Anxiety
Anxiety is a huge topic in mental health. It has become even more prevalent since the pandemic. Sometimes anxiety gets confused with fear. Fear is the emotional response to a real or perceived imminent threat. Anxiety is the anticipation of future threat. Both are healthy in doses but can become uncomfortable and affect our lives when they become excessive.
I started reading a book called “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” by Jonathan Haidt. There are several points that this book makes that I thought were worth sharing. The book’s research shows that youth mental health has declined significantly since around 2010 and continues to decline. The why for this is said to be that children participate in less independent free play and exploration which includes risky play, and spend more time on smartphones and social media. The last part of the book explains how the government, schools, and parents can help to support children in the world that we live in today. The book suggests that children ages 6-13 need to take on more advanced challenges including social challenges. This may include play dates, encouraging free and imaginative play, exploring nature, and giving freedom slowly using scaffolding (ex. Walking to school). The book also suggests less and better experiences on screens for the 6–13-year age group. The general rule is no more than 2 hours for all screen time. It is also recommended that parents be involved in the screen time and learn how to use parental controls, provide clear structures and boundaries around screen time, look for signs of problem use, delay the use of social media until 16 years old, and talk to your child about the risks and listen to their thoughts. The book is quite dense with a lot of information, but I found it useful to skim through and pick out the relevant parts to help me in my own parenting journey.
I will do other blogs about anxiety in the future since it is such a huge topic but if you want more information now, here are two great sites to visit: Anxiety Canada has a lot of different resources https://www.anxietycanada.com/; and Kelty Mental Health (Children’s Hospital) also has a lot of great information about childhood anxiety: https://keltymentalhealth.ca/anxiety