Your Anxious Child : How Parents and Teachers Can Relieve Anxiety in Children (Hardcover)

by John S. Dacey (Author), Lisa B. Fiore (Author), Lisa Fiore (Author) "My Katie is a little chatterbox, but when you ask her to perform, even for the family, she gets so nervous that she freezes up..." (more)
Key Phrases: stimulus freedom, functional freedom, imaginative problem solving, Materials Needed, Target Age, Agree Disagree Strongly (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Concerned about the patterns of anxious behavior exhibited by your child? From simple, specific phobias to general anxiety, these problems can start early and cause tremendous stress for families. Your Anxious Child presents a thoroughly mapped-out program called COPE to deal effectively with anxiety when it starts. While this is a multistep program for fairly complicated mental health issues, information is presented simply, broken down into smaller steps and specific actions. (Plenty of real-life stories provide context, too.) The first step in the program is teaching kids methods of self-comfort, ranging from meditation and prayer to easy breathing exercises and biofeedback. The second is developing plans to relieve anxiety, focusing on improved communication and problem-solving skills. Since each plan will need to be as unique as your child, only a few concrete examples are given; but the directions for creating individualized plans are straightforward. The third step could be the most important: persist! Anxiety problems aren't solved overnight. Lastly, evaluate the program's success. What can be changed to increase effectiveness? This book's clear-cut approach can help parents and children wade through the difficulties of anxious behavior to get positive and long-lasting results. --Jill Lightner

Review
"Your Anxious Child will help parents (and teachers) to help children grow and develop. I gladly recommend this delightful...book." -- Timothy Dugan, M.D., director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry, Cambridge City Hospital; psychiatry instructor, Harvard Medical School

"Well thought-out strategies by experienced therapists." -- Susan Shnidman, psychotherapist and psychology instructor, Harvard Medical School

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (February 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787949973
• ISBN-13: 978-0787949976
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #460,329 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Guide, February 29, 2000

By	Joshua Davidson (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although there are many texts which address anxiety in children, I found this book to be far and away the best available. Dr. Dacey and Dr. Fiore provide an excellent framework for parents who want to help their children. It can be difficult for parents to deal with these complicated issues, but Fiore and Dacey make everything clear and to the point. With a Masters Degree in Public Health I have reviewed several modalities of care for anxious children. This one is simply the best. I highly recommend this book to all parents, especially those with anxious children.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, April 2, 2000

By	Carol Abrams (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For parents and concerned friends and relatives of anxious children, Dr. Dacey and Dr. Fiore have co-authored the definitive guide for dealing with anxious children. As a parent, and now a grandparent, I highly recommend this informative, reassuring and inspiring book.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Ideas and Information, May 16, 2005

By	Yoga Dad - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Your Anxious Child: How Parents and Teachers Can Relieve Anxiety in Children (Paperback)

I was reading this book at the same time as "Helping Your Anxious Child" by Sue Spence, Vanessa Cobham, Ann Wignall, and Ronald Rapee.

I quickly found myself preferring "Helping Your Anxious Child" to this one though this certainly had a lot of good information.

While this book certainly gave me a lot of insights into the nature of anxiety it seemed that some of the techniques would be much harder to implement than the approach of the other book.

Regarding relaxation techniques. This is approached in both books, but the best resource I have found for helping a young child learn relaxation techniques are the wonderful CD's by Lori Lite.

Her CD's "Indigo Dreams", "Indigo Ocean Dreams" and "Indigo Teen Dreams" are produced specifically with young children as well as teenagers in mind. They are guided meditations, affirmations, relaxation and visualization techniques that are truly suitable for kids and if you are in the same room as your kids you will benefit as well.

While the concepts contained in the above book are certainly excellent, these CD's by Ms. Lite make it considerably easier for children to relate to.

Plus they can be used to help your child sleep more soundly and can help them relax if they have bad dreams. They have very relaxing, healing music and wonderful narration that helps these wonderful stories gently lead children to a more peaceful state of mind and overall being.

Of course the material in this and the other book I mentioned are very important for dealing with the broad scope of anxiety and for knowing what tools may help. The CD's have provided an excellent and immediate safe haven for my own child as we work together on tackling the roots of her anxiety.

In fact my child was having some anxiety before school today and my wife drew a little picture of a spider and web (to represent Lori Lite's "affirmation web" which she learned from the CDs) and it helped my daughter to go to school and have a reminder throughout the day if ever she felt anxiety starting up.