Child in a State of Anxiety: The Do’s and Don’ts

The last thing you want to do when a child is anxious is make them feel fear. To prevent from this thing happening, building respect is the best solution. Conversely, respecting your child’s feelings is somewhat difficult for a parent. Why? Because most parents have the belief that they are always right and they always know what is the best for everyone. Well, this is not actually true. Experience wise, yes, you are ahead of your children but when we are talking about feelings, experience is not the topmost criterion for that.

Here are the top ten to do and not to do when your child is experiencing anxiety:

#1. Assist a child to manage anxieties.

Nobody wants to see any child suffer from his or her own worries that make him or her unhappy. However, we need to face reality that anxieties cannot be totally eliminated from anyone’s system; and the preeminent approach we can do is to assist them in learning how to endure and accept their personal anxieties. That they can still function normally and continue with their life even if anxieties are everywhere. We have to teach them how to react in a more positive and motivating manner rather than dwelling on the negative side of such.

#2. Prevent from giving band-aid solutions to anxieties.

In dealing with anxieties, do not let your child avoid such things by getting away or escaping from it because it will only underpin anxieties in a long run. You must let them face their anxieties and since they are just kids, proper guidance should still be present. Do not take control over the situation instead support them and make them feel that you are always there to back them up. However, you have to make certain that giving out help is well-balanced or not too much. You do not want your child be much dependable on you during such times. Giving your child proper advises or options, letting them know that consequences of their actions or giving them encouragement will make a whole lot of difference.

#3. Positive yet realistic expectations are better than false hopes.

Do not promise your child that everything is fine and dandy; that there is no chance of failing an exam, everybody will like him or her, or nobody will laugh at his or her mistake during a showcase. However, you can convey assurance that he or she will be able to manage it; that everybody commits mistakes or everybody has flaws and shortcomings. You need to make a child be open to all possibilities regardless if it is good or bad.

#4. Respect but do not empower a child’s feelings.

It is exceptionally significant to recognize that confirmation does not constantly mean agreement. Therefore, if a child is scared or anxious about getting a vaccination, you do not want to neither ridicule his or her feelings nor intensify them. Listen and sympathize with your child, then encourage him or her that he or she can manage it. The message you would like to relay is, “I know you are afraid but that is alright and I’ll come with you to hold your hand.”

#5. No to leading questions.

Do not ask leading questions when you seem to find a child suffering from anxiety. Because if you do, you will only make it worse instead of opening an opportunity to fix the problem. From the word itself, these questions lead to state of panic and give a completely new set of pressure to a child. Rather than using leading questions, it would be better to raise open-ended questions. Open-ended questions persuade a child to talk more about his or her feelings rather than leading questions.

#6. Prevent from reinforcing or emphasizing a child’s fears.

“Probably this is a thing that you need to be afraid of.” This statement is an example of reinforcing a child’s fear plus saying it in a stern tone or gesture. Such statement does not help the situation either; you do not want to aggravate the fear of a child. So express your thoughts or insights in a more non-threatening or non-sarcastic way.

#7. A compliment makes a difference.

If a child is already struggling at school and he or she is constantly having difficulty to fit in, make it a habit to compliment his or her hard work. You have to let a child knows that the effort he or she is exerting is not a waste. Uplifting a child’s confidence brings encouragement and will to continue to deal with anxiety; and later on will reduce the worries until it reaches a point where a child is not that bothered at all. Home is definitely a child’s comfort zone and you must not take that away from him or her.

#8. Make time; do not make any excuses or alibis.

It is given that in an average household, both parents are busy working and attending to other things as well. However, that is not an excuse for you not to have quality time for your children. If you do not have time, make time. Time management is not an easy job but to start it off, make use of Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix. Covey’s time management is divided into 4 quadrants and it is based from urgency versus importance. List down what are the things that are urgent and important, urgent but not important, important but not urgent, and not important and not urgent. Spending time with a child to talk about anything under the sun will not only benefit your child but will also benefit you. You both learn things during conversation and get to know each other better because let us face the truth, not all parents know their children and vice versa.

#9. Practice what you preach.

A reason why most children do not believe advises the parents give is because most of the times these advises are mere advises; parents do not even practice what they say to their children. Therefore, be a good influence or example to your children. I am not saying that you need to pretend you do not have your own personal anxieties or worries but you must show your children how you take them, manage them and feel good facing them.

#10. Prevent from passing your own anxieties to your children.

A rule of thumb and this last point is the most important of them all. You must avoid from passing your personal anxieties to your child. First of all, it is not their fault that you have your personal issues and they should not take the blame of it. However, it is not also a bad idea to share your anxieties with your child; maybe in this case, it will open a door for your child to relay his or her own worries as well. With this, you can work and get through things together.

There is nothing wrong in protecting a child from any type of anxiety but it is wrong to take full control over a child’s anxiety from him or her. You are there to support and encourage but let them handle anxiety on their own.

