Factors in childhood anxiety

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Factors in childhood anxiety

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Unfortunately, I am seeing a lot more children coming into my office with legitimate anxiety disorders at 10 to 14 years of age. I think that we live in a competitive world and we expect a lot from our children. And I think that one of the biggest problems that I see is how we overschedule our children. I think that it is a problem that we have schools that are incredibly competitive – now, I think that’s a good thing – we feel that our children need to have extra curricular activities every day and they never, ever just get to come home and play in the mud, which is exactly what they should be doing. I remember as a child I used to make riverbanks in my backyard and turn my backyard into mud pile much to my mom’s dismay. Instead today we have soccer on Monday, ballet on Tuesday, karate on Wednesday, and we end up creating this incredibly rigorous program for 6-year-old kids, 5-year-old kids, sometimes 3 and 4-year-old kids. And that is probably too much for them. I think that teaching our children and providing them with the best that we possibly can is a wonderful, wonderful thing, but we have to be very careful not to overschedule them and set the bar too high. Children are children and they should play.

Watch Video: Factors in childhood anxiety by Lawrence Kagan, MD, ...

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Lawrence Kagan, MD

Pediatrician

Lawrence Kagan, MD, FAAP, is a UCLA honors graduate, with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. He received medical training at USC Keck School of Medicine, and completed his internship and residency in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In addition to passionately studying neonatal, general pediatric and adolescent medicine at CHLA, he had the opportunity to train under some of the greatest minds in subspecialty pediatrics, diagnosing and managing the rarest and most complicated childhood ailments. Prior to opening Westside Pediatrics, he worked as an attending physician at the CHLA Emergency Department as well as at Cedars Sinai Urgent Care. Dr. Kagan is a native of Los Angeles and is happily married with two children.

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