This book is an essential manual for mental health professionals who work with young anxious children and their parents. Organised into a 10-session parenting-based course, the book provides parents with simple cognitive behavioural techniques for helping their children to manage their worries and fears.

List of Contributors ix Preface xy Who Is This Book For? xiii Acknowledgements xv 1 Theoretical Background to the Programme 1 2 How to Use This Book 17 3 Session One: Introduction to the Programme and Some Basic Concepts 27 4 Session Two: Securing the Parent--Child Bond through Play 45 5 Session Three: Understanding Children's Anxiety 57 6 Session Four: Using Praise to Build Children's Confidence 73 7 Session Five: Using Rewards to Get Children Motivated 85 8 Session Six: Setting Limits on Anxious Children's Behaviour 99 9 Session Seven: Using Withdrawal of Attention to Manage Children's Behaviour 109 10 Session Eight: Managing Children's Worry 121 11 Session Nine: Managing Really Difficult Behaviour: Time Out and Consequences 133 12 Session Ten: Wrapping Up: Review, Managing School, Celebration 147 Additional Resources 165 Index 167

This book is an essential manual for mental health professionals who work with young anxious children and their parents. The authors have organised the book into a 10-session course for therapists to use with parents, and each chapter describes a single session of the programme. The course has been evaluated through use with children with a range of primary anxiety disorders, including separation anxiety, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, panic, agoraphobia, and specific phobias. The book allows mental health professionals to provide parents with a calm, warm, clear and reliable parenting style, within which their children can overcome their fears and worries. The course teaches some effective cognitive behavioural techniques for helping children manage their worries and fears. The editors provide an overview of the causes of anxiety in childhood, as well as step-by-step instructions for running the course. The techniques used throughout the book have all been created and tested by the authors in their clinical work, and have a proven track record of success. The result is a book that will allow mental health professionals to train confident parents who know how to instil confidence in their child in order to minimize the effects of anxiety.

‘Parents and therapists will be delighted that there finally exists a scientifically tested and clearly described program to help change the lives of young, anxious children. This book provides a clear and practical guide for mental health professionals based on the authors’ years of scientific research and applied clinical experience. It will give therapists the confidence and knowledge to address an important area of emotional health that has been ignored for far too long.’ —Dr Ronald M. Rapee, Macquarie University, Australia ‘Anxiety is the leading problem for children in this era of increased stress, vulnerability, and uncertainty. And parents play a critical role in our attempts to both understand and treat these vexing and troubling problems. Based on the well established principles of cognitive behavior therapy and parent management training, this is a highly readable, clinically sensitive, and uncannily helpful volume. These master clinicians speak from the trenches and the heart and they speak loudly and clearly. This is a volume that will not only be helpful to parents – and, I might add, grandparents – but also to clinicians and students in training. It is a volume whose time has come.’ —Professor Thomas H. Ollendick, Virginia Tech, USA