Children, just like adults, are vulnerable to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Psychological struggles lead to issues such as self-harm, dropping out of class or even suicide. Children can harm themselves due to a host of factors such as domestic problems, bullying, body shaming and academic stress, among others. Therefore, parents should ensure that children get enough support both at school and at home before an anxiety disorder escalates into a severe illness.
What Is Anxiety Disorder
Several anxiety disorders can affect children. However, anxiety typically leads to extreme worry or fear that can alter a child's normal behaviour in terms of mood, sleeping pattern or eating habits. The most common type of anxiety is generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), which leads to immense worrying among children about almost everything, including homework, passing tests or offending other colleagues. In extreme cases, a child can be anxious about things that are expected of adults, such as weather, war, economy and wellbeing of parents. Another type of anxiety is separation anxiety disorder (SAD). Babies and young children often feel anxious when they get separated from parents or caregivers for the first time. As a child grows fond of other people, such a feeling usually dissipates. However, in some children, the feeling stays on when they get separated from their parents. Another common anxiety among children is called social anxiety disorder where kids are afraid or scared of what other people say or think about them. Such children do not want to be noticed, especially when in a large group such as a classroom setting.
Symptoms of Anxiety in Children
A child might exhibit signs of anxiety both at home and at school. Children with anxiety have difficulties having fun with others or even relaxing. Besides, lack of sleep and abnormal eating patterns could be pointers to anxiety disorder. When your child starts to skip school because they are either tired, afraid of something/someone or are sick, then you should take the kid to a counselling expert. Other signs to look out for include frequent crying, clingy behaviour, negative thoughts, irritability and lack of concentration when performing mundane tasks.
Counselling and Therapy
A trained therapist can diagnose anxiety disorder in children by asking multiple questions. Both a parent and a child are vital to diagnosing anxiety because of the information they provide. After identifying the type of anxiety disorder that a child is suffering from, a therapist prescribes treatment based on the root cause and a child's age. Through counselling, children can be helped to work through situations that lead to anxiety episodes. Apart from counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is lauded as an effective treatment for anxiety.
For more information, reach out to an anxiety counselling service in your area.
Share24 June 2020
My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for nearly a decade. It has been really hard to deal with the stress and guilt of the process, including grieving the babies that we have lost through miscarriages. We have both gone through periods of feeling guilty and responsible for the problems we have had conceiving; although, the doctors have never been able to work out exactly why we haven't been able to have a baby. Counselling has helped us to deal with our grief and has helped us to draw closer through this hard time rather than growing apart.
