worry: 5 Articles

Build Your Library: Starting-School Jitters

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a library. Every child is different, and parents and caregivers need resources to navigate developmental changes and individual issues for the children they love. Magination Press is here to help! We've developed a Build Your Library Collection with books to help you support your growing child. Starting school is exciting, filled with anticipation and a little uncertainty. In the midst of the pandemic, uncertainty and anxiety may couple with disappointment at not being able to be physically at school. Getting kids ready for school, in whatever form it takes this fall, calls for some resources. Check out these books by Magination Press about going to school and worry. A Feel Better Book for Little Worriers by  Holly Brochmann and Leah Bowen Simple rhyming text helps kids identify worries and where they come from, as well as providing coping strategies. Hear A Feel Better Book for Little Worriers read aloud here. I Don't Want to Go to School! by Alberto Pellai, MD, PhD and Barbara Tamborini Coming from Magination Press in October 2020, I Don't Want to Go to School! explores a child's feelings about starting school for the first time and a parent's gentle and reassuring response.  Pre-order your copy of I Don't Want to Go to School! here. These picture books were written with young children in mind, but even older kids may be feeling especially anxious or worried about school this fall. Check out other Magination Press titles about fears and anxiety here. Many titles include a Note to Parents and Caregivers, including the two featured above, to help you best help your child. Through October 31, 2020, get 25% off your purchase and free shipping when you order books directly from Magination Press through APA.org. Click here to purchase books and use code FF25 at checkout.

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Build Your Library: Starting-School Jitters 2020-08-24T19:10:15-04:00
Anxiety in Teenagers Hero

Is My Teen Anxious or Just Worried? How to Identify Anxiety in Your Teen

Being a teenager is hard enough, but the COVID-19 pandemic has added new aspects of uncertainty, isolation, and potential danger to the challenges teens navigate. Is your teen experiencing run-of-the-mill worries, or dealing with a pattern of excessive anxiety? In this repost from January 2018, you can explore the difference and find some tips to help you spot signs of anxiety in teens. For many parents, it’s difficult to understand whether your teenager is feeling worried over routine events and situations—a fallout with a friend, perhaps—or experiencing more significant symptoms of anxiety. The teen years are full of stressful moments that warrant some worrying, and teens sometimes even relish and thrive on the modern-day stress culture. For example, a teen saying, “Ugh, I have so much work to do!” could consider it a badge of honor. But roughly 31 percent of teens in the U.S. experience more extreme symptoms that constitute an anxiety disorder.1 For these teens, the symptoms go beyond the occasional sleepless night or emotional outburst, signaling an underlying condition. So, how do you know the difference between an appropriate amount of worry and possible excessive anxiety? What is the difference between anxiety and worry? It’s normal for teenagers (and people of all ages) to worry from time to time—it makes sense to feel worried before the first day of school, for example. In some instances, feeling some anxiety about a situation can actually help keep us safe. Imagine that you encounter a large, snarling dog during a walk; your mind starts to get anxious and communicates a feeling of danger, and you slowly back away. What escalates those worries into unhelpful anxiety is when your mind tells you that a situation is dangerous when it isn’t, or when the chance of danger is very small or unlikely. That communication causes your body to react as if the danger is real. One way to think of it: Replace the large, snarling dog in the previous example with a tiny Chihuahua, but imagine that your body responds with the same fight-or-flight reaction. In that instance, you’re experiencing unhelpful anxiety. What are some anxiety symptoms in teens? For teenagers throughout every generation, much of the anxiety they experience revolves around being left out or being judged by their peers. But this generation of teenagers also faces the relatively new phenomenon of social media pressures. Bundled together, it can be a lot to handle and can result in anxiety. Typically, most anxiety and fears diminish or disappear in less than six months. If your teen has been feeling anxious off and on for a long time, or if the anxiety doesn’t pass in a few days, it can be considered excessive. In teenagers, anxiety is typically made up of three components: an anxious mind, an anxious body, and anxious actions. These three components feed off of each other, and create a system we refer to as the Worry Wheel. The Worry Wheel starts when your teen experiences a thought that makes

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Is My Teen Anxious or Just Worried? How to Identify Anxiety in Your Teen 2020-06-09T18:28:30-04:00

Ani’s Light

As long as you let others love you," Mama said, "you will be ok." We all carry dark clouds around with us—things that scare us or make us worry. When we share our fears and worries, we can feel better. Hear author Dr. Tanu Shree Singh read Ani's Light aloud and learn how to make a worry cloud and a joy box. For tips on helping your child find their light in dark and scary times, read this excerpt from Dr. Singh's Note to Parents and Caregivers.

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Ani’s Light 2020-05-08T15:11:43-04:00