We all experience fear. It is a natural response to threats to our safety.
The oldest part of our brains is called the amygdala and its job is to help us survive. When we’re faced with danger, the amygdala doesn’t hang about thinking what to do. It just reacts in one of three ways – fight, flight or freeze. This is essential to our survival as a species and as individuals.
The only problem is that the amygdala can’t distinguish between a real threat and an imagined or perceived threat and so reacts in the same way. That is, the fight/flight/freeze reaction occurs whether there is an actual threat such as a bus about to knock us down, or a perceived threat i.e. ‘what if something bad happens?’
To understand anxiety in children, it is helpful to know that fear is made up of three parts:
- Thoughts about being afraid;
- Physical sensations (e.g. increased heart rate, muscle tension etc.);
- Behaviour (avoidance of feared situations)
At the root of anxiety are our thoughts of being afraid, and the habit of seeing situations as threatening. Take for example a child who has a fear of dogs. He sees a dog as dangerous because he’s in the habit of thinking the dog could bite him. However there is an alternative – the dog could be seen as friendly and harmless. If the child thought in this way he would not feel afraid. So it’s the thoughts of being afraid of the dog that triggers the body to get ready to fight or to run away. The physical sensations associated with fear can be scary in themselves which can lead to further sensations. The thoughts of being afraid and the physical sensations lead to the third part of fear – the behavior of either avoiding the feared situations or trying to escape them.
While escaping and avoiding feared situations may give temporary relief from fear, it prevents us from learning that a) the situation is not actually dangerous b) we can cope with the fear sensations. In the long run, avoiding feared situations or escaping before the anxiety subsides of its own accord actually maintains the anxiety. You may have noticed this phenomenon yourself. Ultimately there is only one way to get over anxiety, and that is exposure to the feared situations, either in a graded way (starting with the least feared and working up to the most feared) or flooding (facing it full on).
Fear at Various Developmental Stages
Most children will go through phases of feeling fearful. As children’s social and cognitive capacity develops the source of their fear changes. So the most common fears in infancy are loud noises, strangers and separation from caregivers. When they reach the toddler stage, children develop the capacity to imagine. But as they are unable to distinguish fantasy from reality this can lead to common fears of monsters and the dark. The most common anxiety disorder at this stage is separation anxiety (fear of separation from their caregiver).
As children enter early childhood (5-7 years) they think in concrete logical terms. Increased awareness of the world and exposure to media coincides with fears related to natural disasters, animals, injury and media based fears. The most common anxiety disorders seen at this age are animal and blood phobias. In middle childhood, children’s self-esteem is largely based on performance at school and athletics. Correspondingly, at this age, anxiety tends to be focused on exam performance and school. During adolescence the capacity to think in terms of the future develops and in parallel, anxiety about future potential dangers is more common. Self-esteem during adolescence is largely based on peer relations and anxiety about being rejected by peers is therefore common. Typical anxiety disorders during adolescence include generalised anxiety, panic disorder and social anxiety.
While a certain amount of anxiety during childhood is to be expected, it is recommended that you seek professional support for your child if their fears interfere with their normal daily functioning (i.e. they are unable to attend school or are withdrawing from social activities) and/or their fears are causing them significant distress.
Ten Tips for Helping a Child who is feeling anxious:
- Listen to your child’s fears. Regardless of how trivial or illogical their fear seems to you, it is very real to them. Considering their developmental stage may aid understanding their fear.
- Be aware of your own feelings and fears. Does your child’s anxiety bring up anxiety for you? Try to remain calm when your child talks about fears. Talk to another adult rather than your child about your own worries and fears.
- Try not to over reassure your child when they express fear. Offer reassurance only once. Instead focus on coping with fear to build confidence.
- Consider a set ‘worry time’. This involves setting aside 10 minutes or less a day to listen to their worries. It is not recommended doing this at bedtime. This can limit the amount of time your child spends worrying and thus gain control over it.
- Doing things they enjoy – encourage your child to engage in activities they enjoy and/or that give them a sense of achievement. This can build confidence and distract from worry.
- Practice relaxing sighs. Sighing is good for you as it switches the body from the “fight/flight” alarm reaction to the relaxation response. Your child might enjoy adding animal noises to their sighs!
- Belly breathing – for young children lying on their bed with a teddy on their belly and focusing on the teddy moving up and down as they breathe in and out. Older children can place their hand on their belly to connect with the sensations of breathing. Observing the breath can have a calming effect.
- Practice progressive muscle relaxation exercises with your child to help them relieve body tension. This is simply tensing different muscles of the body and relaxing them – see anxietybc.com.
- Visualisation – inviting your child to imagine a place they feel happy and safe. Help them build a clear picture by inviting them to imagine what they see, hear, smell, taste and touch in their safe place.
- Encourage acceptance of all feelings ‘good’ and ‘bad’. When negative feelings such as fear show up, seeing if you can take them in as information – like a warning signal from your body that something needs your attention. As best you can allow the feelings to be there, being curious and open to them rather than pushing them away. Remember fear will pass eventually. Your child will learn from you modelling this attitude towards feelings.
Research Source: “The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology” – Alan Carr
Recommended website: anxietybc.com
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