How to Help Your Child Cope with Anxiety
Anxiety is the feeling of nervousness or worry that your child might experience when faced with stressful event, like a test or a sports game. Anxiety can be accompanied by physical changes, like increases in heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. It is normal for children to worry about some challenges they face. However, anxiety that interferes with daily activities and relationships may indicate your child has an anxiety disorder.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY CHILD HAS ANXIETY?
Anxiety can affect your child physically and psychologically. Your child may have the following physical symptoms:
Headaches
Upset stomach.
Pain in other parts of the body.
Your child's may also:
Do worse
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WHAT ARE SOME STEPS I CAN TAKE TO HELP MY CHILD COPE WITH ANXIETY?
To help your child cope with anxiety, try taking the following steps:
Help your child understand that it is normal to feel stressed or anxious sometimes. Let your child know that:
Anxiety is the body’s normal mental and physical reaction, and that it helps protect us.
Anxiety is our body’s way of telling us something is happening that needs our attention.
Stress reactions can be helpful in some situations, like when you are taking a test, playing a game, or performing.
There are healthy ways to cope with stress and anxiety.
Do not avoid the situation that is causing your child anxiety. It is natural for your child to avoid a scary situation, but if you avoid it too, you will reinforce your child's fear and you will not teach your child about dealing with the situation.
Explore your child's fears. To do this:
Talk with your child about his or her fears.
Listen to your child. Listening helps your child feel cared about and supported.
Accept your child’s feelings as
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Tell your child you believe he or she can find a way to deal with the fears. This will help your child gain confidence.
Teach your child how to breathe mindfully in stressful situations. Mindful breathing is a skill that will help your child self-soothe. It can be used throughout life.
Teach your child to practice muscle relaxation. To do this:
Have your child flex or tense his or her muscles for a few seconds and then relax. Doing this can help your child see the difference between tension and relaxation. It can also give your child some power over the effects of stress.
Have your child dangle his or her arms, breathe deeply, and pretend he or she is a floppy puppet. This helps your child experience relaxation.
Be a role model.
Let your child know what you do in times of stress and anxiety, and demonstrate these positive behaviors.
Let your child observe you and your partner discuss some stressful situation. This can help your child see how you problem solve.
Practice mindful breathing with your child for 3 or 5 minutes at a time when neither of you are
Anxiety is a monster that most people have to deal with on a daily basis. Even though anxiety is not actually a monster it still torments thousands of people every day, leaving them weak and scared. Anxiety defined means “distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune” defined by Dictionary.com. In the epic poem of Beowulf, one could say that the townspeople had anxiety when it came to Grendel because they feared what he could do to them.
Anxiety is an extremely common feeling that occurs in everyday life. If I go out and meet new people, I get anxious while initiating a conversation with them. If any kind of crisis will happen in front of me for the first time I will get anxious for sure. For example,
It is never pleasant to feel anxious or distressed for any reason. However, there are several people who are diagnosed with anxiety disorders as they are very prevalent today. Mental health professionals are helping people overcome hurdles such as panic attacks, severe worry, social anxiety and other specific phobias. I think that anxiety is an emotion that everyone experiences at one time or another in their life. Anxiety can have a negative effect on an individual if it interferes with one’s daily routine and keeps them from doing what they normally do.
Anxiety is a feeling of tension associated with a sense of threat of danger when the source of the danger is not known. In comparison, fear is a feeling of tension that is associated with a known source of danger. I believe it is normal for us to have some mild anxiety present in our daily lives. Everyday that I can think of I have some kind of anxiety though out that day. Anxiety warns us and enables us to get ready for the ‘fight or flight’ response. However, heightened anxiety is emotionally painful. It disrupts a person's daily functioning.
Anxiety is associated with fear- fear of a specific object or situation, generalized fear and worry, recurring fearful memories, etc. The NIMH has found that a specific portion of the brain, the amygdala, controls the body's automatic response to fear. When the brain is confronted with fear, the brain takes two course of action. One, the brain transmits information to the cerebral cortex (the thinking part of the brain) to inform it of what specifically is endangering the individual. Second, the brain transmits to the amygdala the same information, so that the body might prepare for action.
Steensel, F. J., Bögels, S. M., & Perrin, S. (2011, July 07). Anxiety Disorders in Children and
Anxiety disorders are the 2nd most diagnosed mental illness in the United States. Anxiety comes from the “fight or flight” physiological response in ones body. The fear a person experiences is an intense emotional alarm accompanied by a surge of energy in the autonomic nervous system. The surge is what motivates us to flee from danger, cueing the “flight” response. However, some anxiety is good for us in moderate amounts. Most people perform better when we are a little anxious (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Anxiety can improve test performance or make you more energetic and charming on a date. It improves, social, physical, and intellectual performance. In fact little would get done if we didn’t have any anxiety. However anxiety can be negative as well. The most common symptoms are looking worried and anxious or fidgeting. That is pretty normal for most people. These symptoms are a physiological response that starts in the brain. It elevates the heart rate and creates muscle tension. Most of the research has been done with animals. Animals seem to experience anxiety in a similar way to ...
