London - A small, rather ugly, cuddly toy is not a gift one might expect to take off among today’s tech-savvy children.
The zip-mouthed monster doesn’t talk, move or do any tricks. But it does hold a simple promise: to take away a child’s anxieties. And soaring sales suggest this is a promise that particularly chimes with today’s children.
The idea behind the Sorgenfresser Worry Eater, created in Germany, is that children write down or draw a picture of what’s upsetting them and put it into the toy’s mouth, which is then zipped shut - banishing their worries.
It also lets parents peek at the scribbled paper and gain an insight into their child’s concerns.
Critics may say the toy - predicted to be in Amazon’s top 20 most popular Christmas gifts this year - encourages children to dwell on anxieties and, at £20 (about R360), turns fretting into a profit.
But its huge success invites the difficult question: are children more anxious than ever?
Although youngsters have always worried about things - from the monster lurking under the bed to the sounds of parental conflict downstairs - statistics do suggest it’s getting worse.
Around one in ten youngsters aged five to 16 now has a diagnosed mental-health disorder, with children as young as five being treated for anxiety. And in the last decade, the number of young people admitted to hospital for self- harming has soared by 60 percent.
It’s not just children who are anxious: parents nowadays worry about everything from germs to stranger-danger. Inevitably, such anxieties pass on to their children; how could they not when they’re the ones whose activities are being curtailed? But these worries can take a considerable physical and mental toll.
Take eight-year-old Kieran Amendola, who gets so worried that his heart beats fast and he starts to cry. His school nurse is so concerned, that she has referred him for counselling.
His mother Rebecca, 30, a manager from Nottinghamshire, says: “The crux of it seems to be a deep-seated fear that I might leave him and never come back.”
She believes Kieran’s anxieties stem from her divorce from his father when he was two. More recently, his maternal grandparents separated after 28 years and found new partners. And last year, Rebecca’s uncle and grandmother died.
“I believe it’s all contributed greatly to his fear of the people he loves leaving him,” she says. Aware that she is her son’s “security blanket”, Rebecca tries to comfort him “with gentle words of reassurance and lots of cuddles”. But nothing she can do repairs the damage.
“I can only recall a handful of children at my school whose parents were divorced - and, as for grandparents separating, that was unheard of.
“What’s more, the news on TV and radio is more frightening. When I was a child we didn’t hear about shootings or stabbings, and there weren’t police cars whizzing about. Kieran finds them frightening too.”
That word “too” is revealing. For if a parent is, understandably, unsettled by such aspects of the world, their unease will communicate itself to the child. After all, children listen to our conversations and pick up on our responses.
They can also find out about things all too easily, thanks to our “wired” world, with its iPads, smartphones and constant TV. Access to disturbing images is hard to police - making technology the new monster under the bed.
The rate of technological change over the past 25 years is unprecedented, and children are paying the price - the number suffering from depression has nearly doubled in that time. More than 8 000 under-10s now have severe depression, says the charity Anxiety UK.
Of course, a parent may label a child “depressed” when he or she is just sad. In modern Britain there is an urge to label and identify everything. But marking out children who are simply quiet or shy as anxious can be a recipe for disaster - not least because that starts the parent and child on a spiral of worry where none previously existed. All children are different and must be allowed to be different. But, as I know from my Saturday advice column in the Mail, it’s hard for parents to put aside their fears.
I often wonder, for instance, how many parents who write to me worrying that their grown-up children aren’t making friends were once little bundles of anxiety themselves.
Social behaviour is learnt, after all. Some experts even think acute sensitivity might be innate - that fearful children are actually “different” because of their genes. Though that is hard to tell in today’s climate of concern and caution, where children grow up so exposed to parental worry and safeguards.
It can be hard to detangle the cause of childhood anxiety, as Mary Proctor, a stay-at-home mom in Oxfordshire, knows only too well.
“My son Freddie will be five in December yet still won’t go on a bouncy castle or a theme-park ride with his friends,” she says. “He’s very timid and worries terribly about new social situations, even though I’ve exposed him to them from birth. It took him ten months to come out of his shell at pre-school.”
I wonder if Mary, 46, should simply relax more. Interestingly, she was bullied at school and says her husband Andrew, who runs a fruit and vegetable distribution business, is “quite reserved” and may have inherited “this personality trait” from his own father. Inherited or learnt, reserve runs in the family.
But Mary fears that part of Freddie’s problems stem from not seeing Andrew very much - like many mothers, she is sole carer while the dad works very hard to make ends meet.
“Andrew works long hours, so he’s only really around on Sundays,” she says. “We make an effort to go out as a family then, and it’s wonderful to see Freddie and Andrew together.
“But Freddie is very much a mommy’s boy. I sometimes wonder if me being constantly with him has contributed to him fearing leaving my side. It’s a modern malaise that most families don’t have the luxury of both parents being around each day.” Mary uses the Worry Eater doll to find out how her son feels and to encourage him to talk. She hopes that as he learns to write, he’ll “pen messages for the toy to eat”.
Personally, I believe such rituals can be a great source of comfort, and I often advise readers with problems such as unresolved grief or hatred to pour it all out in a letter, then bury or burn their words. They usually find their spirits feel lighter afterwards.
Meanwhile, “therapy dogs” are increasingly popular in the US - a child or teenager with behavioural problems will often talk to a pooch in preference to an adult; the animal, like the toy, makes it OK to open up.
But, while these tricks may help children cope, they don’t deal with the root cause of why they are so anxious, afraid and troubled.
In educationist Sue Palmer’s brilliant book Toxic Childhood, she suggests many ways in which the modern world damages our children.
For one thing, children now have too much choice, she says. After all, a parent who asks, “What do you want for supper?” places the burden of choice on the child, whereas an old-fashioned mother like myself will announce dinner with no discussion allowed. Choice breeds anxiety - “What if I get it wrong?”
Palmer also cites too much solitude of the wrong sort. Parents work longer and longer hours, leaving them with little time or energy to focus on their children’s inner needs.
Family meal-times - when worries may be eased out in conversation - are a thing of the past in most homes. Children are plonked in front of the TV instead - the worst companion for worried youngsters.
Perhaps the most significant factor Palmer cites in stoking childhood anxiety is not enough sleep.
A third of parents no longer read aloud to their children. The peaceful bedtime ritual of reading in a quiet room at a set time each night - essential to mental and physical well-being - simply does not happen in many homes.
Lack of sleep generates stress, and stress generates lack of sleep, and within that whirling circle the child becomes dizzy with anxiety.
There is a great deal of pressure on modern children, too. Social networking, competition with friends, parental expectation, parental neglect, over-scheduling, pressure to conform to stereotypical looks; trends such as “sexting”… all this causes acute anxiety, which seems to begin at an ever-younger age.
No surprise, then, that the worry doll has taken off. But while parents rush out to buy the friendly monster, I suspect the real answer already lies at home. For though there is little we can do to stop the huge societal changes, there are things that parents can and should do to protect their families.
Rebecca’s prescription of “cuddles and reassurance” is certainly helpful when children are young - love is a wonderful comfort blanket.
Also, both parents must be there for their children - to talk to them at meal-times and on the sofa (without the TV on), and to read a story at night. For it’s not a worry doll that will really take away a child’s anxiety - it’s a balanced, stable and secure home life. - Daily Mail