Article: Keys to Helping Socially Anxious Teenagers: For School Personnel and Parents

A very interesting article published by The Child Study Center at NYU Langone Medical Center provides strategies and suggestions for parents on how to support your son/daughter who has social anxiety. The article is called Keys To Helping Socially Anxious Teenagers: For School Personnel and Parents. Some of the suggestions for parents as well as recommended books are below:

How can parents help to manage social anxiety in their children?

1. Reward Brave, Nonanxious Behavior: Provide praise and attention and small rewards. 
2. Prevent Avoidance: Refuse to engage in your child's behaviors that allow him/her to avoid the situations s/he fears. For example, refrain from ordering your child's food, speaking for your child in stores, making phone calls for your child, or taking care of other things that your child is avoiding due to social anxiety. Gradually encourage your child to handle social tasks on his/her own to foster more independence and confidence. 
3. Prompt Your Child to Cope Constructively: Encourage your child to come up with his/her own solutions, Help your child to brainstorm ways to handle the anxiety and to independently decide how to cope more constructively. Prompt your child to use the cognitive and behavioral skills being learned in treatment. 
4. Limit Reassurance: Anxious children will constantly ask for reassurance that things will turn out okay or that they will be alright. This prevents them from learning how to cope with anxiety on their own and maintains the belief that they are unable to do so. 
5. Help Your Child to Use a Problem Solving Approach:
1. Summarize what your child has said,
2. Help your child brainstorm possible ways in which the anxiety may be reduced,
3. Make sure not to take over the task for your child or tell him/her what to do,
4. Go through each idea that the child has generated and ask questions such as, "What do you think would happen if you did this? Do you think that would help to reduce your anxiety in the long-run? What would be the worst that would happen? What is the likelihood that it would happen?"
5. Praise your child for discussing possible solutions and outcomes,
6. Prompt your child to select the strategy that allows him/her to approach feared situations rather than avoid them and is most likely to have a positive outcome.

Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents 
by Ronald Rapee, Ph.D., Susan H. Spence, Ph.D., Vanessa Cobham, Ph.D.
and Ann Wignall
M.Psych. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. 2000

Keys to Parenting Your Anxious Child 
by Katharine Manassis
M.D. Barron's Educational Series, Inc. 1996