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Evaluation ViewAttendees 6

Master Clinician Seminar - Ticketed

Parenting / Families

Master Clinician Seminar 5 - Empowering Parents of Youth with Anxiety: Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Overprotection

Saturday, November 16, 2024
8:30 AM – 10:30 AM EST
Location: Independence I, Level 3, Downtown Marriott
Earn 2 Credit
Ticketed Session
Keywords: Parenting , Anxiety, Adolescents
Level of Familiarity: All
Recommended Readings: Hoffman, L., Guerry, J., & Albano, A.M. (2018). Anxiety Disorders: Transitional Age Youth. Current Psychiatry Reports: Child and Adolescent Disorders, 20: 25. Philadelphia: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-018-0888-9, 10.1007/s11920-018-0888-9,   Silk, J.S. Sheerber, L., Tan. P.Z., Ladouceur, C.D., Forbes, E.E., McMakin, D.L., Dahl, R.E., Siegle, G.J., Kendall, P.C., Mannarino, A., & Ryan, N.D. (2013). “You can do it!” The role of parental encouragement of bravery in child anxiety treatment. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 27:439-446. ,   Thompson-Hollands, J., Kerns, C.E., Pincus, D.B., & Comer, J.S. (2014) Parental accommodation of child anxiety and related symptoms: range, impact, and correlates. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 28: 765-773.,   Vidair, H.B., Fichter, C.N., Kunkle, K.L., & Boccia, A.S. (2012). Targeting parental psychopathology in child anxiety. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 21: 669-689. ,  
While substantial evidence supports the use of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address anxiety in youth, addressing parental responses to youth anxiety is important to achieving an optimal response in treatment (Wei & Kendall, 2014). Parents can struggle with knowing how best to support their child as well as how to differentiate between normative and pathological anxiety. The primary instinct of all parents is to soothe and comfort their children when they experience distress; this instinct, however, can lead parents to unknowingly accommodate their child’s anxiety in a way that maintains rather than dispels anxiety (Thompson-Hollands et al, 2014). Parents’ own anxiety, history and beliefs can also impact their ability to skillfully address their child’s anxiety (Settipani & Kendall, 2017). Though the general principles needed by parents to address childhood anxiety are universal, there can be variability in the specific skills utilized across child development from early childhood through emerging adulthood. This master clinican seminar will address how to assist parents in developing the insight and skills needed to support their anxious children, teens, and young adults.

Outline:

A. Development and maintenance of anxiety
a. Normative vs pathological anxiety
b. Ontogenetic parade
c. Habituation
B. Parenting
a. Modeling of anxiety
b. Accommodation
c. Other parent-child communication spirals that maintain anxiety
C. Modifications for special cases
a. Addressing parental history and psychopathology
b. Addressing co-parenting
c. Parenting across the ages, with a focus on failure to launch/emerging adults

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this session, the learner will be able to:
  1. Discuss motivational and values-driven interventions for engaging reluctant, resistant, anxious parents in the CBT of their anxious child or adolescent.
  2. Use developmental milestones for normative anxiety and typical age-appropriate skills that are necessary for a child’s progression through to emerging adulthood. A model of parental overprotection or overcontrol, combined with child avoidance and escape, will be presented to participants, along with skills to educate parents about parenting strategies that may inadvertently create or maintain anxiety in youth.
  3. Design individually-tailored psychoeducation about anxiety and development, as well as specific experiential therapeutic activities, for parents and their youth that are designed to promote healthy boundaries, foster greater child independence in managing anxiety and developmental tasks, and provide parents with their own cognitive and emotion regulation skills.
  4. Plan to modify these strategies for parents given the different developmental needs of children, adolescents, and young adults.
  5. Long-term Goal: The tasks of development interact with parental overprotection, leading to greater levels of anxiety and stalled development in many youth.
  6. Long-term Goal: The tasks of development interact with parental overprotection, leading to greater levels of anxiety and stalled development in many youth
  7. Long-term Goal: Effective CBT, while focusing on the here and now, also addresses the history and long held beliefs of parents that may inadvertently impact sustained response to treatment of youth with anxiety