Counsellor Cat Levine talks about the risk factors that predispose children to anxiety - and what parents can do to help.

Many New Zealand kids are anxious and teachers are calling for more training on how to support them.

Counsellor Cat Levine runs online workshops for teachers about the risk factors for anxiety and how to help kids become more resilient to it.

Listen to the full interview

Cat Levine

Anxiety is regarded as a mental health disorder when the following 4 Ds are present, Levine tells Kathryn Ryan.

1. Disproportionate emotional responses

2. Disruption of day-to-day life

3. Distress that seems impossible to manage

4. Depression due to the ongoing nature of these feelings

In general, anxiety can be a hard condition to pinpoint, Levine says. When her now 17-year-old daughter suffered from severe anxiety, she wasn't really clear on what it was.

"I'm close to 50 and I was very familiar with depression. That was something people talked about and I recognised it in myself and other people.... Depression is kind of a thing that you understand.

'But once I started hearing about this anxiety that my daughter was going through I didnt really have any concept - doesn't everybody feel anxious?"

Anxiety has now overtaken depression as the number one mental health disorder, Levine says.

To try and help these students with well-being and resilience, teachers are calling for resources.

Levine tours schools giving workshops and teaching teachers strategies they can use in classrooms to support young people with anxiety in partnered with life education. Healthy minds ...

There are 5 factors that put a child at risk of anxiety, Levine says.

1. Genetic predisposition

If you've got a family member with depression or anxiety, more likely to have it.

2. Brain chemistry

We now know that if a mother is highly stressed during the third trimester of pregnancy the baby's brain is affected and they're more predisposed to anxiety, Levine says.

In the latter stage of her own pregnancy with her daughter who suffers from anxiety, Levine had whooping cough, another of her children had an operation, the family moved house and she sprained her ankle.

"It was just three months of intensity. She was just cooked in this soup of cortisol and adrenaline and right from being born she had that predisposition towards ."

3. Whānau

Research has shown the stress levels of mothers can be contagious, Levine says.

"If you bring a child who has anxiety to a psychologist the first thing they'll ask is 'how's your anxiety level?"…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details