Fit and Cool

Tips On How To Deal With Anxiety in Children

Panic attack symptoms are most common in patients ranging in age from 15 to 40. In the younger age range, patients begin to experience their attacks by the time they reach 16, although for some they occur before then. One set of findings, for example, revealed some patients could be as young as 4 when they first experience an episode. We may tend to think of panic attacks as exclusive to adult patients, but this simply isn’t true.

The study just mentioned analyzed about three hundred patients, ranging in age from about four all the way up to 19 years old. All of these patients were patients being treated for psychiatric problems that suffered from a variety of mental health problems stemming from overall issues with obsessions, compulsion or other anti-social behavior and not necessarily for panic attacks. That being said the doctors and researchers found that 26 per cent of them, that is, over a quarter, experienced panic attacks. This is no way suggests that a quarter of all children have them, still, it does debunk the myth that children do not have them, and that there is a likelihood that they may be linked to other problems.

There are some medical specialists who have queried whether younger patients, most notably the very young, are actually capable of having a panic attack – or any kind of physical symptoms of anxiety attacks for that matter. Still, it’s been proven that, although they may not feel fear leading up to or in the middle of an attack like grownups do, children are still able to feel the same sense of panic as adults. A lessened fear response shouldn’t be all that surprising. Children, in their innocence, often do things which adults wouldn’t dare, whereas grownups have a far greater capacity.

There must be a great many parents who have swept their child out of a potentially dangerous situation, and have subsequently described to the child what potential harms their actions might have caused them, often in grave detail. Taking this into consideration, a child might not be capable of describing their episode as a panic response, the description of what actually happens to them physically does fit.

Panic Personality

Just as there are theories about a ‘panic personality’ in adults, there are similar ideas about children and corresponding cure anxiety symptoms. Many have reported that children exhibiting traits of a panic personality’ are often timid, apprehensive and submissive. Like adults with the same condition, they may feel a severe lack of confidence. They also tend to score low in terms of self-esteem.

Ideas they have about themselves are often marked by disapproval. For instance, they could perceive themselves as having low grades, whereas the truth is they are doing well. The expectations they set for themselves, and those they think others have of them, to do their best no matter what are at the root of such self-critical feelings.

Due to such extremely low self-worth, these patients are also quite susceptible being rejected, social isolation and critiques, and could even go so far as to bow out of all social interactions in order to prevent such issues from arising. Further, if they anticipate that they’ll fail at something, then they won’t even try. Instead of doing what’s typical of a child, to explore, discover and take chanced in order to learn children with panic personalities often avoid risks altogether.

Depriving themselves of these experiences because of their self-image issues, lack of self-confidence, and their overall fear of not measuring up, these patients are highly vulnerable to anxiety.

In conclusion, there are many similarities between these observations of children who panic and traits which tend to appear in adults who have panic attacks.

In his great fitness book Mike Geary, author of Truth About Six Pack Abs gives a lot of exercise advice, and we all know that exercise plays a large role in emotional and physical health, both in adults and children. Check out Girlwithnoname’s review of this awesome eBook here:

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.