.general.anxiety.programs.

 

Cool Kids

Cool Kids is a structured, skills-based program that teaches children (including teenagers) and their parents how to better manage the child’s anxiety. It involves the participation of both children and their parents, and focuses on teaching clear and practical skills. The program has undergone continual scientific evaluation and development to include the latest understanding of anxiety and its treatment. Current results indicate that most young people who complete the programs show significant improvement. Following treatment, there are marked increases in school attendance, academic achievement, confidence, number of friends and involvement in extra-curricular activities and decreases in worry, shyness, fear and family distress.

Topics covered in the program include:

• Learning about feelings and anxiety
• Detective thinking, and learning to think more realistically
• Ways that parents can help 
• Fighting fear by facing fear (stepladders)
• Learning to solve a problem
• Building assertiveness and dealing with teasing 

 

Aspire Family Psychology offer a number of versions of this program:
Cool Kids - designed to target children aged 7 to 11 years who experience anxiety
Cool Teens program - designed for for 12-17 year olds.
We also offer adaptations of this program for children and adolescents with additional high functioning autism or Asperger’s Disorder (see ASD specific programs).

The Cool Kids program was formulated by the Centre of Emotional Health (Macquarie University, Sydney). The program has been translated into a number of languages and it is currently used by therapists in many countries. Thousands of children around the world have benefitted by participating in Cool Kids