Can Anxiety Really be a Problem or Should I Just be Able to Endure it?
I often talk to parents who recognize the symptoms of anxiety in their child. Often parent recognition comes from their own experience with anxiety. Parents report observing their child constantly tapping their pencil, swinging their feet, organizing their school materials, holding their breath, pulling their hair, sweating, yelling, and even throwing items out of frustration. At first glance this looks like a behavior problem or even ADHD. However, sometimes children use all their strength to hold in their emotions and negative energy related to their anxiety all throughout their school day and when they get home they explode. After controlling the stress, they feel in the school environment all day, they need a release where they won’t be judged. Usually the person and place that they feel the safest is the person that receives the worst backlash from a child experiencing anxiety.
Physiological responses to anxiety create a pattern of increased stress response in the body (e.g., increased heart rate, irregular breathing, sweating, muscle tension, etc.). Normally when a person experiences a stressful situation, the body will have a physiological stress response, but the response will reduce as time passes and the body will regain homeostasis. However, for a child experiencing regular, daily anxiety, they have a physiological stress response that may remain elevated for long periods of time (often most of the school day) that may lead to other health problems. In addition, even if the resilient, healthy, youthful body can endure long periods of physiological stress response at school, there are other psychological effects that appear when a child is unable to cope with prolonged anxiety. When a child controls their symptoms of anxiety during school, they often use a significant amount of energy to control these symptoms which can result in inattention, learning and memory difficulties, and social problems. When they lose control and their coping mechanisms fail, they may feel embarrassed, hopeless, and/or negative thoughts about themselves. Ignoring or dismissing significant symptoms of anxiety in children can lead to lower self-esteem and declining academic performance.
Children can be taught effective coping skills for managing symptoms of anxiety. Parents can help children learn an emotional vocabulary and provide a calm, safe place to de-stress after school. Children can learn how to recognize their symptoms of anxiety and how to reduce escalating physiological responses in the moment with deep breathing, relaxation, mindfulness, and other effective techniques. Helping children understand what is going on in their bodies is essential. They know something is different and they want to feel in control. Anxiety presents itself in many different ways. Completing an evaluation can provide an accurate diagnosis in order to move forward with the best treatment options and coping tools for your child