Afraid of the vacuum cleaner? ‘Uncertainty about the world can cause anxiety in young children’
People suffer from anxiety wait on average twelve years before seeking professional help. That’s a pity and it’s unnecessary, says development psychologist Leonie Vreeke. She is therefore developing prevention programmes where parents learn to react in a helpful way to anxious behaviour on the part of their very young children.
Being afraid of the spray from the shower, or talking about the weekend in the group circle at school. The world of young children is plagued by seemingly unreal anxieties. Leonie Vreeke, who has been conducting research on anxiety in young children for a number of years, observes that parents sometimes find it hard to handle this behaviour. What can be so difficult about saying ‘Hallo’ to your teacher when you get to school in the morning?
Magical thinking
‘Certainly, young children often cannot yet understand the world,’ Vreeke explains. ‘And that uncertainty can cause anxiety. A child might want to play with a friend, but doesn’t know how that will go. How do you approach another child? And where will you be going?’ Also, children are often susceptible to ‘magical thinking’: they have no clear distinction between what is real and what is fantasy. ‘Then they might be afraid of disappearing down the plug hole in the shower, or being sucked up into the vacuum cleaner.’
‘Adjusting to the anxiety can hinder development’
Avoidance hinders
So, how should you react as a parent if your child is standing in front of the class shaking with fear? Or if they refuse to step into the shower? It is tempting to avoid that stressful situation, by always letting them take a bath, for example, rather than a shower. ‘But in that case you are making adjustments, and giving the anxiety the opportunity to develop further and become even bigger. All these adjustments hamper the child’s development. If you always take a different route to school because your child is afraid of dogs, that can ultimately lead to a phobia about dogs.’
Step by step
What does work is approaching stressful situations step by step. The Cool Little Kids programme for parents is based on this principle. In six evenings parents learn how to handle their child’s anxiety. Vreeke and colleagues are studying the effectiveness of Cool Little Kids by comparing it to a control condition. Currently, Cool Little Kids is offered by different social partners, such as Prezens, Arkin, Indigo, GGZ Ingeest and MOC Kabouterhuis.
Public health service Amsterdam
For a long time anxiety symptoms in young children received little attention at the child health clinic. ‘Many of the information meetings that were offered were about hyperactive behaviour or wetting the bed, for example,’ Vreeke explains. That is changing now: for the past couple of years the Amsterdam public health service has been using a questionnaire from Vreeke’s dissertation that screens for anxiety. ‘Parents are shown a traffic light. If, after completing the questionnaire, they get a red light, they are told about Cool Little Kids.’
Anxiety screening
Vreeke started the Brave Steps project in September 2024. ‘Many parents find it hard to judge whether they should be concerned about their child’s anxiety. Does it realIy matter that my child is sometimes a bit shy? Six evenings is then quite an investment in time. The aim with Brave Steps is to offer parents even more readily accessible information; in one webinar with tips and information they can judge whether their child needs further help.’ In the project, Vreeke and her team also want to offer an individual treatment that is more intensive than the Cool Little Kids training. ‘After that we want to look into what intervention is most suitable for which parents. And which elements from a training course make the treatment more effective? We don’t want to offer any unnecessary interventions, but we do want to make sure that parents and children receive the help they need that’s available at that point in time.’
‘That quiet, dreamy girl at the back of the class often gets overlooked’
Hopeful
Children are often already stuck fast in their anxieties before their parents seek help. ‘That’s what’s difficult about internalising problems,’ Vreeke explains. ‘Over-active children disturb the teacher and/or their fellow pupils with their behaviour and they are registered for help more quickly, while the quiet, dreamy girl at the back of the class, putting it very stereotypically, is more likely to be ignored.’ Vreeke wants to use preventive measures to avoid children suffering permanently from anxiety symptoms, because it takes on average twelve years before people suffering from anxiety seek help. ‘I think that’s a pity because if you delay taking action, anxieties can become more serious and harder to deal with. I think that’s what’s hopeful about development psychology: even with relatively minor adjustments you can contribute to healthy development for children.’
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In this series of articles we show how social sciences research and education contribute to resolving societal issues. Researchers, lecturers, students and social partners work together to make knowledge accessible and to make a difference. With open science and engaged education, we strengthen the connection between university and society. We build together on a future where science and society go hand in hand.