Notes on The Opposite of Worry by Lawrence Cohen

I recently finished reading The Opposite of Worry: The Playful Parenting Approach to Childhood Anxieties and Fears by Lawrence Cohen, and I enjoyed it and learned a lot. It discusses anxiety, perfectionism, control, and many other related topics as they affect both kids and parents.

I really liked the focus on playfulness, roughhousing, and listening/empathy. The "second chicken" analogy made a lot of sense to me -- how kids look to adults to decide if they should worry or not. The specific stories and cases were helpful to read as well.

I definitely recommend this to anyone who has faced these issues themselves or has kids that do. Below are some of my notes and takeaways.

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​Introduction
When first chicken frightened it looks to see how second chicken reacts 
Children get scared when parents get scared
Over sensitive alarm security system
All clear signal also not effective if too anxious
Avoidance increases anxiety
Playful approach to parent anxiety
Getting down on the floor 
Pretend to be patient while they are doctor
Rough and tumble play
Imaginative play
Avoidance isn’t a good solution 
Do something scary, fun, and safe every day

1 childhood anxiety: alert, alarm, assessment, all clear
Teach children about how anxiety affects the body and creates butterflies in stomach
Security system
Parents as comforting presence
Slowing down important for accepting all clear
Assessment requires thinking brain 
Scared and safe: tell yourself you feel scared due to anxiety not due to external world
Tell kid about parts of security system
Overprotective parenting creates anxious parents
Ask kid “do you feel safe?”
Give child stuffed animal to pretend to be security guard who is overcautious and scared and play silly games pretending to be scared of another stuffed animal
Reverse roles: parent pretends to be scared while child strong and confident
Reverse psychology: ask kid to not do what you want
Pretend to be overactive alarm and make up something pretend silly like “oh no there are pirates” and have kid play role of all clear signal and tell you the coast is clear then come out and find another pretend danger like a pencil and have kid convince you again 

2 the second chicken: parenting with empathy and confidence 
Be calm second chicken
Parenting with empathy
Don’t dismiss their feelings
Acknowledgment better
Would you let me be in charge of safety?
Project calm confidence
Be second chicken that’s calm and calming
Practice your own relaxation as parent
You have to be your own parent
Can you look into my eyes and see if I’m scared?
Discuss your own safety plan and how you relax
If parent too anxious, send to summer camp with non-anxious counselors
What’s the worst thing about monsters? What would happen if they came out? What do you feel in your body when you think about that? Get deeper into understanding child fears
Validate first then provide reassurance
I hear you saying x. Is that right? (Reflect back what they said)
It seems like anxiety is trying to get you to do x
If reassurance hasn’t worked in 15 sec, stop and try something else 
Physical challenges good, rough housing 
Tell kids that was brave, that took courage 
Courage is being scared and doing it anyways
Draw picture of your anxiety and superpower you used to vanquish it

3 relaxation and roughhousing: anxiety and the body
Fearometer
Subjective units of distress scale
Ask for 1-10 or green to red
Have child create and then rate level of stress
Just evaluating level lowers level
What’s your number right now
Goal is movement down the scale, no matter how slow
Relaxation
Did the number go down
Warm water, soft music
From 8-10 physical comfort can lower, shaking, hugging, making noise
Can write my down on paper “I’m having a panic attack” and then read to self as reminder that it won’t be the end of the world 
From 3-8 have them count slowly from their number down to 1 then ask again what number they’re at (can repeat and also visualize self walking down stairs)
Vigorous exercise in rhythmic way. Running or jumping jacks. 
Pouring water
Mountain pose
Have child be mountain and you pretend to be storm of anxiety or fear and try to push them over gently
One breath one movement
Down dog to plank and back
Or move neck left and right
From 3 to -3: very relaxed
Negative numbers deep relaxation
Guided imagination
Massage
Tense muscles and then slowly release tension while you count from 5 to 1 and go through whole body 
Paint relaxing picture for guided visualization 
Pretend to fly, go to beach
The breath
Acceptance 
Notice breathing and slow it down
3 deep breaths
Big dragon breaths and blow out with mouth
Cool down pizza breath
Practice being loud
Roller coaster game: practice moving body fast to feel a bit of fear and practice relaxing
Hold hand, massage
Vigorous exercise
Silly dance and wiggles
Taking up as much space as you can
Drawing and writing
Squeeze ball in hand
Roughhousing between parent and child 
Pushing hands game to match strengtb
Short wrestling bouts
Do exercises together with child so not just about them
Pretend to roll up kid into burrito with blanket

