Looking for a specific article on depression / anxiety in children

April 28, 2023 9:03 AM

I am looking for a specific article that I believe I originally saw posted on Metafilter, talking about treatment for anxiety & depression in children. The high level was that research had showed that parental coaching for the parent was actually more effective than therapy for the child.

I vaguely remember an example of a child who was afraid of the dark, that allowing the child to sleep with their light on, or sleep in the parent's bed, etc was actually not helpful. What was helpful was coaching the parents on how to help their child deal with being scared but not get out of dealing with whatever was causing the anxiety or fear.

I have tried searching on metafilter and google, but you can imagine that googling anxiety and depression brings a huge number of results and I don't see this article in the pile.

I can't pinpoint exactly when this was published, but I believe it would've been pre-Covid.

posted by pineapplerunner to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

Best answer: I have heard of this approach as SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), the program developed at Yale. Their website includes links to articles written in the popular media.
posted by xo at 9:11 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Ok, this is perfect, thank you. Not sure which of the popular media links they have listed is the one I read, but regardless, this gives me all the info I need and more.
posted by pineapplerunner at 9:44 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]