Teen Anxiety: What Can Parents, And Kids, Do About It? (Tom Ashbrook, On Point)

Teen anxiety in America is at record highs, and parents around the country are asking what they can do about it.

On Point tackled the subject on Thursday's show. Our inbox flooded. So we caught up with two of our guests who treat kids with anxiety to talk a little bit more about solutions and treatment.

The gold standard is called exposure therapy, and it goes against all our instincts: Don't try so hard to free yourself of anxiety. Live with it. It's part of life. The more you try to get rid of it and avoid it, the stronger it becomes.

"The treatment is counter-intuitive, and the parenting is counter-intuitive," Lynn Lyons, a New Hampshire therapist and author, told On Point. "Because you want to protect your child, and you want to back out, but that makes the anxiety stronger."

For a child who has anxiety triggered by dogs, then, exposure therapy's cure is... dogs. Exposing yourself to them, whether gradually or all at once, and not trying to banish the anxiety that comes along with it. By fleeing dogs, the brain learns that dogs are scary. By sticking around, despite the fear, the brain learns that they're actually not so bad, and neither is the fear...
Interview:
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/10/19/teen-anxiety-follow