Stressed, Anxious and Rushed

THE JOYS OF PARENTING IN OUR FOCUSED CULTURE A CONVERSATION BETWEEN AVRUM NADIGEL,MSW AND LORNA HECHT

According to many pundits and parenting experts, kids these days are more anxious than ever. And from mindfulness to yoga to behavioural therapy, there are dozens of solutions out there now, to help children regulate their anxiety. Dr. Murray Bowen, the founder of Bowen Family Systems Theory, would say that’s going at it wrong. The problem of anxiety does not lie within the symptomatic child. More often there is chronic stress and anxiety bouncing around the family and/or marriage which one or more children are responding to and acting out. From a Systems perspective, we don’t try to change the child.  Instead, change begins with the leaders (often the parents), and if successful, the children will become less symptomatic. 

AVRUM: Almost every parent I meet these days, whether friend or client, is reading at least one parenting book. There appears to be an anxiety, or an itch, to consume this type of literature, and to do better than their parents.