high anxiety

I met with Kate and Emily's teacher yesterday after school to talk about a workshop she participated in last week. It was about about kids and managing anxiety. She and I have been working together this year with my daughter Kate specifically, who is a kid who worries a lot about things. So her teacher is pretty excited about this workshop she took, because she thinks it could be a great tool for she and I to use with Kate, and the other kids too. We will make it a family affair. One of the things they learned was that apparently one in five kids come to school with anxiety. Some have more, some have less. So based on this, Mrs F., the girls' teacher, wants to learn more about it herself, since as she said for each child who has a parent like me who is proactive with the teacher in identifying that there is a concern, there are many other kids who are just carrying their worries around inside them, and they are not learning any coping skills to help them deal with them. If the anxiety is high enough for long enough, it can contribute to other problems such as depression.
Anyway, it is a 12 week program that we agreed we are going to tackle. Mrs. F. will work on her end of it at school, and I will do my share here at home. I had a quick look at the workbook, and it looks very interesting - lots of activities that we can do as a group, and I think it could be very helpful not just for Kate but for all of us. I mean, who doesn't have worries sometimes? Who isn't afraid of something? We all are, and I for one would welcome learning a new way to cope with my own worries and fears. Anything that helps me get back to sleep in the middle of the night when I wake up instead of lying there stressing about all kinds of things that I can't actually do anything about at 3am anyway sounds like a bonus to me!
We are going to start next week I think, once I have a copy of the workbooks. I'm excited, wish me luck!!