A parent sits across from you and asks, why can't my child just take the same anxiety medicine

that helps me? Sounds reasonable, but the evidence tells a very different story.

I'm Dr. Josh Vader, the editor-in-chief of the Carlat Child Psychiatry Report and co-author of the Child

Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice Second Edition, 2023, and our other book, Prescribing Psychotropics.

And I'm Mara Goverman, a licensed clinical social worker in Southern California with a private practice and an avid reader of the

Carlott Psychiatry Reports. Today, we're going to look at how benzodiazepines fit into care for children

and adolescents. So picture this, a teenager whose anxiety is still disrupting their life despite a solid trial of therapy.

They've stayed engaged in CBT for months, yet worries and avoidance continue to affect

school performance, social life, and day-to-day functioning in the family.

That's when families often start asking about medication.

If you suggest an SSRI, some parents push back because they've seen alarming headlines online

or they draw on their own experiences using benzodiazepines and assume those medications

might work the same way for their child.

And that question opens the door to a bigger discussion

of what actually works for anxiety in kids and teens

and what the evidence tells us to avoid.

Okay, to understand these questions, we need to zoom out.

Pediatric anxiety affects 10% of children, and these disorders include generalized anxiety,

separation anxiety, and social anxiety.

Often starting early, but real functional impairment usually shows later in childhood or adolescence.

We'd love to see more families coming to us early on to ask whether there's a way to step in

and keep the anxiety from escalating.

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