By Michaela Gordoni
Get Out of Your Head author Jennie Allen just launched a book spurred by the “anxiety pandemic” affecting kids across the world.
“I was seeing that in my own kids. I was seeing that in my friends’ kids and my nieces and nephews, and it broke my heart,” Allen told Crosswalk Headlines this month. “But I have walked through it myself, where I have struggled with these thoughts and these fears.”
Allen’s new book, What to Do with Your Whirly Swirly Thoughts, is a kids’ version of her adult book, Get Out of Your Head. In both, Allen references 2 Corinthians 10:5, which says to take every thought captive.
“When you think of a kid wrestling with suicidal ideation, wrestling with a tight chest — and they don’t know why — wrestling with bullying at school, wrestling with all these different things that our kids are dealing with and never talking about it — that breaks my heart, and so my heart was, ‘I really want Get Out of Your Head to be in the form of a kid’s book’ so that parents can start these conversations with them way earlier,” Allen said.
As a young person, Allen struggled with anxiety. It wasn’t until her 20s that she realized she could have control of her thoughts.
“My hope is that this brings up the conversation way sooner, that kids aren’t alone in their spiraling thoughts, and that parents will be able to enter into these conversations in a really simple, beautiful way.”
“I talked to somebody earlier today who said, ‘I was just crying reading it,'” she said. “I mean, I think it ministers to all of us, just to hear the simple truth that God has built our brains and that we can control our thoughts.”
Jennie Allen believes technology is pushing the anxiety pandemic as it encourages isolation.
“I think that isolation crisis is fed by technology, whether it’s that we can get everything we need through Amazon or whether it’s we’re looking at Snapchat and all our friends are together at another house and didn’t include us, or whether it’s a kid who is secretly addicted to porn,” she said.
Related: Jennie Allen Encourages Us to Bring Emotions to God: ‘More Depth in That Relationship’
She encourages parents to do what’s best for their kids, which is often not what their kids peers are doing.
“My kids were the last ones to have phones. They were the last ones to have social media,” she told Crosswalk. “And my kids today are 25 to 16, and they thank me, and their lives are so much richer.”
Of her book, she said, “I am so excited about this…This is going to grab your heart, grab your kids hearts. I bet you will have great conversations about the insides of them and what they’re feeling.”
“We were sometimes the only ones swimming upstream with this, and we just felt convicted. We were like, ‘We’re not giving you this toxic stuff,’” she said.
Jonathan Haidt is another outspoken author who spreads awareness about “the anxious generation,” which is the name of his most recent book.
Haidt, a psychologist, notes that since the introduction of smartphones in the early 2010s, adolescent levels of anxiety, suicide, depression and self-harm have spiked significantly.
He requests that parents keep smartphones away from kids before high school and restrict social media until age 16. Haidt also advocates for phone-free schools and more play and real-world responsibility.
Jennie Allen and Haidt are making great strides to address the “anxiety pandemic.” As technology just gets more addictive, it’s important that kids know what to do with their anxious thoughts.
Read Next: Author Jennie Allen Says ‘We Need God’ to Face Negative Emotions
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