Anxiety and Little Kids

I recently had conversation with a grandmother who was surprised by some things she had heard her six and eight year old grandchildren saying during a family visit. The young children were asking for downtime, expressing how they were feeling with the word anxiety, and one even mentioned the need to be alone to decompress. Welcome to the new world of childhood anxiety. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that between twenty-fourteen and twenty-twenty-three, pediatric visits for anxiety issues rose by more than two-hundred-fifty-percent, from one-point-seven -percent to six-point-one percent. Parents, this warrants our attention on at least two levels. First, we need to release our kids from the pressures of over-scheduling and screen-filled lives. In addition, we need to teach our kids to look to Christ, reminding them to embrace and live the words of First Peter Five, seven: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”