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

Reviews

Lily

UK children’s mental health providers seem to use this book as their go-to solution for anxiety in autistic or suspected autistic children. 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. The book itself is useful. Don’t get me wrong.

gingerjo

It was facilitated by a mental health practitioner who works with schools. This is not what I expect from a brand new book.

I need to read it to be prepared to deliver Parent-led CBT. 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. This is a good book with good techniques for helping some children with some simple fears and worries.

The step by step process helps you to gently coach your child towards overcoming this fear with the promise of rewards. A large crease on the back of the book and a smaller crease on the front of the book. 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.

It’s vital that health providers and parents recognise its limitations. 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.

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). However, the condition the book arrived in is poor. The techniques taught in this book are ideal if your child is afraid of an imaginary monster under the stairs. However, it is NOT suitable for dealing with complex anxiety caused by unmet needs in neurodivergent children and young people.

I was recommended a course using this book to help my academically able autistic tween overcome her anxiety.