Anxiety in children is a part of normal development as it is one of the best defenses of protection for our existence and development. Anxiety has always helped our ancestors to escape the onslaught of predators. Like everything evolved with time, humans also discovered many other sophisticated ways and means to defend and protect themselves. They no longer wanted to depend only on their senses and gut feelings as per se as they were very crude methods and carried a lot of risk especially in the event of catastrophe where they were entirely at the mercy of the environment.
In order to reduce this heavy risk to human lives they started to discover different techniques and gadgets which can keep them safe from natural disasters. These discoveries now in the present time give sufficient time for preparedness and readiness to meet these situations. Though, this preparation in itself brings some level of anxiety in everyone, which is again very important in order to survive and to move forward.
What to Do (and Not Do) When Children Are Anxious
Therefore it is very normal to be anxious at times and as a parent we should not be too much worried if children are experiencing some level of anxiety feelings in a given situation. Needless to say that it is parents’ reactions to children’s anxiety that make things more complicated for the child who needs to be handled with a calm and serene hands. If a parent overreact to a child’s anxiety that automatically becomes a breeding source for child’s anxiety.
For children parents are like heroes and they perceive them as source of inspiration who will never break in difficult situations. They hold them in a very high esteem and nothing can match them in terms of their valor and smartness. They consider them as their protectors. Therefore when a parent breaks and show extreme emotions in the face of a perceived threat, it shakes the child’s confidence and lose faith in their parents. They start to feel very insecure and learn the attitude of “flight” instead of “fight” in a perceived alarming situations. These situations make the child quite vulnerable that creates serious anxiety feelings in them.
Anxiety and stage of children development
We also need to understand that children go through different phases in their development. Some of these situations could be quite anxiety provoking, like for example exam, change of house, serious illness within the family, peer pressure, losing a friend for various reasons, bullying, etc. These are some of the situations that will bring automatically certain level of Anxiety feelings. However, these phases of anxiety could be temporary and children should be encouraged to develop their own skills to deal with them.
But then some children suffer from anxiety that could be quite debilitating for their normal development. They could be very fearful in certain situation and would completely avoid to face it and would make them quite dysfunctional.
The American Psychological Association (APA) has defined anxiety as “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.”
Most importantly the proportion of anxiety feeling is quite large compared to the actual situation and it lasts for longer period then required. The APA also describes that these anxiety feelings are quite obsessive and intrusive in nature so that you cannot function normally.
Types of Anxiety Disorders:
Following are some of the different types of Anxiety Disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder:
This is the most common anxiety disorder which is quite pervasive, as it involves worry about anything.
Panic Disorder:
This can happen all of a sudden for no apparent reasons. It is an intense feeling of fear with feelings of suffocation and confusion, shaking and the person just wants to run away from the situation. It can also accompany feelings of dizziness and nausea.
Phobias:
This is a fear of a specific situation or thing and which can create intense irrational fear, like dark places, or snakes, etc.
Social Anxiety:
The person with social anxiety avoid social situations with very uncomfortable feelings when they are around people.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:
These are intrusive thoughts which force a person to perform certain actions repeatedly or having some irrational repetitive thoughts and despite intense efforts by the person cannot get rid of them.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
When a person is exposed to a very traumatic situation like accidents, natural disaster, sexual molestation, etc.
Separation Anxiety Disorder.
The anxiety feelings here are provoked when the person finds out that he/she is going to be separated from a place/person to which he/she is attached. This mostly occurs in children.
Selective Mutism
This normally occurs with children where a child does not speak in situations out of his comfort zone. The child may only speak with selective people, especially his/her family but will not speak to anyone else.
Symptoms of Anxiety in children:
Children may display their anxiety feelings in a somewhat modified way compared to adults depending upon their age and gender. They might express their anxiety feelings by crying or shouting or to stay complete mute. If a child is bullied at school they may present with specific problems, such as school avoidance, performance anxiety, and somatization. They may complain of headaches or tummy ache in order to avoid schools.
Studies show that the prevalence of anxiety disorder among children and adolescents is between 10% and 20%, which means that it is the most common mental disorder among that age group
However, if anxiety is not tackled in time, it might have a significant impact on child’s emotional health and would carry over to his/her adulthood. The signs will then be the same as for an adult anxiety like it may transfer into generalized anxiety, or phobic reactions to certain situations or panic disorder or even obsessive compulsive thoughts.
All anxiety disorders have a distinct set of symptoms of anxiety but they also share common themes such as:
- Intense Sweating even in a very low temperature.
- Dizziness for no known physical reasons
- Trembling.
- increased or irregular heartbeat for no known physical reasons
- Very restless and gets fatigued easily
- Feelings of muscle tension
Where to go for help:
- It is important that a child should be referred to a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist.
- A proper evaluation should be carried out.
- There are number of therapies available to support the child with anxiety.
- Parents are also a part of therapy process.
- Collaboration with school practitioners is often required as well, particularly in connection with the issue of school refusal.