4 the edge: approaching avoidance
Need to spend time on the edge of a fear to get comfortable 
Choices: Avoidance, flooding, white knuckling, facing fear and feeling the feeling
Remind how they handled fears before
Look around at others who are fine
I feel you scared. I’ll hold you as long as you like and when you’re ready I’ll help you go together. 
Stop and go game for when doing something a little scary 
Kid says stop and parent stops
Then kid says go and parent continues 
Secret mission
Send child to secretly get something far away then come back
Think it, feel it, confront it
Think of something you fear then get used to it through relaxation technique 
Remote control game to talk about something child afraid of
You narrate and child says rewind or fast forward when they want you to go slower or faster or skip something
Make your own metaphor
Kid to make up own metaphor or story about what fears
For kid who wants to talk, ask deeper questions
What do you feel in body
What’s the worst that could happen
Ask for advice for another kid with similar fear and treat kid as expert
Role reversal play
You pretend to be scared while kid comforts you
Make believe roles as scientist, detective, spy, superhero

5 dr Spock and Mr Spock 
Regulating emotions
Mad, sad, glad, afraid 
Flame model of emotion: can get bigger or can put water on it through relaxation
Action urge from emotion: do the opposite of what the urge is
Can you find 3 blue things in this room? Can you count down from 50 to 1?
Be matter of fact about sexuality
No such thing as a wrong feeling
Be the spokesperson for the feeling
Feelings time at end of day; Do you have any leftover feelings about xyz
Have kid say something they want to empty chair representing someone
Faster slower game
Have kid run left or right based on your instructions quickly of direction and speed

6 what if vs what is: challenging anxious thoughts 
Indecisiveness, perfectionism, over preparation
Acknowledge and empathize
Challenge vs arguing
Invite children to develop own arguments
Have kid make list of how to challenge own anxious thoughts
Playfully challenge
Fortunately unfortunately
One person starts sentence with fortunately
Next starts next sentence with unfortunately 
Then they continue alternating
Continue until conclusion and giggle away bad thoughts
Anxiety lab game where kid like scientist tries to spot patterns in anxiety and test it in different ways
Wysia: what you see is all there is
Don’t read into small things a bigger thing
Draw anxiety then speak to it
Challenge anxious thinking with what is
Ask is it true and can you be absolutely sure it’s true?
Don’t believe everything you believe
Activate multiple pathways in brain (not just anxiety) through play and activities
Find 5 green things as fast as you can
Notice feeling of air on skin
Silly dancing
Solve math problem
Rate anxiety on 1-10 scale
Think of spark, flame, fuel, water metaphor
Transform anxious thoughts by welcoming them
Worry as hard as you can for a specific period of time
Then don’t worry until next worry time
Write out worries and put in box
Keep asking and then what will happen/so what about fears
What else is just as important to you
Change the scary images into silly ones
“Safe adventures”

7 monsters under the bed and childhood anxieties
Attachment anxiety
Peekaboo
Hide and seek
Reverse roles and pretend to cling to child and never let them go
Pretend to be wearing worst shoe ever if kid attached to foot
Make sign for missing parent
Social anxiety
Scheduling in extra warm up time
Keep saying hi warmly several times over time until they say hi
Guess what others feeling
Use puppets and practice speaking in front of them
Have child teach you social skills
Role playing and exaggerated responses 
Monsters under bed
Represents deeper fears like being alone
Schedule regular roughhousing times
Make up happy dream before bed
Life dangers
What feels good vs feels right
Watch scarier films at home
Pillow fights daily for 10 min
Turn off television
Traumatic fears
Inflexibility 
Perfectionism
Upside down U curve of performance vs stress
Indecisiveness
Less choices
Coin toss
Procrastination 
Weekly routines but also some flexibility 
Gently push
Desire to please
Special time 1:1 with adult doing whatever kid wants
Life and death
Worry soup

8 finding joy
Cure for anxiety is silly dancing
Anxiety never eliminated, just state of mind to be managed
Externalize the problem away from the person
Can outsmart their anxiety 
Roughhousing
Curiosity helps
Pets
Volunteering to help others
Teach relaxation techniques 
Sibam: sensations, images, behaviors, effects, meaning
Create personal anti-anxiety notebook with scale, various drawings and ideas child creates that help them. Stories about successes. Pages about security system. Relaxation exercises. Games from book. 
10 principles
Start with warmth, empathy, and understanding 
Teach children the basics of the security system: alert, alarm, assessment, and all clear. And flame model (spark, flame, fuel, water).
Balance patience and acceptance with gentle challenges and playful push
Do things every day that are scary, fun, and safe
Play. Laughter loosens everything. 
Welcome every emotion and focus on what is vs what if
Help children get out of their thoughts and into their bodies. Relaxation, breathing, and mindfulness, roughhousing, drawing. 
Be the calm second chicken instead of dismissing or endlessly reassuring
Promote tolerance in face of uncertainty and risk
Address every aspect of life affected by anxiety

References
Playful parenting
Homesick and happy
The art of roughhousing 
Hand in hand parenting