The Anxiety Busting Workbook for Kids: Fun CBT Activities to Squash Your Fears and Worries

With this engaging workbook, kids will be so busy having fun, they won’t even realize they’re learning lifelong skills to manage anxiety and worry!

If your child struggles with anxiety, rest assured that you aren’t alone. Children face a number of anxiety-inducing challenges—from school to extracurricular activities to making friends. The good news is that kids can learn to turn their overly anxious thoughts into curiosity, determination, and bravery. Using kid-friendly skills based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this book is designed to help children ages 5 to 9 obtain the building blocks needed to manage anxiety and worry throughout their lives.

This engaging workbook is grounded in evidence-based psychology—but your kid will never know it, because it’s also packed with fun! 25 games and activities will help them realize just how capable, strong, and brave they really are. Each chapter includes a kid-friendly introduction, then jumps into kid-approved silliness such as going on a Fear-Busting Scavenger Hunt, or visiting the I-Scream Shop. The culmination of all their amazing work includes a visit to the Celebration Station, and yes, there will be prizes!

Your child is awesome, and they have the power to feel awesome, too. Give them the help they need wrapped up in the fun they love, and soon they’ll know that not only are their fears not as big and scary as they think, but also that they are brave and strong, and able to tackle life’s inevitable challenges with confidence.

In these increasingly challenging times, kids and teens need mental health resources more than ever. With more than 3 million copies sold worldwide and translated into 260 languages, Instant Help Books are easy to use, proven-effective, and recommended by therapists.

Debra Kissen, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, and CEO of the Light On Anxiety Treatment Centers. She is author of several books on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-focused management of anxiety, worry, panic, and fear, including The Panic Workbook for Teens, Rewire Your Anxious Brain for Teens, and Break Free from Intrusive Thoughts.

Meena Dugatkin, PsyD, is a licensed clinical child psychologist at Light On Anxiety Treatment Centers. She specializes in evidence-based CBT and exposure and response prevention (ERP) treatments to help children and teens struggling with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Grace Cusack, LPC, works with families and clients of all ages at Light On Anxiety Treatment Centers, has advanced training in ERP and CBT, and helps her clients develop symptom awareness and coping strategies for anxiety, OCD, and other related disorders.

Foreword writer Eli R. Lebowitz, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychologist, and director of the Child Study Center’s Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program at Yale School of Medicine.