Angst - Dakota Ridge High School

Angst: raising awareness around anxiety

The Angst project is an IndieFlix Original documentary designed to raise awareness around anxiety, with an emphasis on youth and families. The film includes interviews with kids, teens, experts, and parents. Our goal is to help people identify and understand the symptoms of anxiety and encourage them to reach out for help. Angst will be screened in schools, communities, and theaters around the world. The film and corresponding materials provide tools, resources, and hope. AngstMovie.com

Guidance for Families Considering Bringing Their Children to See Angst

Below is some information that will help you to decide whether to bring along your middle or high school student to the Angst showing. If you think your child is experiencing anxiety, depression, and/or panic attacks, this film may be especially helpful for them to see as it provides an understanding of why anxiety happens in our bodies and shows there is help and hope for treating symptoms. Please use the following insight when deciding whether to bring your child to the screening with you. If you do bring your child, the experience of watching the film is a wonderful way to start a conversation together. Plan to discuss or process it afterwards in a way that works for your child and feel free to leverage our family discussion questions.

● The film is designed to be shown to both students and parents, separately or together.
● The narrators are students, parents, teachers, and expert therapists.
● There are many students voices, from elementary age through high school age, trending more toward the older students, describing their experience and how they are coping in ways that help.
● The young people featured in the film are very diverse in terms of race and class.
● Areas discussed include: modern day anxiety triggers in today's world, the difference between "typical, expected" and debilitating anxiety (Anxiety Disorder), panic attacks and the physical symptoms, the brain science around understanding why the symptoms happen, and suggested tips for managing anxiety

○ The science underlying anxiety symptoms
○ Parent response - what helps support a teen experiencing anxiety and what doesn't
○ Student responses to extreme anxiety - strategies for taming it
○ Coping strategies in general
○ Exposure therapy - doing what scares you
○ Noticing the signs of anxiety, and taking it seriously
○ Working with students' core fear
○ The generational connection - parental anxiety
○ Breaking the generational cycle of anxiety
○ Types of therapy available
○ Explains that anxiety is treatable!

By Wellness Center at Castro Valley High School

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