Helping Your Anxious Teen: Positive Parenting Strategies to Help Your Teen Beat Fear, Stress, and Worry

Description

Parenting a teen is tough work, but parenting a teen with anxiety is especially challenging. Written by a psychologist and expert on adolescent anxiety, this essential book will show you how your own behavior can either help or exacerbate your teen s anxiety, and outlines specific skills you can use to support your teen.The teen years are a time of remarkable change, and teens who struggle with stress and anxiety can have an especially difficult time. Furthermore, as a parent, you may be so worried and frustrated yourself that your efforts to help your teen cope with anxiety may end up backfiring and make the situation even worse. Wouldn t it help if there was a guide on what to do, and what not to do, to help your anxious teen?This powerful book, based on cutting-edge research and cognitive behavioral strategies, will help you develop the know-how to effectively manage teen anxiety. You ll learn the best ways to support your teen in overcoming problematic thinking and fears, discover how your reactions can unwittingly fuel your teen s worries, and explore how life changes influence your teen s anxiety, as well as how to manage anxiety-related physical and psychological distress.Understanding your teen s anxiety, how it impacts you and the rest of the family, and how your own responses can influence it are key to learning how to help your teen manage anxious thoughts and feelings and succeed in life. With Helping Your Anxious Teen, you ll have a wealth of research-backed strategies to lead you in being an effective anxiety coach for your teen.

Sheila A. Josephs, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and anxiety expert with over twenty years of experience helping kids, teens, families, and adults. She is founder of Princeton Cognitive Therapy, a practice specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety. She also enjoys presenting workshops on teen stress and resilience for parents and clinicians. www.princetoncognitivetherapy.com

"Helping Your Anxious Teen is an excellent resource for parents searching for thoughtful and effective strategies to effectively parent their anxious teen. The book is filled with useful advice and proven-effective techniques parents can use to guide their anxious teen through a critical time in their development." --Michael A. Tompkins, PhD, codirector of the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy; assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and coauthor of My Anxious Mind "Helping Your Anxious Teen makes a valuable and impressive contribution by providing a clear, effective, and easy-to-read guide for parents to help their adolescent overcome anxiety. Chapters describe the nature of anxiety, how to understand its presentation, and, perhaps most importantly, how parents can help their teen conquer fear and stress. This book is a must-have for any parent of an anxious teen, as well as for providers who work with this population." --Eric Storch, PhD, All Children's Hospital Guild Endowed Chair and Professor at the University of South Florida, and clinical director at Rogers Behavioral Health-Tampa Bay "A wonderful addition to the self-help literature, Helping Your Anxious Teen details a specific, pragmatic action plan for parents of 13-19 year olds. The delicate balance of supporting teens emotionally without enabling their anxiety is nicely described, as is the way to teach skills without taking over. Worry, perfectionism, panic, and fear--this book covers anxiety in its many forms, bringing hope and, even more to the point, relief to struggling parents and teens." --Dawn Huebner, PhD, psychologist and author of What to Do When You Worry Too Much "Anxiety is a cage that locks teens in, preventing them from fully engaging in life. Sheila Achar Josephs is a master clinician who gives parents the keys to help teens break free of fear-filled suffering and constraints." --Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, coauthor of Smart Parenting for Smart Kids "Navigating the teen years is a challenge for many parents. This thoughtful, well-informed, and easy-to-read guide can help you understand how anxiety works, what makes it better, and what makes it worse. With a logical and systematic road map based in scientific research and clinical expertise, you can use effective strategies to support and coach your teen through anxiety, stress, and worry. A must-read!" --Aureen Wagner, PhD, adjunct associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, director at The Anxiety Wellness Center, and author of Worried No More "Parents, asserts psychologist Josephs, PhD, are crucial to helping their young teens overcome the vicious cycle of worry and fear. Demonstrating how persistent anxiety is a learned response, the author begins by explaining how an anxiety cycle operates (how thoughts and behaviors trigger ramped-up new thoughts and behaviors) and presents common approaches parents take that don't work, such as jumping in with advice and contributing excessive reassurance. Instead, she encourages Socratic questions that help identify and challenge doubt. From teens who are constantly agitated to those caught in avoidance cycles and others struggling with perfectionism, Josephs looks at these experiences and offers thoughtful tools for helping young people help themselves. VERDICT: Recommended for public library collections." --Library Journal "Sheila Achar Josephs will teach you how to coach your teen to develop the valuable skills that can lead them toward a more flexible--and independent--path into adulthood." --Reid Wilson, PhD, coauthor of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents "This terrific book puts the time-tested and research-proven strategies of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) into a very readable format that will help you be a more effective coach and cheerleader when it comes to parenting your own anxious or stressed-out teen. You will find the numerous illustrative examples and step-by-step instructions for implementing the techniques extremely helpful. Every parent should read this book!" --Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD, director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill