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This is not just him being upset that he has to do something. This is him being actually

anxious because he's a first kid and he's kind of a people pleaser. But I've also had to

be careful that since he's a people pleaser and anxious about things to not tie my emotions

into it and tell him all the time you don't have to make mommy happy. This is not something

you have to do to make me happy. Welcome to How To. I'm science writer David Epstein. The

last year has been tough on all of us. But for young kids, they've been facing isolation

that they've never known before. According to the CDC, the proportion of mental health-related

ER visits last year from children just 5 to 11 years old, it was up about 24% compared

to the previous year. It's hard to be an anxious kid in an anxious time. But rates of anxiety

and depression among children and adolescents, they were already alarming before the pandemic.

As our listener this week knows all too well. My name is Michaela. I'm a homeschooling mom

of three kids. Asher is my eight-year-old and William is my six-year-old who both have

different anxieties. Michaela is particularly worried about Asher. She knew it wasn't exactly

a laid-back little guy. But she was taken by surprise by what she heard at a parent teacher

conference before the pandemic. He was a happy kid. And his teacher was, I really liked

her last year, but she said to me at conferences, Asher cries a lot. Do you notice that at home?

And at first, I was kind of like, yay, yay. I mean, we see some of these behaviors.

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