Addressing Parental Accommodation when Treating Anxiety in Children

Book excerpt: Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problems of childhood and adolescence. Childhood anxiety impacts not only the anxious child themselves, but also parents and other family members who inevitably find themselves drawn into accommodating the child's symptoms. Parents of anxious children almost universally describe becoming entangled in the child's symptoms and research indicates that many of the efforts made by parents to help an anxious child actually prolong and maintain the anxiety symptoms. This book provides clinicians working with anxious children with practical strategies and tools for addressing this critical element of childhood anxiety disorders.