Anxiety is a normal and fairly common emotion in children. It can be caused by family events such as frequent changes of home or school, an unstable family environment, death or illness in the family, a stressful school environment, and so on.
Science says that anxious parents are more likely to raise anxious children. However, some children are born worriers, meaning they are more prone to worry than others.
According to available research, anxiety affects nearly one in eight children. While some anxiety is normal, this emotion can affect how your child learns and interacts with the world around them. Some studies suggest that anxiety leads to poorer memory and performance.
Stress and anxiety are affecting more children today than ever before, but anxiety in children is very good at disguising itself. This means that an anxious child may exhibit behaviors that are easily mistaken for something else: misbehavior, aggression, anger, and so on. Also, young children rarely have the words to describe their anxiety, so it can be easily overlooked.
While some signs of anxiety are easy to spot, such as separation anxiety or tearful and clingy behavior, other symptoms of anxiety can be harder to identify. Here are 10 signs of anxiety that are often mistaken for something else.
10 Signs of Anxiety to Help You Better Understand Your Child’s Anxious Behavior
1) Distraction. Anxiety causes your child to focus on what is making him anxious rather than on what is going on around him. This can lead to behaviors such as lack of focus, concentration, and fidgeting.
2) Situation avoidance. Situation avoidance is a common strategy used by anxious children to avoid situations that make them uncomfortable. This may be reflected in your child’s avoidance of responding in class or even speaking in front of classmates. It may also be reflected in their desire to skip school or avoid participating in certain activities.
3) Playing the “class clown”. Many children who “act out” at school often do so to distract themselves from uncomfortable feelings. Playing the class clown is their way of dealing with difficult emotions that they cannot handle.
4) Aggressive behavior. There is a link between anxiety and aggression. Your child may become angry when he is unable to understand and communicate his feelings.
Anxiety is often triggered by underlying fears, and their anxiety may turn into anger in an attempt to feel in control. Anger may therefore be an unconscious expression of your child’s anxiety. Getting angry quickly or acting out of control may also be a sign of their inability to cope with their anxiety.
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5) Poor eating habits. Your child’s anxiety may be reflected in poor eating habits. This is especially true if there have been recent changes in these habits.
6) Poor memory. It makes sense that an anxious child would have a harder time remembering information. Anxiety distracts them and makes them feel uncomfortable, making it harder for them to pay attention to new information. This could also explain differences in grades – if your child is more anxious in a particular class, their grades and behavior in that class are likely to be different than in other classes.
7) Poor sleep habits. One of the least understood signs of anxiety is poor sleep habits. This may be reflected in bedtime struggles, frequent waking in the middle of the night, and more frequent nightmares. An anxious child may also begin to wet the bed.
8) Negativity. Your child’s constant negative thoughts may be a sign of anxiety. Keep in mind that anxiety and fear are closely related, so your child’s fears may lead to his or her anxiety.
9) Frequent urination. Frequent urination may be a sign of anxiety in your child.
10) Illness. Anxiety is such a powerful emotion that it can manifest in the body in many ways. Some physical symptoms of anxiety include stomachaches, nausea, headaches, and shortness of breath.
How to Help Your Anxious Child
Anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling for adults, so you can imagine how uncomfortable it can be for children. Many children struggle with anxiety because they are still learning how to cope with strong emotions. Here are three things you can do if your child is struggling with anxiety.
1) Talk to them about their fears. Young children need to know that everyone feels the same emotions as they do. Reassuring them that their feelings are normal and validating their feelings is important if you want to help them learn to express their anxiety more effectively.
2) Talk to them about your own anxiety. Modeling positive ways to deal with anxiety will help teach your child how to manage his or her own anxiety. This means talking about situations that make you anxious and how you deal with them.
3) Foster your child’s emotional intelligence. Teaching your child about emotions means helping him or her identify different emotions, understanding how those emotions feel in the body, and teaching coping skills to use when faced with emotion-provoking situations. Resources such as The Emotions Kit have age-appropriate tips to help children navigate difficult emotions.
Many childhood anxieties disappear as your child grows older and most anxious children learn to manage the emotion more effectively. However, some children’s anxiety may require professional intervention. Please seek professional help if your child’s anxiety seems to be getting worse, if it is interfering with his or her school and social life, or if you feel unable to help your child on your own.
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