Parenting a Child with Anxiety

What Your Child Really Needs to Help Them Cope is Your Ear

Don’t let your child turn her back to you when she desperately needs to tell you how she feels.

Observation is key

Since my daughter was 2 years old, I began to notice what I believe were the first signs of her anxiety. Like most children her age, she would cry when taken away from me, however, the separation anxiety grew so strong, that it lasted years beyond what was seen acceptable, before it subsided. I wish I knew what I know now about anxiety when I felt the same feeling planted too firmly in my gut. I wish I had the help I needed as a kid suffering through the same feelings. I wish I knew that I had anxiety as a child so I could’ve learned how to cope at a young age. However, all I really knew was that I felt different and nervous when I really shouldn’t be. Here are some signs and life changing tips if you are parenting a child with anxiety that helped my child and can help yours too.

Be Patient

It might be hard to recognize the symptoms that anxiety brings on at first. You may feel frustrated that your child is being fussy for no apparent reason, or so you think. When my daughter was 5, she went to visit her grandparents that she doesn’t see on a regular basis. At this age, the moment I left, she began screaming and crying for me. A trust issue had come to a head. Oh, the pain I felt when I received the frustrated call from my father. She was supposed to spend the night with her brother and grandparents, but her separation anxiety from me caused her so much fear and nervousness that she could not calm down. Yelling at a child that is in this state is the worst thing you can do because the situation has already escalated to a certain point. Your goal should be to calm your child down and talk to them patiently. Try to understand that maybe they are having anxiety over a certain situation. These children need to be understood and when they have people around them that are patient and responsive to their needs, they naturally calm down. Ignoring the fact that there might be another cause to some of the behavior your child exhibits is like ignoring your child’s real needs. Children are learning how to communicate far beyond that of only learning a language. They are leaning how to express themselves and communicate as an accepted person in society which takes time. So, when they learn how to communicate with their parents and the parents are patient , you will understand your child’s needs more clearly.

Signs of Anxiety in Older Children

The first time I noticed that my daughter was affected by her anxiety at school was in the third grade. As a lot of research has suggested, around this age is where many parents will see their child exhibit strong behaviors relating to nervousness or panic. In the case of my daughter, she developed a less common phobia of vomit. Her phobia has become so strong that she is unable to be near the person, incident, or place that it occurred. It affects her everyday life, as she is always very nervous that a cough, a sniffle, or sneeze could be someone who is going to vomit. It is a very severe situation that needed professional help and thank God we found such a wonderful therapist to help her. Before we saw our therapist, my daughter would walk out of class everyday and pace the halls. She would need to be asked by the principal to go back to class in which she cried desperately in fear. Not even our own principal could understand the severity of the situation which made matters worse for me.

Phobias are a huge sign of anxiety as is separation anxiety in older children. Tantrums usually subside for the most part in children 8–9 and up. My child had tantrums everyday. Another sign to look for is communication misconceptions. Your child might have shied away or be crying in certain situations that wouldn’t warrant tears and this is a time to see what the real reason might be. I’m not saying that every upset child has anxiety by any means, it’s more a pattern of behavior for long periods of time.

Therapists

Sometimes the situation does call for professional help, which is largely looked down upon for some strange reason. Mental illness is a very real thing. Why do we treat other illnesses as illnesses, but not this one? There is nothing wrong with getting professional help. It saved my daughter from depression and taught her coping skills to get her through her everyday life without having to run in fear. The longer we went to the therapist, the better she became, and I’m so extremely proud to say she is turning out to be a strong, honest, confident, and beautiful human being. This all would not not have been possible without help. What my daughter learned was a prize in itself — coping skills.

Coping the Way That Works for Your Child

We learned that coping is the only way to get through emotional situations when it comes to anxiety. The more hyper a person becomes, the more anxious they will become. As said before, a serene atmosphere is the goal.

My child has learned that drawing, coloring and playing with Silly Putty have helped her immensely. They are her outlets that work for her now. They might not always work, as life will get harder and other therapies might work better. However, for the time being these activities calm her. Even if it’s in the middle of the night and she has a panic attack — we take out her books and she occupies herself to bring herself out of her head. The other key part in this situation is she is doing something she likes to do — Something that makes her happy and not nervous. She can express herself through drawing and lately has moved on to animation. It’s a whole new world for her to know that she is going to be okay.

Parenting a child with anxiety isn’t easy. It’s a constant struggle of fear and nerves. I can feel her pain which I can’t put into words. I can feel her frustration, but I can also feel her happiness in many situations. I can actually HEAR her joy and although anxiety has affected her life, she’s not letting it take over her life, she’s taking over it!

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