Counseling parents to help Treat kids’ anxiety

One in three American children will experience a clinically significant anxiety disorder before adulthood. Eli Lebowitz, PhD, associate professor in the Child Study Center, recently conducted a study that concluded that counseling the parents of anxious children can be as effective in treating common anxiety disorders as cognitive behavioral therapy for the children. Lebowitz’s program is called SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions). Parents in the SPACE program are counseled to be less accommodating; that is, to reduce the number of changes they make in their own behavior to lower the child’s distress.