In a world where most adults struggle with some form of depression and anxiety, it’s only natural that our children are feeling and experiencing many of the same fears and worries as we are. Author Tamar E. Chansky Ph.D., founder of the Children’s Center for OCD and Anxiety, offers a powerful program for identifying and dealing with childhood anxiety in her newest book, Freeing Your Child From Anxiety.

Starting with a detailed description of the different types of anxieties that manifest in both adults and children, the book then describes red flag behaviors to look for and the various forms of treatment available to children, including cognitive therapy, behavior modification, pharmaceuticals and strategies that parents themselves can incorporate at home. Chansky emphasizes that adults must first learn about and deal with their own potential anxieties in order to really help their children. Many forms of anxiety have genetic components, and others may be formed by a traumatic event, but there is also the most prevalent form of generalized anxiety disorder, which may be harder to diagnose and more difficult to treat.

This is a book that will no doubt help many parents struggling with children and teenagers who manifest symptoms of excessive worry, OCD, depression, panic attacks, social anxiety, nervous habits such as hair-pulling and nail-biting, and phobias, and the information is current, usable and empowering. The simple solutions offered in this book can help parents get a grip on the disabling anxieties plaguing their children and end the cycle of needless suffering. Chansky explains actual techniques parents can engage in with their children to help minimize worries, put fears into perspective, overcome panic with breathing, reframe thoughts to help cope through fearfulness, and create new mental scripts that enable a child to get greater control over their thoughts, their reactions and their behavior.

The author, who has also written Freeing Your Child From Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, also includes stories of actual families dealing with childhood anxiety disorders, as well as numerous examples of habitual thinking and behavioral patterns that can be changed with specific exercises on the homefront, often in conjunction with other outside forms of therapy or medication. The personal stories offer hope and encouragement to parents who may be feeling as though there is little hope for their child.

For parents who suspect their child may be having trouble dealing with anxiety, this book can certainly help intervene before full-blown anxiety disorders appear. For parents who already deal with a child tormented by inner fears and demons, this book offers an abundance of workable tools and encouragement to seek the help they need. I highly recommend it for all parents, especially in today’s increasingly anxiety-provoking world. It just might give them, and their children, a head start towards living a normal life, with anxiety and fear under their control, and not the other way around.