There aren’t many things that are harder for a parent than seeing their child in pain and misery. While it is normal for kids to worry about things from time to time, if you feel like your child is constantly anxious, you need to pay some attention to his well being. Anxiety is such a common problem amongst teens that, according to the Association of University and College Counselling Center Directors survey, at least 41.6% of students suffer from it. Furthermore the survey revealed that more than 20% of students were taking medications for it. As anxiety is such a growing concern amongst kids, it falls upon us parents to do everything to make sure that our children live happy lives.
The way parents respond to their child’s anxiety goes a long way towards helping them cope with it. A lot of times, even well-meaning parents fall into a negative cycle and exacerbate their child’s anxiety without even knowing. Instead of protecting them from their fears, parents often act as a catalyst by trying to protect them too much. So, as a parent, you must know what anxiety is, how to diagnose it in your child, and what strategies you can use to help your children. Before we dive into how parents should handle their kid’s anxiety, let’s take a brief look at what anxiety is and what causes anxiety in kids.
For more on this topic, check out the full Child Behavior collection
What Is Anxiety And What Causes It In Kids?
Anxiety is a common feeling in every human being as it pertains to worrying or fearing something that comes in the form of physical sensations, thoughts, and ideas. While it is normal to go through such feelings sometimes and it is a normal part of growing up, it becomes a problem when someone gets stuck in an endless cycle of feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or worried. It is most common in children because they don’t know how to process their feelings and accumulate such things over time.
When a child suffers from such sensations for quite some time, he starts feeling exhausted and isolated, which limits how he acts and thinks. Anxiousness differs from person to person, and a young kid might feel anxious for a couple of different reasons depending on his environment and his thought process. However, if you notice that your child is constantly afraid of something, it might be a sign that he is hiding something from you and calling for help. Here are a few common things that can cause anxiety within children.
- Being abused by someone or neglected by their parents
- Death of someone close to them
- Constantly moving house or school
- Unable to make friends
- Bullies or exams-related stress
- Suffering from an accident or witnessing an accident
- Seeing parents fight with each other
- Having responsibilities that are beyond their age
- Being around anxious people
How to Talk to an Anxious Child and What Strategies to Use
As I mentioned before, a lot of parents do more damage when trying to help their kids with anxiety. People have only recently started realizing that anxiety is a real mental problem, which is why most parents don’t know how to deal with it. To make things easier, I am going to mention some strategies that work so that you can talk and help your kids with anxiety without adding fuel to the fire.
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Validate Their Feelings
The first thing that you should be doing is to validate how they are feeling. The best way to approach this problem is to respect their feelings but don’t empower them. A lot of parents think that they shouldn’t do something just because their child is afraid of it. If your child is afraid of going to the doctor, you should listen to him, be empathetic, and then help him understand that you are there to help him.
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Express Positivity
While you can’t promise your child that going to the dentist isn’t going to hurt or other kids will not make fun of him if he goes to school, you can tell him to stay positive that everything is going to be okay in the end and he will be able to manage it.
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Try the Stepladder Approach
It is very common for anxious kids to avoid their fears. However, avoiding such a situation actually increases their anxiety. So, you need to take a stepladder approach and help them face their fears one step at a time to meet the overall goal.
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Seek Professional Help
If everything that you do to help your kid goes fruitless, you need to take a more formal approach. Letting anxiety get the better of your kid will result in him doing poorly in school or him constantly feeling down. So, it is best that you find a professional therapist who can get to the root cause of what’s troubling him and help him.
For more on this topic, check out the full Child Behavior collection
