Our Kids' Stress and How Therapy Can Help

By Dr. Lisa McCray Cassidy, Ph.D.

Does my child really need to be in psychotherapy? This is a very difficult question to answer, especially since parents today are being bombarded with childhood diagnoses that were unheard of 10 or 20 years ago. Both the diagnoses and the options for "remedies" can be overwhelming and bewildering.

In truth, the stressors that our children are experiencing are exponentially greater than in any previous generation. In my work over the past two decades, I have seen childhood problems increase more than I ever thought I would. Children today are experiencing anxiety, depression, learning disabilities, family issues--such as divorce and parents who have been absent due to military service--not to mention autism, developmental delays, and an additional list that has become endless.

Children and their parents also are feeling academic pressure; for example, there is pressure for kids to learn to read by the middle of kindergarten. I remember my own son (who is now a teenager) coming home in tears from his public school-based pre-k because the children were told that they "had too much work to do" and therefore, would no longer have playground time. Pre-k and kindergarten had previously been focused on learning to socialize with peers (i.e. learning social skills), playing with blocks (i.e. developing an attention span and perseverance, among other traits), and playing in the dress-up corner (i.e. imaginative play and cooperation with peers).

Some of the demands that schools are placing on today’s children, through no fault of the schools, is simply developmentally inappropriate. It reminds me of my neighbor, when I was in graduate school, who "decided" that his second daughter would learn to walk at an earlier age than his first. I tried to explain to him that she was going to walk when her entire little nervous system said she was ready, and not a minute sooner. That baby did not walk until she was 16 months old, and I was convinced that she would sit on the floor watching her father "demonstrate" walking, while thinking, "What on earth is this man doing?!?" Every child achieves milestones--walking, reading--at his or her own pace but we, as a society, have become obsessed with our children’s early success. As my grandmother used to say, "Can't children just be children anymore?"