Helping 8 year old with generalized anxiety and scary thoughts
My son seems to have quite a bit of anxiety, but not in the sense of worrying about specific bad things happening or being afraid to do particular things. In the daytime, it’s more like a generalized feeling that he reports sometimes—he’s not anxious about anything, he just feels anxious. And at bedtime these days he almost always feels scared, often with some sort of unpleasant image that he can’t get out of his head. He is also autistic, with low support needs.
What have others found helpful for this kind of generalized anxiety? Is CBT a good fit? Are there other supports or techniques we should try? Thanks in advance!
Apr 10, 2025
Parent Replies
While I am not autistic, I had a very similar experience with anxiety as a child at the same age as your son - a lot of existential anxiety/dread that wasn't tied to any particular scenario and became especially problematic around bedtime. It caused a lot of emotional turmoil at the time. My parents took me to a psychoanalytic child psychologist who was unhelpful (and may have caused more harm than good). As someone with expertise in clinical psychology now, I wish my parents had found a good child psychologist who was an expert in CBT. At the very least, this sort of therapy could be helpful in assessing what's going on, gaining clarity on the fear (which in itself might make it less scary for your son), and testing out some ways to address it, potentially giving you & your child some skills to test out. One great thing about CBT is that it is goal-based and the therapist should be clear in their communication about what they are doing and why, so you can more easily assess whether it's working for you. You should be able to expect that a psychologist would start with an assessment (a semi-structured conversation, probably 60-90 mins) with you and your son and let you know whether THEY think CBT would be a good fit and why/why not before you jump into therapy. If you have the time and $$ to take this approach, I'd recommend it!