Center For Stress and Anxiety Disorders
The Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders is part of the Pediatric Behavioral Health Program at National Jewish and provides innovative treatments for children and adolescents suffering from stress and/or anxiety.
What might be causing my child's anxiety?
The initial evaluation will determine your child’s level of anxiety and any specific anxiety diagnosis such as:
- Social anxiety
- Phobias
- Panic
- School refusal
- Separation anxiety
- Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Selective mutism
- Any co-occurring problems, such as depression
What behaviors should I be aware of?
Some behavioral signs indicating your child or teen may be suffering from anxiety include:
- Sleep problems
- Focused attention on failure
- Biting nails or pulling hair
- Excessive worry
- Experienced frequent irritability
- Difficulty being away from parents
- Becoming upset if certain routines are not followed
- Avoidance of social situations
- Fear of being alone
- Easily fatigued
- Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, checking, ordering)
- Difficulty speaking to people outside the family
If your child has any of the symptoms listed above, your child may be suffering from an anxiety or stress-related problem and could benefit from a group program.
Learn how parents can help ease children's stress at school.
What classes and services does National Jewish offer?
Our services include:
- Psychopharmacology
- Relaxation
- Cognitive-behavioral and graduated exposure therapies geared specifically to children and teens
- Child Psychiatry Consultation
- The Center also offers an eight-week multifamily group that has been very successful in engaging difficult-to-treat children (ages 6-11 years) and teens (ages 12-18 years) with anxiety disorders. The multifamily group format enables children to separate from their parents and work on various skills with their peers, while parents learn the same skills during the parent group. Children and teens also engage in threrapeutic art activities that augment the concepts presented. Collectively these experiences provide children and parents with the skills to identify causes of stress and anxiety, improve coping skills, increase self-esteem and become aware of relapse prevention. Board Certified child psychiatrists and pediatric psychologists lead the groups.
To learn more about The Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders, please call (303) 298-1260.
