If you’ve ever had to enter into hand-to-hand combat with the witch under the bed or the bearded baddie at the window, then you already know that children’s anxiety can be disturbingly real to them. Just like adults, children can also suffer from free-floating and generalized anxiety or panic attacks. One in nine children are affected to the extent that it constipates their daily functioning and our nightly sleep. The witch or monster doesn’t just appear every now and then as part of normal chronological or problem solving development, they rarely leave and they will taunt the child at any given moment – day or night, bedroom or classroom. The scarey ones leave their place of safety and begin to stalk your child wherever he or she may go.
When a child is fearful or distressed over an extended period, the chances are they are suffering anxiety. In some children, this fear or distress occurs in particular situations such as in the car or just prior to sleep. Other children get anxious or worried that something bad might happen in almost any situation from starting school to being afraid of the dark. However, these can also be normal reactions. As parents, we should become concerned when our child’s bag of worries is bigger or heavier than the bag carried by their peers.
Ask yourself three things when working out how heavy your child’s bag of worries is:
1 – Does our child have the sort of worries that other children have at the same age? i.e., Is it normal for their stage of development?
It is standard for young children to react when separated from parents. During early school years, many children develop fears of insects, strangers or ghosts. Teenage children can become shy and socially reserved. If our children’s fears are too heavy for what is happening or last too long to be just a “stage”, we should begin to suspect an anxiety problem. An anxiety disorder is more than an acceptable and reasonable reaction. It is an illness. A teenager who succeeds at school becomes preoccupied with a fear of failing. This may be a one off stress reaction, but, if it becomes a persistent worry, their bag is too heavy. As parents, we don’t allow our children to carry heavy bags of books because we fear spinal damage. I wonder then why we allow our children to carry a heavy bag of worries without getting help.
2 – Can our children explain how they feel?
Children are generally at a loss to explain anxiety. They may find it hard to talk about their fear or distress due to embarrassment and an inability to localize the worry or find the words to explain what is happening. Adults can often point to their pain and explain what is wrong. Children in pain may have difficulty identifying where they have the pain and what sort of pain it is. As parents, it is our responsibility to detect changes in our child’s routine and in the way they handle their feelings. For example, is our daughter withdrawing more? Is our son sleeping less? Is our pre-schooler clinging more? Is our primary school-aged daughter missing a lot of school? Has our adolescent son started worrying just a bit too much? We need to help our children talk about their worries and make the bag a little less heavy.
3 – How long does it last?
Normal worries don’t last long in childhood. They fade quickly. However, if fears or worries stay around for more than three weeks we too should begin to get worried. If they stay around for three months (a whole school term), we need to seek professional help.
Recognize the signs of heavy anxiety in your child? Have a look at the symptoms listed by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in their Parent Fact Sheet on Panic Disorder in Children and Adolescents.
Need some resources to help your child through their anxious periods. I recommend these:
Coping Cards (5 to 14 year-old age group)
Strength Cards for Kids: Parents in the U.S, Parents in Australia, Parents in the U.K.
Bev Aisbett’s hilariously serious book, “Living with an It”, tames the subject of panic attacks in a comically sober fashion. Panic is personified as a monster, an “It”, that stalks the character and renders her helpless, mostly always in public and judgment prone places. “It” rules supreme, until the character decides it’s time to slay the beast and reclaim her life. Presented as a series of comic pictures and wise insights toward change, the book is a beautiful way to introduce courage and power to the child or adult hiding because of the monster of life.
The Crashing Cymbals of Sound. Read a creative, short, social story on how one little boy and his Mum coped with Aspergers induced anxiety? They turned the anxiety into a dog, took it out of the doghouse inside the boy’s head, and walked around with it on an empty collar and chain. Click here for a cry or chuckle, but definitely to get an idea on how to deal with unchaining your child and lighten their load.
If you would like to talk to a qualified mental health professional to seek further guidance on what to do with your child, please consider our own Beth McHugh. Along with being my colleague blogger in Mental Health, Beth offers confidential, on-line counseling.
Article Reference: Dr Radhika Santhanam.
Related Families.com articles: The Tightrope of Separation Anxiety;
Anxiety: The new plague of the millennium;
What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
Diagnostic Criteria for Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
My FAVORITE child focused article of the day: What is Safe and How Do Parents Know When A Child is Unsafe? by Anna Glendenning