Children and Worry

Some topics are universal and worry is one of them. There is a beautiful picture book available online at Big Universe that covers the topic of worry beautifully. When I was a child I worried about everything! When I shared my difficulty with worries with my fourth grade students I got an overwhelming response from the children telling me that they had the same feelings and they sure were glad they weren’t alone. We spent quite a while discussing some of the worries they had.

The worries children have to deal with are numerous. For some it’s whether they’ll get the tennis shoes they want or the part in the play. Others worry about a grandparent who is sick or a brother or sister who is away at college. For some there’s the worry of losing a home to foreclosure, having the electricity turned off, or what kind of mood dad’s going to be in when they get home. Others worry that someone’s going to find out they don’t have a home, that when they leave school everyday, they go to the homeless shelter; That those clothes they wear everyday once belonged to someone else. That woman that comes to see them during the day at school, she’s a social worker, she might be taking her and her brother away from their parents.

Children worry about so many things. Is There A Worry Worrying You? written by Frieda Wolff and Harriet May Savitz, beautifully illustrated by Marie Le Torneau and published by Tanglewood Press, addresses the problems of a child’s worries in a very child friendly way. The book is written at a first grade reading level but the interest level is much wider. As a read aloud the book’s reach stretches all the way from preschool through the elementary school years and beyond. Even as an adult I enjoyed the bitter sweet memories it helped me recall from my childhood.