Review: Helping children cope with anxiety issues

Lucy Willetts and Polly Waite, illustrated by Kaiyee Tay

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

ISBN: 978-1-84905-527-7

£8.99

56 pages

What if a young child with anxiety could explain to you in their own words exactly how they feel and what you could do to help? That's the premise behind this short and accessible introduction to anxiety, as explained by 10-year-old Megan, who talks you through some of the everyday challenges she faces, such as getting to school on time, speaking up in class and going to netball practice.

The book is aimed at an ambitiously wide market of readers aged 7+ to include family, friends and professionals, and while younger children find the straightforward language, layout and illustrations appealing, a concerned teacher could power through it in a lunch hour for ideas on how to understand and support an anxious pupil in the classroom. As a basic introduction to anxiety, there are some useful insights - for example, the importance of asking questions to help a child understand for themselves what they're worrying about rather than just repeating "it's fine". And I like Megan's step plan at school, a useful tool for teachers to help anxious children begin to share their ideas with the class. For anyone unfamiliar with the subject, it is a useful guide as to how seemingly everyday events like homework and play time can for some children appear as unsurmountable challenges, and the book goes to great lengths to describe what that feels like for Megan - endless ruminations, sleepless nights, guilt, dizziness, butterflies and sickness.