Irish author Sarah Crossan says that through her personal experience of helping a family member deal with anxiety, she has learned to be a listener rather than a fixer. “I’ve learned a lot about what a debilitating, isolating and challenging illness anxiety can be. It is, not at all the same as worrying.”
Already a well-established author of fiction for teenagers, Crossan has just published her first picture book, A Totally Big Umbrella, illustrated by Rebecca Cobb (Walker Books), which is partly inspired by her experience of dealing with childhood anxiety.
“I wanted to write about what I was seeing and how, being an adult in a family with a person with acute anxiety, I didn’t have the skills,” she explains. “I didn’t want to write something frivolous or something very serious. I wanted to write something playful with a [story] arc from the adult and the child’s point of view.”
And so, the character Tallulah was created. Tallulah tries to protect herself from things that scare her with bigger and bigger umbrellas until she realises that the more she protects herself, the more she misses out on enjoyable experiences with her family and friends. “Tallulah’s parents are slightly dismissive of her anxieties, but her grandma supports her – first by giving her bigger umbrellas to protect herself with and then by giving her a strategy to deal with her anxiety,” says Crossan.
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The grandmother character in the story helps the young child realise what she is missing, without telling her she’s silly. And, at the end of the story, Tallulah keeps the umbrella under her bed in case she needs it in the future.
Crossan is keen to point out that her fictional character Tallulah is not a “scaredy cat” in that she needs a lot of willpower and resilience to continue to protect herself. Rebecca Cobb’s beautifully illustrated umbrellas become a metaphor for how apparently useful things can sometimes impede our journey through life. “It’s about learning that it takes a lot of energy to push against something which would be a lot easier to let go of,” says Crossan.
As a former teacher of teenagers, both in the United States and the UK, Crossan believes that the education system has improved a lot in terms of helping children deal with anxiety. “I think schools are changing by choosing connection over correction. Once you improve relationships, the behaviour will change. It’s about understanding that a child’s mental wellbeing comes before academics,” she says.
Yet, she suggests the education system needs to change even more. “When I was a teacher, I always asked myself, ‘is there joy in my classroom?’”. That’s what schools need to focus on. Also, having playfulness in the classroom is important for all ages. Teenagers will do lots of eye-rolling when you introduce games, but it cuts through so much.”
Crossan says that she believes her generation of parents – she is 47 – aren’t as dismissive of childhood anxiety as previous generations of parents might have been. In the past, she suggests many parents dismissed children’s anxiety and told them not to worry.
Yet, she believes adults still need to be role models for their children. “Sometimes, I’ll say to my daughter that I’m fizzing with anxiety and I need to go for a run,” she says. She adds that she has realised that what might seem like the easiest solution for herself – eg reaching for a glass of wine – isn’t the best solution. “I never feel better after the glass of wine but I never feel worse after going for a run.”
She also suggests habit trackers are a useful way to build up good habits, like going for a run or taking time off social media. Yet, ironically, she is a huge advocate of the physical device, Brick, which temporarily blocks distracting apps and their notifications from your phone whilst allowing you to continue using your phone for other purposes.
“My 13-year-old daughter isn’t allowed on social media. She is allowed on Pinterest and WhatsApp, but if we go for a walk, her phone is ‘bricked’,” she explains. Crossan is so taken with this new physical gadget that she plans to buy Bricks for family and friends. “You’d think I had shares in the company, but I don’t,” she says with a laugh.
Perhaps her next picture book for young children could explore the thorny issue of how our phone relationships can harm the face-to-face connections we share with loved ones.
