Read This Piece Of Writing To Find Out About Stress In Children

It has been a well-known fact for many years that anxious parents could pass panic disorders on to their children. Although this truth is well known, nobody is prepared to say yes to this query "is anxiety inherited". However, a recent research by the scientists at Johns Hopkins Children's Centre, put together the conclusion that a family-based program where parents and children are treated together, may help to eliminate the symptoms and risks of stress and anxiety among these children.

Each person can get fearful every once in awhile, but when the problem starts taking over one's life, the problem is then called anxiety disorder. It can be extremely nerve-racking and stop people from living their lives wholly. A lot of people with anxiety disorder might also have fears and get panic attacks. For the study purposes, the Hopkins investigators looked over 40 kids from the ages between 7 and 12 years. The children were not clinically determined to have anxiety disorder themselves but they all had at least one parent who was diagnosed with the problem.

What other evidence do we really need to answer the question "is anxiety inherited". Scientists randomly split the participants into two categories, with 20 of the children and their families taking part in an 8-week intellectual behavioural treatment program, while the other 20 were put on a waiting list and did not receive any treatment during the period of the research, but were offered therapy one year later. The CBT program, that consisted of one-hour-long weekly sessions, was working on an improvement of problem-solving abilities, instruction regarding panic attacks, as well as helped parents find out and change behaviours believed to contribute to anxiety in the children.

The chief investigator of the study, Dr. Golda Ginsburg, PH.D., a child psychiatrist at Hopkins Children's Center and an associate teacher of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said that according to the statistics gathered by the analysts, the kids of parents with an anxiety disorder are around seven times more likely to develop the disorder themselves, and up to 65 per cent of children who reside with an anxious parent meet the criteria for anxiety disorder.

The results of the experiment revealed that within a period of 12 months, 30 per cent of the kids who did not participate in the therapy program, had developed an anxiety disorder, compared to 0 percent of the children who were enrolled in the family based therapy. A 40 per cent reduction in anxiety symptoms in the year after the treatment program were independently reported by parents together with investigators who assessed the behaviour of the children and their parents. There was no drop of anxiety symptoms observed among kids on the waiting list.

The parental behaviors personalized with therapy program included overprotection, extreme criticism and excessive expression of fear and stress in front of the children. The program focused on childhood risk factors like avoiding anxiety-provoking situations and anxious thoughts. As outlined by a recent content in The New England Journal of Medicine, it is deterrence but not treatment, of childhood anxiety, which is of a primary importance, because anxiety disorder affect one in every 5 kids in America, but very often are left unrecognized. If not treated on time, the problem can result in depression, substance abuse and poor academic performance all through childhood years and way into adulthood.

Results of the research will be posted in the June issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The study was funded by the US government's National Institute of Mental Health. Thus "is stress inherited", yes. Are we able to change the pattern of behavior yes!

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