Robinson Helping Your Child with Fears and Worries 2nd Edition: A self-help guide for parents

Really straight forward and helpful book. Doesn't guilt trip parents or suggest they're to blame for anxiety in children. Instead it offers a step-by-step plan for addressing anxiety-driven behaviours in kids. Anything like this is a slow-burn so don't expect vast transformations in one day, but over the past few weeks of implementing their step-ladder approach to one particular activity my daughter was afraid to do, she's actually become more confident in other areas and is sleeping better. It's really practical and constructive and absolutely worth reading if your little one is suffering with anxiety.

Amazing book

I was recommended a course using this book to help my academically able autistic tween overcome her anxiety. It was facilitated by a mental health practitioner who works with schools. My daughter has school attendance difficulties due to unmet needs in the school environment (stemming from sensory sensitivities, social difficulties and executive function challenges) which have culminated in debilitating levels of anxiety both at home and at school.UK children’s mental health providers seem to use this book as their go-to solution for anxiety in autistic or suspected autistic children. However, the book clearly states in the preface that the techniques this book teaches have not been tested in autistic children. This is important because anxiety in neurodivergent children is often caused by a complex mix of unmet needs rather than a single easily-defined fear.The techniques taught in this book are ideal if your child is afraid of an imaginary monster under the stairs. The step by step process helps you to gently coach your child towards overcoming this fear with the promise of rewards. It’s also valuable if your child has ONE specific rational fear that they can reasonably be expected to overcome eg answering a question in class.However, if, like mine, your neurodivergent child’s anxieties are complex, intertwined, and driven by unmet needs, blindly following the process detailed in this book could easily damage your child further (unless you concentrate solely on an irrational fear like a monster in the bathroom like I did). Instead of identifying your child’s needs and working with the school to meet those needs, you will coach your child into believing their pain and fear is wrong or irrelevant and reward them for believing you.Don’t get me wrong. This is a good book with good techniques for helping some children with some simple fears and worries. However, it is NOT suitable for dealing with complex anxiety caused by unmet needs in neurodivergent children and young people. It’s vital that health providers and parents recognise its limitations.

A bit of a background - my daughter (10) is having a hard time with social anxiety. We are waiting for an appointment with CAMHS (Child Adolescence Mental Health Service) but the wait times are about a year. In the meantime she is struggling to go to school and has withdrawn from social activities with peers including quitting all her after school activities. She seems so unhappy and as a parent this is hard to watch (it's heart-breaking!). We are lucky that the school she attends have been incredibly supportive and have put in place support systems while she is at school. But none of this is helping her overcome her anxiety. We believe its as a result of COVID lockdown but who knows! I have been attending a course run through our local council to give parents the tools to help their kids. This book was recommended on day 1 of the course, I have found it more useful than the course. The book explains anxiety and then gives you a step by step guide on how to help your child. There’s 5 steps to the process and it involves getting your child to face their fears (very gradually). It involves setting goals. As your child achieves their goals they learn new things about the situations that causes them anxiety. It teaches you how to speak to them when they are feeling anxious. We have only been following this book for a few weeks - I haven’t made it all the way through, so far I have just been changing how I react to my daughters anxiety. We have set goals but not the steps needed to achieve them. I have already seen a change in my daughter, she still has plenty of anxiety driven moments but I’m better able to guide her through them. I wish I had read this book years ago as I believe that it would benefit anyone who has a child, not just parents with an anxious child. If you are reading this review and are at breaking point, like we were, I totally sympathise with you, anxiety is hard, really hard. Give this a go, what do you have to lose?

I have a 10 year old who gets worried when separated from me. This helped me gain an understanding of what they're thinking and give me the right steps to try and ease his worries. It's a great starting point and helped me set goals and rewards in a logical manner. Recommended to me by Mind UK charity as well. Would highly recommend and lots of scenarios used which is very helpful