalkcoach.  Mealtimes can be a tremendous source of stress for parents and children for many reasons. Fortunately, there are some very simple ways that you can change the way you talk about food with your child that can have a dramatic difference. In this interview, Ms. Meyers describes how changing your table talk can dramatically decrease mealtime time stress and anxiety. She provides very concrete suggestion about what to say that is reminsent  of the classic parenting book How to talk so children will listen and listen so children will talk.  Ms Meyers provides us with a great opportunity to change t

Angela Mansolillo is a speech-language pathologist and Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Diorders who works at Cooley Dickenson Hosptial, Northampton MA. She is a clinical supervisor and adjunct faculty member at Elms College Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She is the author of Let's Eat! A Clinical Guide to the Management of Complex Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders. I have encountered a number of children who have developed a fear of choking and consequently become very cautious eaters. Choking is of course a very frightening thing to happen and can be rather traumatic.  Interestingly, there a some children who have a reason to be worried about choking because of the mechanics of their eating. In this interview, Angela Mansolillo talks about how sometimes a fear of choking and cautious eating can be the result of a problem in motor component of eating. This leads to an additional approach in dealing with a fear of eating where the mechanics of eating are ad

David A Clark, PhD is a clinical psychologist and emeritus professor at the University of New Brunswick. He is a leading authority on the nature of intrusive thoughts, cognitive behavior therapy and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. He is the author of numerous books and articles, in this interview I talk with him about his latest book the anxious thoughts workbook for teens: cbt skills to quiet the unwanted negative thoughts that cause anxiety & worry newharbinger publications 2022. The adolescent has a new found ability to think about thinking which is a departure from the more concrete thinking of middle childhood. This ability opens new possibilities but also create challenges. Dr Clark provides a comprehensive guide for dealing with the more problematic aspect of dealing with unwanted thoughts,

Dawn Huebner, PhD is a clinical psychologist and parent coach specializing in childhood anxiety.  Today we are talking about two of her more recent books for school age children Facing Mighty Fears About Throwing Up and Facing Mighty Fears About Health. Her workbooks for children and parents, What to Do When Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety and What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kids Guide to Overcoming OCD  are basically the classic, go-to references for helping anxious children. In addition, she has a book for older children Outsmarting Worry (An Older Kid's Guide to Mangaging Anxiety) that was the focus on an earlier podcast in 2018 with me. At her website there is an online class Seven-Step Solution For When Worry Takes Over that covers in greater depth what was talked about in this podcast.