British media: Why are there so many children with anxiety?

The British "Guardian" July 7th article, the original title: "Obviously there is a market": Why are there so many children's books about anxiety? In a bookstore in Sydney, children's book expert Leciel Robertson's chair There are a lot of books. The tender yellow, purple, blue ... they are piled into colorful book towers. The book is printed with monsters, little girls and uncomfortable emoticons, depicting anxiety.

Data map source Visual China

In recent years, in the context of the continuous rise in children's mental illness, children's reading materials publishing industry is publishing more emotional healthy readings, such as "worrying concerns", "Hey Warriors", "Book of Feelings", etc. Books have been successful. Digital content coordinator Angela Crocom said: "Although there have been emotional books for young children and children, emotional books have obviously increased in the past two years. Books related to the anxiety and depression of parents or children have increased significantly, and a large number of meditation and children's yoga readings appear. "

Children and adolescent publishers Anna McChanglan introduced that last month, they published a new book about how to overcome the fear of flying with meditation. She said that her team observed that many children were facing mental health problems, and the sales of books were "really stable."

This trend is not limited to picture books. "A large number of anxiety characters also appeared in children's novels 9 to 12," Robertson said. For example, the main theme of the best -selling novel writer Karen Foxley is to "help anxiety children." A role named Mary Kate Martin in the book will learn breathing skills and special response mechanisms with readers. In the 1970s and 1980s, children's reading was rarely had such roles. "In the book I read when I was a kid, each character was brave. Many characters did not have any inner struggle." Foxley said.

From the perspective of children's reading expert Miriam Rosen Bloom, the rise of children's emotional readings has nothing to do with periodic popularity. She remembers a large number of values ​​based on values ​​in the 1980s, but such books have gradually become "too preaching." In addition, she also believes that the change of parenting attitude of parents is also one of the reasons. She said that parents are now more aware that they need to support their children emotionally and respect their feelings.

In Robertson's view, children's emotional reading let children see daily life, and began to pay attention to partners who may experience anxiety or other emotional issues around them. But at the same time, Robertson is worried that some emotional books have seen sales more important than content, and then "not to talk to children enough." "The children have a lot of words to say, I hope to listen to them."

"A very positive thing is that children's emotional books have opened up a space for adults to communicate directly with children. When I was a child, no one had a conversation with me." A publisher said "The way children talk about emotions almost make me cry, and I hope that I can express my emotions freely when I was a kid."

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