Child Anxiety - How to Spot the Five Main Signs?

Is your child suffering from child anxiety or are they just misbehaving like any normal child.

Most people have the opinion that childhood is probably the most relaxed and anxious free part of anyone's lifetime. While many of us may be able to look back on our own childhood as a time of being carefree, worry free and joyful -- the fact is that for children being brought up now it may be none of those things.

Unless you've experienced it already, being able to spot whether a child is going through the normal "happened today - forgotten tomorrow" small trials and tribulations of childhood or is suffering from childhood anxiety can be quite a difficult task.

So here then are the five most common signs of childhood anxiety:

• Not sleeping well

• Crying for more than is usual for them

• Inventing illnesses

• Not wanting to eat

• Throwing tantrums

The thing to remember is that rarely a month will go past in a child's life when they won't be suffering from at least one of those signs.

Let's face it, many children nowadays will throw a tantrum just in order to try and get their own way. That on its own does not mean that the child is suffering from childhood anxiety -- just a little spoiled.

Again many children will go through stages of not wanting to eat certain things often coming up with the reason of "I've never tried it, I don't like it" and you know how annoying that can be. But again that does not mean that they have a generalised anxiety disorder.

When children reach a certain age, they understand the power of emotion -- particularly tears. And just how efficiently the odd well-placed to tear can get them that thing that they want there and then.

And those mysterious stomachache that appears just before its time to leave for school only to go away again all by themselves later on in the day is of itself not a sign that your child is overly anxious to the point of being classed as having a disorder.

These are all just part of a natural childhood.

It is when these things start to occur on a overly regular basis and in combination that parents and carers should start to take more notice and begin to investigate what exactly is the cause of these types of worries.

He is an example that may serve to illustrate this better:

Carmen and Michael's daughter Angela, was becoming increasingly irritable at weekends. As the weekend progressed she began to be more tetchy, throw tantrums and fly off the handle over even the smallest things.

In their family, Sunday evening was the big family meal when quite often the grandparents would come over, aunts and uncles would come round for dinner and generally a good time was had by all.

But it seemed Angela just wanted to go to her bedroom and not have anything to do with anybody. And if mum and dad insisted that she came down and joined in, she made it quite clear that she didn't want to be there.

As Carmen worked as the receptionist at a local doctor's office her first thought was to ask the doctors there what they thought might be the problem. Why had a personality change so much?

As it happened, Angela needed to go and see the doctor for a regular checkup so she was able to examine her and chat to her little and concluded that while there was nothing physically wrong maybe an appointment with the child psychiatrist could be in order.

It was actually Angela's grandmother who pointed out that this had only really started back in October when Angela had been at a new school for some weeks and maybe that's where the problem was.

Frankly, grandma was spot on. It turned out the Angela, although a bright and able pupil did not come from the same area as most of the rest of the class. And while there was no direct animosity or bullying she herself did not feel as though she "fitted in"

It was silly things like when the other children were talking about going to a certain place or hanging around at such and such -- Angela just had no clue about what they were talking about.

This was very quickly sorted out by firstly having a word with Angela's teacher who not only knew the other pupils fairly well having taught them earlier on in their schooling but also lived in the area for most of her life so knew it quite well. She organised the project in class on "my favourite place" which all the children contributed to.

At the end of the week in which the project took place, Angela was able to learn about all of the places that the children were talking about and through them "experienced" each of the places by what the children said about them.

Secondly, for a few weeks the regular Sunday evening gatherings were reorganised and held that some of the places that Angela's friends were talking about.

Now it may have been that just by leaving things alone Angela would have eventually found out about these places and felt more integrated with the children in her class. But the fact is this process was accelerated allowing Angela to feel more at home more quickly with her classmates. And her mum and dad didn't have to wait too long before Angela started to ask if her new friends from school would come round for tea.

The example above is one in which the outcome was obviously satisfactory to everybody. And to a certain extent much of the pain and suffering that childhood anxiety can bring to both the child and her parents was avoided.

And much of that was due to the experienced eyes of grandma.

So if you think your child may be suffering from childhood anxiety. Remember it's not something that will go away on its own. There are many places you can get for childhood anxiety and they include obviously your child's doctor, teacher and other professionals involved in your child's life

Dr. Sharmistha Barai is a leading Child & Adolescent psychiatrist based in Saint Louis, Missouri, using her talents and expertise to treat clients for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar and personality disorders. Dr. Sharmistha specializes in general psycho-geriatrics, child and adolescent psychiatry, drug and alcohol. She completed a MBBS degree (medical degree equivalent) at Lady Hardings Medical College, in New Delhi, India (2002).

To read more, please visit here: https://sharmisthabarai.wordpress.com

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