Book Review: What to Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety

By Dawn Huebner, Ph.D.

 

What it’s about:

 

Geared towards young teenagers, this book gives tools and strategies for managing anxiety. It features workbook-like pages for kids to draw pictures and write down their thoughts.

 

What we love about it:

 

It is accessible, easy to understand, and full of ideas on how to manage worry. We really love the idea ofworry time, a designated time each day when kids can sit with their parents and talk about their worries. The rest of the day, as worries creep up, the kid can lock that worry away in an imaginary box and wait for worry time. At first, the child might have a hard time waiting for worry time, because he has so many worries. But over time, he will discover that there aren’t big problems to deal with every day. Maybe he might decide to change the name to something else, like talk time.

 

Sometimes kids who struggle with anxiety don’t even know the source of it, and it just makes them feel bad without really understanding it. This book will help them feel like they aren’t all alone in a sea of worry, and that there are things they can do to make the worry disappear.