ANXIETY: It is not a phase

In Singapore, children from low-income backgrounds have a higher risk of experiencing anxiety disorders (Miech, Caspi, Moffitt, Wright & Silva, 1999). 55% of students also experience anxiety due to stress from school or tests (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2017). Hence, it becomes an increasing concern when more students are experiencing anxiety and yet people do not talk about or seek mental health assistance due to stigma (Henderson, Evans-Lacko & Thornicroft, 2013).

MAze distraction

The children took turns to do a maze activity. Only this time, the other children had to continuously say or scream things like "Wrong way!", "You don't know how to do!" or "If you don't do finish, no one will like you!".

What went right...

The children really enjoyed the activity as they all had a chance to be the person doing the maze as well as the "distractor". During the debrief when we explained what anxiety was, they also shared their own experiences when they felt anxious.

What could be

improved ...

We should have paid more attention to the time. We overestimated the time that we had allocated for the activity and hence had to rush through our debrief. This caused us to skip some points we wanted to raise during the debrief.

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References

Henderson, C., Evans-Lacko, S. & Thornicroft, G. (2013). Mental illness stigma, help seeking and public

health campaigns. American Journal of Public Health, 103(5), 777-780.

Miech, R. A., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Wright, B. R., & Silva, P. A. (1999). Low socioeconomic status and mental disorders: A longitudinal study of selection and causation during young adulthood. American Journal of Sociology, 104(4), 1096-1131. doi:10.1086/210137