Have a Plan and Get the Right Help
If your child is struggling with anxiety or fear to a degree that it’s negatively impacting their life, it may be time to consider additional resources and help to address your concerns and restore their confidence and security.
Living in the digital age and having near instantaneous access to virtually limitless information is wonderful in that you now have the ability to educate yourself about almost anything. If you want to know the best time of the year to plant green beans in Boise, Idaho, no problem. If you want to know why manhole covers are round, as of this writing there’s 435,000 websites to tell you. If you want to learn more about children with anxiety, well…you can come here and pick from hundreds of topics.
If your child’s anxiety is a serious enough problem to bring you this far, then you can rest assured that the information that can help them is already out there. It’s not hidden away in an underground vault, it’s not available only to people that went to Ivy League schools, and you don’t need to know a secret handshake.
It wasn’t always this way, but things have changed dramatically. Now everyone has fast and easy access to all the same books. Everyone can go online, look up, and read all the same research studies. Information no longer discriminates.
But there’s a downside to all that unrestricted access too, and it’s a big one.
Having information and knowing how to use it most effectively are two VERY different things.
Whenever you start doing something new, you make mistakes and learn how to do it better the next time. You consider how you can tweak or rearrange things to make them work better, faster, or more easily. You experiment, optimize, and over time, improve considerably. It’s what people call the learning curve.
Enduring the Curve
The big difference between trying to gather together bits and pieces of information on your own to help your child and getting outside help really comes down to deciding who’s going to endure the learning curve and lengthy information gathering process.
After you’ve spent a few months reading books, journals, and comparing research studies, you can begin the trial and error of doing things on your own and seeing what works best, in what order, in what amounts, and experimenting with all the other variables that impact your results. When you choose to do it on your own then YOU experience the learning curve, and that takes effort and time. Maybe it will take a year, maybe you’ll get lucky and it will only take half that time, but no matter how long it takes you, your child will continue to struggle while you figure it out.
That’s one way.
The other way is to let SOMEONE ELSE read all the books, keep up with the journals and research studies, and let them suffer through the learning curve. Then you can simply take what they learned is typically best and has been most effective for others, and then use the system that’s already been optimized and designed for success.
I think that’s important to understand, so let me repeat it another way. In todays world, you’re rarely paying only for information itself. Instead, you’re receiving the system and process that allows you to USE the information effectively right away and skip over not only the information gathering phase, but the entire learning curve itself.
There’s no reason for you to start at zero when you can let those before you lead you FAR CLOSER to the finish line.
Start Closer to the Finish
Using the help of an outside resource, whether that’s a systematic program you work through on your own like The Anxiety-Free Child Program or a therapist or psychologist you travel to and go see in an office across town, allows you to exchange a little bit of your money for a lot of your time and hopefully dramatically faster results.
Before you get started with anything, your first stop should always be your child’s primary physician or pediatrician to rule out any physical causes for their anxiety and to get additional advice on your child’s individual situation. If physical explanations are ruled out, in some cases they may suggest medications, additional tests, or referrals to specialists, which are all important decisions that you can make in conjunction with your child’s doctor.
Whether you should choose a specialized resource that allows you to work with your child independently or are better suited for one on one therapy sessions depends on your needs, preferences, and personal situation.
Choosing the Right Path
Working with a well qualified therapist or child psychologist has distinct advantages that can’t be easily duplicated when using an at-home program, largely their ability to learn more details about your specific situation on an individual basis and to provide accountability to help ensure the suggested strategies are implemented. If your insurance plan covers these treatment sessions, that would also be something you may want to consider.
The drawbacks to this approach is that traveling back and forth with your child for sessions can be inconvenient and time consuming, it can be exceedingly expensive if not adequately covered by insurance, and your results are highly dependent on the individual therapists skills, experience, and ability to effectively communicate and form a relationship with your child.
Working independently with material specifically developed for child anxiety such as the program we offer has the advantage of being able to be used privately in your own home where your child is already comfortable, according to your schedule, making it a convenient option for busy families. The Anxiety-Free Child Program in particular has been organized for ease of use, and includes material in both written and audio format to accommodate different learning modalities and strengths. The program material is comprehensive and includes advice from multiple mental health professionals, was developed in conjunction with a Doctor of Clinical Psychology, and has already been used by parents just like you around the world. Lastly, the program itself is incredibly affordable to ensure help is available for everyone that needs it. You can get started today for less than it’s likely to cost for even a single visit to a private therapist or psychologist.
Ultimately, you know your child and your circumstances best and should carefully consider all the advantages and disadvantages of your available options to decide the right path forward for you and your child. You don’t have to figure it out on your own, and life for you and your child can be different when you get help and follow the right plan. Make a fresh start!
Click Here To Learn More About The Anxiety-Free Child Program!
