Children and Anxiety

What is anxiety? Anxiety is physiological stress disorder, which induces feelings of fear, uneasiness, worry and dread. Anxiety can affect anyone from children to adults. Suffering from anxiety is a natural stress reliever and is completely normal however; at times it can be overbearing in a persons life. In particular a childs life in class, at home, or anywhere for that matter. As a young child I suffered from GAD. I did not suffer from all of the symptoms, only a few but it still made my life a bit more challenging each and every day.

Common anxiety disorders in children are:

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - causes the child to worry for a various amount of reasons at the same times, causing them to become flustered. This affects the way the child performs in everyday life because they can no longer control when or how much they worry. Some common symptoms range from restlessness, becoming fatigued easily, unable to concentrate, irritability, having difficulties sleeping as well as fear of making mistakes or being publically ostracized. Some helpful techniques to help prevent a child from suffering with GAD are by taking or practicing cognitive-behavioral therapy. Such as Cognitive control strategies and Physical control strategies.

Separation Anxiety Disorder - tends to only be effective on younger children up to the age of 7 who are unwilling to separate from their parents, grandparents, older siblings or any other older adult significant that the child interacts with for most of their spare time. For example, when a child is at a daycare center, school, or left home with a sitter, symptoms that a child could be suffering from are Separation Anxiety can appear. Some symptoms likely to be noticed are Nightmares, trembling, headaches, stomachaches, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and sweating. To help ease Separation Anxiety from the child a parent could propagate simple ways to help their child get through their day. For example, by leaving your child wherever he/she may need to be without fanfare, practicing separation and having a consistent caregiver.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) - can occur in a child's life when they encountered or witnessed a life-threatening event or the loss of a loved one at a young age. Children in return become easily agitated, confused behaviors, fear, helplessness, anger, sadness, horror or denial. A child could have repetitive dreams on the event regularly. When coping with PSTD you must learn to accepts your faults in yourself before continuing ahead and working on difficult memories or other symptoms that are causing you to feel these symptoms.

Anxiety is the number one mental health problem in America. What most people are unaware of is that approximately 1 out of 10 children suffer from anxiety. When kids suffer from anxiety it tends to go unnoticed. When noticed anxiety is 100% preventable. There are many treatments such as environmental, Psychopharmacological, physiological.

Image Credit: pinksherbert (via Flickr)

References:

"http://www.childanxiety.net/Fears_Phobias_Anxiety.htm" 2001 The Child Anxiety Network.

"http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd"

Anxiety Disorders Association of America, 2010-2011