A Parent’s Guide to Childhood Anxiety
What could be bothering your child? Could it just be growing pains. Or do you need to take a closer look?
Although most parents try to protect their children and ensure them a carefree, happy life, even children can experience anxiety and anxiety disorders that are caused by things their parents may not even be aware of. Other children can be very cruel and badger others into doing things which they know are wrong. There are many concerns about school and schoolwork. While many adults just laugh off childhood anxieties as “kid stuff”, the problems are all too real to children.
You never know what might bother a child. Maybe she had a fight with her best friend yesterday and is harboring fears that her friend will never speak to her again. Maybe he is being bullied on the bus by a bigger kid who wants his lunch money. There are even children who are mature enough to understand enough about world events which plague their dreams. Emotional pain and anxiety are both very real, and very troubling, parts of childhood.
A parent should watch for symptoms of anxiety such as restlessness, fatigue, lack of focus, sleeplessness, and irrational irritability. Because we’re dealing with young children here, we have to assume that they haven’t yet mastered skills to understand their problem and communicate with others about the things that are troubling them. They may even be embarrassed and consider themselves somehow inferior because of how they perceive the way they’re dealing with the problem.
Too many parents think that taking their child to a psychiatrist and getting him on medication will effectively take care of the anxiety problem. After all, this is how we handle adult anxiety. In children, however, it’s better to find alternative treatments, like psychotherapy, in which the children don’t need to be medicated. Helping the child develop a life-long addiction to an antidepressant isn’t the answer. Besides, antidepressants have been proven to increase depression, and even suicide, in children.
No matter how young your child is, it’s always wise to include him in all discussions concerning his own health. Sometimes just talking about the situation and gaining more control over it will help the child far more than any medication, and it won’t cause side effects.
If your child is exhibiting any of the behaviors outlined above, it’s imperative that you get him to a doctor to be evaluated. Your doctor will be able to diagnose the problem and suggest alternative treatments that don’t involve the use of drugs. Because we know how devastating anxieties can be to children, adults need to do everything they can to ease the pressure and make childhood into the happy, carefree time of life it’s meant to be.
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