Kids and Their Psychiatric "Disorders" This morning, I read a disturbing headline: 1 in 5 Kids May Have Psych Disorder. Say what? It makes me wonder: What are we doing to our children? As someone who has been in the field for 20 years, I have seen diagnosing children with a psych disorder do more harm than good. Children fulfill the prophesies of these mental health diagnostic labels and it is very hard to recover from these identities supported by years of mental health practitioners, with albiet good intentions, telling them what is wrong with them and that they have to "cope" with it.

Yesterday I was talking to a four year old about her worries. Four year old worries are very interesting if you know what I mean. Her worries just began a month ago. And while many children who grow up in unsafe situations often get worries; her worries were introduced to her in a way worries are often introduced to safe little girls–purely by accident.

When our children are anxious, hurt or upset, it pierces our soul. Our love for them is so great, we are effected even more than if it was happening to us. So that leaves us to wonder how we can best respond to lessen their pain and decrease their fear.

Driven yourself nuts lately? What drives me the most nuts is when something happens that bugs me. I feel sad, scared, or worse, angry. Then, I judge myself: That was stupid. It is not as good as I wanted. It's my fault. No it is theirs.

When you have anxiety, having control can be very important to you. You either feel like you have it or you don't. And when you don't, it feels very scary so you do whatever you have to do to get it back.  Avoid, scream, clean, freeze, isolate, carry out a pattern, research, or control someone else, for example. Feeling Loss of Control Provokes Anxiety

Do you want a quick way to take anxiety down a notch? Would you like to undermine the power anxiety has over you by sweeping its feet out from under it? When I feel it intensely, I certainly would! You can take anxiety down a notch before it undermines you!

In this crazy world of ours, there is rarely a break from news stories of tragedy. How can we watch the horrid news reports, complete with video of the terror and, as a human, not be affected? And more importantly, given that we feel deeply and intensely, how can we keep calm in the face of these tragedies? There are tragedies happening all over the world all the time. Most of them we don't hear about or do hear about and don't think of too much. Bombings like the ones in Boston are common place in many parts of the world. When we know about it, our hearts go out to the people involved. When it is closer to us, either geographically or we have some connection to the people involved or the place involved, we may feel the sadness deeper.

What do hospital anxiety, surgery fear and fear of medicine have in common? They are all extremely common things that people get anxious about. In fact, some people become so anxious, these normal fears turn into phobias. Nosocomephobia is the name of the phobia relating to the fear of hospitals. Tomophobia is a fear of surgery or surgical operations. Pharmacophobia is a fear of medicine. Millions of people have hospital anxiety, fear of surgery, and are afraid to take medicine. Even if the medication is for anxiety, some people claim they are too anxious to take it! (I, too, felt this way when I was anxious.) But what causes these fears and what can you do about them?

Sometimes people can feel lonely in a crowded room and others can feel totally comfortable home alone all day. Being alone is not inherently an issue. Many ancient sages or meditation masters can be alone and content. But this might be after they have gone beyond individual ego, and no longer feel separation from Oneness of the universe. But for most of us humans, biologically and emotionally, we are social beings. We live in a communities because we need to. We can't do everything alone. We need help. Collaboration is our biggest survival skill. Our species would die off without it. It's natural to feel loneliness when you feel apart from your community (Loneliness and What To Do About Loneliness).

Getting from anxiety to adventure is not a very far leap, even though it may seem to be. Looking at things from different angles give us different meanings of the same event. The meanings we give these events make all of the difference in how we feel and think about ourselves and the world.