Instruction: answer questions 41 to 50 based on the following text.
Subtle ways parents create anxiety without realizing it
- Anxiety isn’t just an adult issue. Clinical research indicates that millions of children struggle
- with anxiety symptoms, with a recent analysis putting the number as high as 20.5% of youth
- worldwide.
- “Sometimes anxiety can be hard to pinpoint as kids can manifest anxiety in different
- ways,” said Dr. Khadijah Booth Watkins, associate director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy
- Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital. “This can be due to many factors such as the type of
- anxiety they’re experiencing, their age, or their language skills”.
- While some kids experience physical symptoms like stomachaches, racing heartbeats and
- headaches, others exhibit emotional responses like increased tantrums or clinginess. Still, others
- become withdrawn and stop participating in activities or engaging with peers.
- Even if you do not intend to create anxiety, some common behaviors and comments from
- parents can make kids feel anxious.
- “We have to remember that our kids are quite attuned to what is going on with us as their
- caregivers”, Booth Watkins said. “They are both listening to our words and paying close attention
- to our body language. If we are struggling with anxiety ourselves, we have to be deliberate in
- managing our stress and distress, and model healthy coping skills and strategies which will be
- key in you helping your child manage their anxiety”.
- Just as you need to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others, you should
- address your own anxiety struggles to support your children through theirs.
- “Anxiety is a normal part of life”, said Keneisha Sinclair-McBride, a clinical psychologist at
- Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts. “Everyone needs coping strategies for it. One of the
- most important things you can do as a parent is to help your child learn the unique toolkit of
- skills that helps them deal with anxiety”.
(Avalaible in: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parents-kids-anxiety-subtle_l_63c1eb61e4b0d6f0ba04f867 –
text especially adapted for this test).