Anxiety is common mental illness in the US, which Kim Krisberg talks about in her article “Anxiety: A Normal Response That Can Feel Overwhelming. The cause of anxiety is brought up in Peter Crostas’ article “What Causes Anxiety?” Crosta also explains the treatments for anxiety in his article, “What Are Treatments For Anxiety?”
Anxiety is a normal reaction to a threatening situation and results from an increase in the amount of adrenaline from the sympathetic nervous system. This increased adrenaline speeds the heart and respiration rate, raises blood pressure, and diverts blood flow to the muscles. These physical reactions are appropriate for escaping from danger but when they cause anxiety in many situations throughout the day, they may be detrimental to a normal lifestyle. An anxiety disorder is a disorder where feelings of fear, apprehension, or anxiety are disruptive or cause distortions in behavior, (Coon, 526); they are psychiatric illnesses that are not useful for normal functioning. At times, an underlying illness or disease can cause persistent anxiety. Treatment of the illness or disease will stop the anxiety. Anxiety illnesses affect more than 23 million Americans with about 10 million Americans suffering from the most common, general anxiety disorder . (Harvard, 1). Common anxiety disorders are panic attacks (panic disorder), phobias, and general anxiety disorder (GAD). Panic attacks Panic attacks can begin with a feeling of intense terror followed by physical symptoms of anxiety. A panic attack is characterized by unpredictable attacks of severe anxiety with symptoms not related to any particular situation. (Hale, 1886). The person experiencing the attack may not be aware of the cause. Symptoms include four or more of the following: pounding heart, difficulty breathing, dizziness, chest pain, shaking, sweating, choking, nausea, depersonalization, numbness, fear of dying, flushes, fear of going crazy. Heredity, metabolic factors, hyperventilation, and psychological factors may contribute to anxiety causing panic attacks.
What anxiety is. Like fear, anxiety causes nervousness and happens in reaction to danger; however, anxiety is a state of distress that can be drawn out for a long time and puts the body on alert for impending danger. It comes from the visions of possible dangers in the brain. Authors Kaplan and Sadock explained it as being “a diffuse, unpleasant, vague sense of apprehension…” (Ankrom). They are saying that it is a sense of nervousness, and that it makes people be on alert. It can also be described as butterflies in the stomach or a sense of
Anxiety is a term for several disorders that causes the body to feel fear, nervousness, apprehension, and worrying, "Anxiety is a word we use for some types of fear that are consequently to do with the thought of a threat or something going wrong in the future, rather than right now" (Mental Health Foundation). Many people suffer from anxiety every day, consequently most people can not pinpoint what exactly their anxiety originates from. No one likes to experience stress and anxiety, but it is just a phase of life that most humans have to overcome and become stronger. Anxiety disorders are one of the most inferior mental illnesses that affects teens and adults in the United States. Anxiety negatively affects the body and
Natural disaster causes damage for lives and their homes. Many families face a danger of lack of water and food, and transportation. Sarah and her children were struggling to survive from that disaster, and the only store is closed to prevent robbers from the community. Therefore, Sarah can perform an action that can be applied and relate to three ethical theories, Emotivism, Egoism, and Kant’s theory
When you think of emotions you think of the classic, sadness, happiness, and madness. The one people often forget is the emotion of anxiety. Anxiety is one of the only emotions that you can have and actually not show it. Anxiety itself is very strange, depending on who you are, and how your brain works, anything can cause it . Anxiety usually follows you throughout your life but for some people, it changes as you change and grow. You aren 't the same height as you were when you were 6, you grew. There’ s a chance that the anxiety you encounter works the same way. Some classic emotions remain the same throughout your life for the most part, but anxiety as a tendency to morph.
When anxiety develops before the age of 20 it’s possible that a close relative suffers from anxiety as well. Biologically, the most popular research of genetics being the cause of anxiety is the studies on twins conducted by medical researchers they have found out that there’s a bigger chance to have panic disorder which is under anxiety disorders when you have a twin or a relative who also has it. But then according to studies the environment, traumas from a traumatic event, peers even parenting can takes place in developing anxiety. There are different types of anxiety first is the most common – Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) people with GAD find it hard to control their overly concern about things. They anticipate threats or danger for no apparent reason.
The definition of anxiety by the American Psychological Association is, “...an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure”(APA) Anxiety disorders affect 1 in 8 children, the largest source of the anxiety being stress. An article by the Huffington Post says, “31 percent of teens report feeling overwhelmed as a result of stress, 30 percent say that they feel sad or depressed as a result of stress, and 36 percent report feeling tired