Childrens Worries

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Childrens Worries

• Isobel Sutherland
• age 10

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Introduction

• I was interested in childrens worries because
  I knew I worried a lot and wondered whether other
  people did as well.
• I wanted to find out
• how often children worried
• what they worried about
• who worried more - boys or girls
• what children did when they were worried

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What others have found out
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My Research Questions

• My main question
• What do children worry about?
• Subsidiary questions
• How often do children worry?
• Who worries more - girls or boys?

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How I Chose My Sample

• Questionnaires
• I chose 1 class with years 5-6
• Interviews
• I chose 3 people in year 5 and 6, both boys and
  girls

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How I Collected my Data

• I handed out questionnaires
• I conducted interviews
• I asked my interviewees the same questions
• I recorded the interviews on a dictaphone
• Timescale for project February to June 2006
  (data collection approximately 2 months)

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Ethics

• Thinking carefully about questions
• Consent
• Anonymity
• Confidentiality
• Data storage

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How I Analysed my Data (1)

• Questionnaires quantitative data
• I separated the boys questionnaires from the
  girls
• I tallied how often they worried from the
  measurement scale
• I coded the three main worries each child had
  written down
• I entered my data into Excel and then converted
  my data into graphs

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How I Analysed my Data (2)

• Questionnaires qualitative data
• Deciding on categories
• There were too many categories to fit on my
  charts
• So I needed to narrow them down
• Henker (1995) found 21 different worries
• She fitted them into 6 categories

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Coding
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How I Analysed my Data (3)

• Interviews
• I transcribed my interviews
• I collected the answers for each question and
  compared them
• I drew some conclusions from what my interviewees
  said

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My results
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Interpreting the Graphs (1)

• The main worries I found were
• schoolwork
• family and other people.
• Relationships and illness/ death
• Boys worry more about school work and girls worry
  more about relationships, family and other
  people.

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Interpreting the Graphs (2)

• Most children worry at least some of the time
• It was difficult to tell from the graphs who
  worried more girls or boys.
• To try and find an answer to this I gave
  numerical values to the categories, e.g. Never
  1 and Always 5.
• When I worked it out, I found that girls admit to
  worrying 61 of the time and boys admit to
  worrying 54 of the time.

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Conclusions from interviews (1)

• Girls and boys think girls worry more but they
  might just worry about different things
• Some people worry about global issues such as
  poverty, some people worry about things close to
  them like people nosying about in their business
  and changing schools and getting bullied
• Children think that they dont worry too much,
  but it can depend on family and
• people around them

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Conclusions from interviews (2)

• Children are not sure as to whether worrying is a
  good or bad thing though sometimes it depends on
  what youre worrying about.
• Children generally go to parents if somethings
  bothering them though sometimes they keep worries
  to themselves.
• My interviewees thought that if the worries are
  to do with school then school should help sort
  them out.
• My interviewees thought that parents can help and
  children should go to their parents if
  somethings on their mind

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Discussion (1)

• My results reflected very much what
• other researchers had found.
• Most girls reported 3 worries while quite a few
  boys only reported 1 or 2
• Henker had 21 categories and narrowed them down
  to 6 similarly I had 28 and narrowed them down
  to 9.

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Discussion (2)

• Henker (1995) and Silverman et al (1995) both say
  that girls admit to more worries than boys.
• My research shows that girls admit to more
  worries than boys.
• But it may be that girls are just more willing to
  share their worries.
• When I worked it out, I found that girls admit to
  worrying 61 of the time and boys admit to
  worrying 54 of the time.
• I use the word admit because they may not share
  all their worries.

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Discussion (3)

• I found it very interesting that boys worry more
  about school work and girls worry more about
  relationships, family and other people.
• It would have been interesting to see whether
  other research showed boys and girls different
  worries.

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Conclusion

• The main worries are school work, family and
  other people, relationships and illness/death
• Most children worry at least some of the time
• Girls worry more than boys
• Girls and boys worry about different things

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What I would do differently if I could do this
again

• Find a quieter place to conduct my interviews
• I needed to give more thinking time to the
  children doing the questionnaires
• Instead of conducting a structured interview I
  would do semi structured interview
• I would be more organised with my categories and
  how I interpreted the data

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Other things I could find out

• Henkers research shows that fewer worries are
  reported in older children, so I could compare
  answers from different age groups
• I could see whether boys and girls worry about
  specific different things.

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Bibliography

• BERNSTEIN, G. (2002) Advances in child and
  adolescent anxiety disorder research,
  DevelopMentor, American Academy of Child and
  Adolescent Psychiatry. online Available from
• http//www.aacap.org/training/DevelopMento
  r/Content/2002Fall/f2002_a2.cfm Accessed 10
  March 2006.
• HENKER, B. (1995) Worldly and workaday worries
  contemporary concerns of children and young
  adolescents, Journal of Abnormal Child
  Psychology, 23 (6).
• NAHEC (2004) Kids Poll What do children worry
  about? A fact sheet for teachers and parents,
  National Association of Health Education Centres.
  online Available from
• http//www.nahec.org/KidsPoll/what_kids_wor
  ry_about/KidsPoll_Worries_Teachers_Handout.pd
• SILVERMAN, W., La GRECA, A. and WASSERSTEIN, S.
  (1995) What do children worry about? Worries and
  their relation to anxiety, Child Development,
  66, pp.671-686.