Do you live or work with children whose anxiety is overwhelming them? Do they shy away from challenges for fear of failure? Do you worry about your kids choosing harmful coping mechanisms as they struggle with the stress in their lives?

When children can’t cope, challenges become stressors, and anxiety replaces anticipation. Our kids can’t enjoy childhood to the fullest, their learning suffers, and their long-term resilience is compromised. Children often get the message that their anxiety is something to get rid of or push away—but our anxiety is there for a reason—it has a job to do.

Alongside other parents, caregivers, educators, and health care providers, you gain access to:

• More than 20 video presentations that offer a new framework for understanding anxiety in children
• More than 30 embodied exercises to help children access their inner strength
• Readings, short films, and video resources to support learning
• Online forums to connect with other parents and caregivers about ways to help your child thrive, even when life is challenging

In each module, you’ll also hear interviews with top mindfulness teachers and experts such as physician Gabor Maté, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine Daniel J. Siegel, child psychologist Christopher Willard, mindfulness teacher Rhonda V. Magee, Self-Compassion teacher Brett Cobb, researcher Catherine Cook Cottone, and senior fellow at the Greater Good Science Center Rick Hanson.

This workshop is appropriate for parents and caregivers, educators, health care providers, counselors, coaches, and others who find anxiety and stress impacting the children in their care. Content will be relevant for children up through the early teen years, and adults will find some practical applications for navigating their own stresses as well.

8 Course Modules

Participants can choose to move through the content in order, or jump around to the modules and resources most relevant to you.

1. Welcome & Orientation: This workshop will help you explore a strength-based approach to help children and teens build resilience, manage anxiety, and thrive.
2. Childhood Anxiety Today: Children and teens, just like adults, are impacted by the challenges of modern life in physical, emotional, and social ways.
3. Anxiety & the Brain/Body Relationship: Let’s explore the relationship between the brain, nervous system, and the body and surprising research on what stress is telling us.
4. Mindfulness, Movement & Resilience: How do you explain mindfulness to young ones? Learn some of the ways children can begin to cope with anxiety naturally.
5. Managing Escalating Emotions: Meltdowns happen to the best of us. Get the tools and resources that kids (and adults) can utilize when emotions run wild.
6. Building Agency & Personal Power: What message do kids receive about their own agency? Our beliefs about our capacity help us better respond to challenges and threats.
7. Connection, Attunement & Play: When things get overwhelming, relationships can be an important source of strength. As we learn to foster connection and community, these exercises show that attuned connection or presence can be as simple as tossing a ball back and forth. It can be playful!
8. Self-Compassion, Gratitude & Courage: When we encourage children to have a kind, compassionate, and grateful attitude toward their body, they begin to see their bodies are a resource, not a liability.

Module Activities

Each module should take around 1 hour to complete and will follow the same format:

• Watch: Interactive video lectures by Jennifer Cohen Harper with embedded self-reflection questions on the module topic.
• Practice: Guided video and audio practices and exercises that you can try at home or at work with the children in your care.
• Resources: Optional interviews with top professionals and mindfulness experts to help you develop a deeper understanding of childhood anxiety.
• Reflections and Forum: You will be asked to journal about questions related to the module topic and encouraged to share your answers in the forum.

Estimated Time for Completion

8-10 hours, but you may find yourself spending more time as you investigate some of the additional resources that are provided.