Preventive Intervention for Anxious Preschoolers and Their Parents: Strengthening Early Emotional Development

Abstract

The high prevalence and early onset of anxiety disorders have inspired innovative prevention efforts targeting young at-risk children. With parent–child prevention models showing success for older children and adolescents, the goal of this study was to evaluate a parent–child indicated preventive intervention for preschoolers with mild to moderate anxiety symptoms. Sixteen children (ages 3–5) and at least one of their parents participated in Strengthening Early Emotional Development (SEED), a new 10-week intervention with concurrent groups for parents and children. Outcome measures included clinician-rated and parent-rated assessments of anxiety symptoms, as well as measures of emotion knowledge, parent anxiety, and parental attitudes about children’s anxiety. Participation in SEED was associated with reduced child anxiety symptoms and improved emotion understanding skills. Parents reported decreases in their own anxiety, along with attitudes reflecting enhanced confidence in their children’s ability to cope with anxiety. Reductions in child and parent anxiety were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Findings suggest that a parent–child cognitive-behavioral preventive intervention may hold promise for young children with mild to moderate anxiety. Improvements in parent anxiety and parental attitudes may support the utility of intervening with parents. Fostering increased willingness to encourage their children to engage in new and anxiety-provoking situations may help promote continued mastery of new skills and successful coping with anxiety.

Symptoms of Anxiety and Associated Risk and Protective Factors in Young Asian American Children

“…Similarly, SEED is an early childhood anxiety prevention program incorporates emotional socialization practices related to anxiety, parent–child relationships, child emotion knowledge and understanding and coping strategies. The SEED program has shown to result in increased child emotion knowledge and understanding and lower rates of anxiety in parents and children [55]. These and other culturally-informed early childhood interventions hold promise for promoting ASA children’s mental health outcomes.…”

The prevention of childhood anxiety and promotion of resilience among preschool-aged children: a universal school based trial

“…The most recent preventive intervention for anxious preschoolers and their parents involved a trial of the new Strengthening Early Emotional Development (SEED) programme (Fox et al, 2012) to promote social and emotional and behavioural competencies (N ¼ 16, aged 3-5 years). SEED incorporates content from other evidencebased group programmes including the Preschool PATHS and the Cool Kids programme (Domitrovich, Cortes, & Greenberg, 2007;Rapee et al, 2006).…”

“…Taken together, these findings have inspired a conceptual shift in the development and implementation of mental health intervention worldwide (Delaney & Staten, 2010), from traditional models of psychological intervention delivery to an increased focus on prevention as a way of improving both the immediate health of children and young people and contributing to longer-term resilience. Consequently there has been an increased emphasis on developing innovative prevention protocols for preschool-aged children (Bayer et al, 2011;Bienvenu & Ginsburg, 2007;Fox, Haplern, & Forsyth, 2008;Fox et al, 2012;Hirshfeld-Becker & Biederman, 2002). Such early preventive interventions have the potential to reduce rates of depression, with anxiety typically preceding co-morbid depressive disorders (Bienvenu & Ginsburg, 2007;Flannery-Schroeder & Kendall, 2000), and may be most powerful when targeted at high-risk life transitions, such as entry to primary school or other significant transition points (Hirshfeld-Becker, Masek, et al, 2008), affording young children and their parents the opportunity to learn positive coping and emotional regulation skills.…”

Preventing Internalizing Problems in 6–8 Year Old Children: A Universal School-Based Program

“…The majority of prevention programs for internalizing disorders have targeted older children (e.g., middle or later primary years; Barrett and Turner, 2001; Lowry-Webster et al, 2001; Quayle et al, 2001; Roberts et al, 2003, 2004; Rooney et al, 2006, 2013a,b; Fox et al, 2012; Johnstone et al, 2014; Myles-Pallister et al, 2014). There are comparatively few prevention programs specifically targeting internalizing disorders in younger children.…”