Symptoms of Child Anxiety

Most of the time, children do not talk about what worries them openly, unless someone will reach out and ask them. In addition to this, you will just become aware of it after one major mishap. To help you identify if a child is already suffering from anxiety, below are the symptoms:

• Mood swings or sudden change of mood
• A gradual or sudden change in a child’s eating habits (this can be an increase or a decrease of food intake)
• Irritable or dejected mood
• Suicidal thoughts
• Loss of concentration or lack of focus
• Strong refusal to go to school or sometimes cutting classes
• A sudden drop in their academic performance
• Getting in trouble
• Having troubles in sleeping
• Increase in tantrums or easily getting angry
• Having a feel of worthlessness or hopelessness
• Decrease in self-esteem or being shy even there is no need at all
• Feeling of sadness or sometimes a child cry from a simple or baseless thing
• Loss of energy level
• Staying away from friends or family members
• Does not participate in any social activities

If a child shows some of the symptoms in a short span of time, you do not have to worry about as we define anxiety as a normal human reaction. However, if your child is showing two or more of these symptoms more than two weeks and you could notice an abrupt change towards family, friends and even school, you have to take the initial step and communicate with your child. You have to remember that a child with worries or anxieties does not have the initiative to seek for help because he or she feels unworthy of anyone’s time and attention.

In relation to suicidal thoughts, your child might be recording his or her suicidal thoughts through a diary, a note, and drawings or even on his or her personal blog over the internet. Your child may even post statements or tweets in the social media websites. Worst comes to worst, self-cutting may also be visible on your child’s wrist or thighs. With such cases, invading their privacy or confronting them in a threatening way would not do any good either. Since this is an extremely delicate situation, you need to approach a child in a very subtle way as possible.

If some of these symptoms are visible and you find it unusual that a child is acting strangely, do not ignore these types of things. Make an effort to find out what is really going on with your child before anyone would help him or her, it must be you who should be the first one to reach out. These symptoms of anxiety, if not treated immediately, can lead to not only anxiety disorder but also depression.

Anxiety in Children

Anxiety is common to everyone, children included. Many experts, even Psychologists, have stated that anxiety is a standard element during our childhood years, and all children go through with different anxiety phases. A single anxiety phase is typically harmless and momentary. Such phase is frequently forgotten and does not traumatize a child. However, once a phase becomes rampant and a child develops fear or nervousness, it becomes an anxiety disorder.

What is Anxiety?

By simple definition, anxiety means unease, fretfulness, concern, and nervousness. It is generally a type of stress. In such type, anxiety can be encountered in several different ways such as emotionally, physically, socially and mentally. It is chiefly related to what could happen or what might be the end result – worrying about something might go wrong or a feeling that you are in danger.

Anxiety is just a normal reaction to humans as it serves a vital function biologically. It is your natural alarm system that is stimulated every time you identify a threat. Whenever your mind and body react, you may feel dizzy, heavily breathing, fast heart rate, and/or your body trembles. These are physical sensations called “fight-flight responses.” These sensations are normally caused by an adrenaline rush and stress hormones, which train your body to create a sudden flight from any threat or danger.

Normal Anxiety

Anxiety is said to be normal because everyone experiences anxiety in everyday’s life. Same goes with children. Taking important exams in school, preparing for a quiz bee or a basketball game, for example. Such encounters will activate normal anxiety because these cause children to focus mostly on the “ifs” or “what if’s” such as What if I fail? What if I won’t get the first place?

Anxiety is stressful; however, some can be motivating especially if parents have the initiative to guide their children on how to deal with anxiety. It can and may help children to stay focus and alert, and exert their effort to do their best. However, when anxiety becomes too overwhelming such as peer pressure, social acceptance or judgment, it can take over the enjoyable and positive part of their lives. When it does, a normal anxiety at first can lead to an anxiety disorder.

Anxiety Disorder

Mental disorders due to anxiety are the most familiar psychological health conditions because as what was mentioned earlier, anxiety is a common reaction to all. There is a long list of different anxiety disorders in children; however, all of these disorders share a common characteristic – affects the entirety of a child.

Here are some of the common anxiety disorders in children:

• GAD or Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Children with GAD always go all-out for perfection and when something is not going their way, they have the tendency to be hard on themselves.
• Panic Disorder. Children with Panic Disorder suffer from at least two panic attacks that are unexpected and for no reason at all.
• Separation Anxiety. Children with Separation Anxiety always take a longer time to calm down and demand someone to stay with them. They always worry about something extremely bad will going to happen, when they are not with their parents or loved ones.
• Social Anxiety Disorder. It is also called as Social Phobia. Children with Social Anxiety Disorder have the fear of performing in front of an audience or even a small group of people.

 Defining and understanding what separates a normal anxiety from an anxiety disorder is an initial step; however, what really causes an anxiety to children? Are there symptoms that parents could detect? What do parents need to do in order to help their children? Here are just a few questions you may have in mind.

In the next week or so, I’ll be posting articles that will hopefully answer some of these questions. I may not be a parent (yet), however, anxiety in children is not new to me. I have friends who’s child suffer from anxiety disorder. Feel free to drop a comment or anything you’d like to add related to this post. Thanks, Lovelies! For sharing Pinay Time with me. 🙂 ❤