You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey you, Maddie Sify here with a special episode.

Today we're dropping a little something from our friends over at NPR's Life Kit.

And listen, I know this isn't our usual deal.

You come here for science facts and bad jokes.

But today's episode is still packed with science about anxiety in kids, which is pretty near

and dear to me because I don't know about you, but I had it growing up.

And spoiler alert, I still have anxiety.

And mental health is so important to talk about.

So I'm genuinely glad we have this episode for you all today.

So today on the show, Life Kit's Corey Turner and Anya Camnets give us tips for dealing

with anxious kids.

I want you to meet a little boy from Central Illinois.

At five, he loves to draw and wear capes and play with a wooden sword that is dad made.

But by eight or nine, he also has this constant pit of the stomach feeling that something's

about to go wrong.

He's scared of storms and high places.

When he flies on an airplane, he can clearly feel it breaking in half and imagines what

it would be like to get sucked out.

Most of the time, nobody else can see all of this worry and he doesn't talk about it because

it's either normal and nobody talks about it or it's not normal and that's super embarrassing.

Finally, after 40 years, he describes his fear to someone else, a doctor who very quickly

...