Children and teens today face immense pressure from school, friends, and society’s expectations. This can manifest as anxiety disorders like generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social anxiety, and panic attacks. The good folk at Aspire Psychological tell us that while some anxiety is normal, excessive, persistent anxiety causes significant distress and impairment. Fortunately, with understanding and evidence-based strategies, childhood anxiety is highly treatable.
Understanding Anxiety in Children and Teens
Anxiety stems from a hyperactive fight-flight-freeze response and exaggerated perception of threat. For children, perceived threats may relate to school, friends, health, and family life. When anxious, the body goes into overdrive, causing symptoms like a racing heart, nausea, dizziness, and panic attacks. Fears and worries persist even with reassurance. Without coping skills, anxiety causes kids to avoid situations, possessions, places, or activities. This impairs functioning and compounds the anxiety. Knowing the cycle of anxiety empowers kids to break it.
Cultivating Emotional Awareness
Many children lack the language and emotional intelligence to properly convey their feelings. Caregivers can prompt conversations to unveil anxious thoughts. Simply asking, “How are you feeling today?” and confirming a child’s emotions helps them feel understood and builds trust. Emotion identification games, feeling wheels and journals also help kids better articulate emotions, recognize physiological signs of anxiety and separate facts from irrational fears.
Learning Relaxation Techniques
Since anxiety manifests physiologically, relaxation techniques help the nervous system to return to normal. Deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, mindfulness, and meditation curb the fight-flight response. Relaxation apps make it interactive. Teachers also employ relaxing classroom yoga and mindfulness to empower students to self-soothe. Caregivers should tailor techniques to what specifically calms each child to employ them during or in anticipation of anxiety triggers. Relaxation is a skill that, with patient practice, empowers kids in the face of anxiety.
Facing Fears Gradually
Avoidance encourages anxiety to grow unchecked. Anxiety treatment trains the child to gradually confront fears and perceived threats through exposure therapy. This teaches their nervous system to realize the situation is not actually dangerous. For example, if a child is anxious about attending swim class, they would start by driving to the pool and returning home before building up to sitting poolside, then dipping their feet in, and so forth over multiple sessions. Successful exposure experiences train the brain and nervous system to learn the situation is safe and anxiety subsides.
Reframing Unhelpful Thoughts
Anxious kids experience distorted thinking. Reframing exercises teach kids how to challenge irrational or exaggerated fears and replace them with alternative neutral or positive perspectives. For example, if a child worries nobody will come to their birthday party, parents can work through that worst case scenario to highlight that even if some friends can’t make it, they will still have fun. Learning cognitive reappraisal strategies empowers kids to reevaluate situations through a realistic, less frightening lens.
Seeking Additional Support
Without treatment, childhood anxiety disorders tend to persist and heighten in adolescence and adulthood. Anxiety causes chronically elevated stress hormones that alter brain structure and chemistry. There are many excellent pediatric therapists who specialize in childhood anxiety treatment through play therapy, exposure models and teaching calming, coping strategies. School counselors may also help children learn skills during the school day among peers. Parents should seek assessment from mental health professionals specializing in child development if anxiety disrupts functioning. With collaborative support, children can overcome anxiety.
Conclusion
The key is early intervention while the brain still has neuroplasticity to unlearn fearful patterns. Helping children cultivate emotional awareness, relaxation skills and cognitive restructuring empowers them to defuse and overcome anxiety. With compassion and consistency, we can equip our youth to prosper despite the challenges modern life presents.