by A | Oct 18, 2023 | Anxiety Help
Do you have a loved one that you suspect has anxiety struggles? The good news is, they have you as a guiding light on their darker days.
In the fast-paced and demanding world we live in, anxiety has become increasingly prevalent among children and teenagers. As caretakers, it is essential to be able to recognize the signs and symptoms of anxiety in your kids and teens. By having a better understanding of anxiety, you can provide them with the necessary support and help in managing their anxiety effectively. In this post, we will explore some common symptoms of anxiety in kids and teens to be on the lookout for.
Physical Symptoms:
Anxiety can often manifest in physical ways, and children and teenagers may display various symptoms. They may express that they are experiencing frequent headaches or stomachaches. You may notice persistent fatigue and lethargy in your child or teen. They may exhibit trouble falling asleep, experiencing recurring nightmares, or waking up throughout the night. You could also notice changes in appetite or sudden weight loss or gain. A few other physical symptoms include rapid breathing, an increased heart rate, sweating, trembling, or experiencing hot flashes. It is important to remember to rule out any clear medical causes. However, if there is not a medical cause, they may very well be experiencing anxiety.
Behavioral Symptoms:
Kids and teens express their anxiety through behavioral changes. Many caretakers express that they observe irritability and mood swings in their child or heightened sensitivity and outbursts. A very common behavior change is avoidance of many activities that may look like social withdrawal, avoiding homework, and avoiding certain places or people. There may be experiences with unexplained clinginess or struggles with separation. Other behavioral symptoms include difficulty concentrating, restless behavior, over-working on school work, and reassurance seeking.
Cognitive Symptoms:
Anxiety often affects a child’s thoughts and cognitions. Many children with anxiety experience excessive worry, often about seemingly insignificant matters to their caregivers. They may have catastrophic thinking (imagining the worst possible outcome in any situation) or overthinking (inability to switch off their thoughts or focus on something else), This can be a tricky symptom to catch but often a child may express these thoughts to caregivers in different ways. Some ways that parents can recognize cognitive symptoms is by observing if the child is asking many of the same questions, stating that they have certain worries, show struggles with decision-making or have over-reliance on others for reassurance, or showing difficulty in concentrating and retaining information.
Understanding how to catch anxiety is one of the first steps in helping your child manage their anxiety. Remember, you are a wonderful caregiver to your child! Your unwavering support and encouragement make a world of difference. Your presence is like a beacon of hope, guiding your child through both the bright days and the challenging ones. You got this!
With courage and love,
Angela Springer, LCSW & Hayley Wyatt, LCSW
St. Louis, Missouri Child and Teen Anxiety and OCD Specialists
by A | Aug 24, 2018 | Kids
Before learning strategies to cope with emotion, it is important to learn the basic skills that contribute to emotional intelligence. The first few sessions in therapy revolve around assessing, reviewing and teaching these 5 skills that will set a STRONG foundation to using strategies effectively.
Children learn how to tell stories of times they experienced big emotions. Telling stories of when these strong emotions have happened is a basic skill that is critical in order to gather information from the child about triggers AND help them feel safe and validated in talking about situations that feel personal and sometimes shameful. Story telling can be done in playful and engaging ways with coloring, role play, figurines and puppets.
Children learn the skill of labeling their emotions. It’s not always easy to acknowledge emotions let alone even know what certain emotions are called. Labeling emotions is an essential skill that will lead to an increase in emotional intelligence and ability to cope. Mastering this skill is often done through playing games like feelings charades or circling emotions on the feelings board in the office. Children will learn how to use “I statements” to better communicate emotion.
Children learn the skill of labeling their body sensations. All emotions come hand in hand with body sensations; it’s a package deal whether we like it or not. Helping children identify body sensations is an often overlooked skill that is critical to emotional intelligence. These body sensations such as an upset stomach, racing heart and shakiness are often the driving force behind avoidance behaviors (a hallmark symptom of anxiety). This skill can be learned through basic education about these body sensations and providing a physical means to label these sensations and their location in the body. An simple outline of a body on a piece of paper and some markers can be enough to start the conversation of these sensations. Kids are often surprised and relieved when they are educated about these sensations and given language to speak about them.
Children learn the skill of figuring out their thoughts. Our feelings are often directly linked to our thoughts. When children learn how to identify their thoughts and make sense of the reason they are having the feelings they are already noticing it gives them the power to take action. Children often benefit from being guided to understand their thoughts by externalizing them. Creating ‘Brain Bully’ characters with markers or clay and being playful in figuring out what this character is ‘saying’ can be a fun way to engage children in learning this skill.
Children learn the skill of identifying their actions and how they link to their thoughts, emotions and body feelings. Most of the time when parents seek out treatment for their children there is something happening behaviorally that is causing a problem. Whether it is avoidance, disruptive, defiant or withdrawn behaviors, parents are concerned. After learning the first four skills, it is important to help a child learn how their actions can change. Using the ‘brain bully’ tool, children often have fun thinking about what their ‘brain bully’ is trying to get them to do. This opens up many doors to learn how to ‘fight’ their brain bully and learn the evidence-based strategies to help reduce symptoms.
by A | Mar 6, 2014 | CBT
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most empirically supported modalities for treatment of a multitude of disorders including depression and anxiety. The most exciting part of CBT is that it makes sense! When working with a CBT therapist, your therapist should help you understand the “cognitive model” and through this you will gain an understanding of how you can become your own therapist. As a CBT therapist, my goal is to help you become your own therapist. I want you to know what I know about where feelings come from and how to shift them to make for a more fulfilling life.
Most people come into treatment because they are feeling “bad” and want to change the way they feel. To understand what CBT is, the first thing to figure out is where feelings come from. After all, how can you set out to change your feelings if you don’t know how they are created.
Consider this: You scored tickets to the Olympic hockey game between USA and Canada. You invite your Canadian friend to go with you. Canada wins the game! You feel disappointed and a little bit sad. Your friend feels ecstatic and reenergized. You are both in the exact same situation – standing in the stadium watching the aftermath of the Canadian win. How is it possible that you and your friend are experiencing wildly different emotions? It can’t be the situation since the situation you are in is the SAME. What other factor could be involved?
What research has found is that while there may be some link between situations and feelings, it’s actually not very strong. The stronger link to feelings is our thoughts. Your friend is thinking about how his team just won the game and he can’t wait to rub it in at the office tomorrow. You are thinking about how the US deserved to win and how they got cheated of another victory. The way we think has a greater impact on how we feel than the situation itself.
Since we know that thoughts impact feelings we can conclude that in order to change our feelings, we must take a closer look at our thoughts. The tricky thing about thoughts is that just because you think something doesn’t mean that it’s true. If you think about the world ending tomorrow, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
This information has the power to be life changing. In my opinion, this is the secret to living a fulfilling life. Using the knowledge about thoughts and realizing that you DO have at least SOME control over your thinking (think about ice cream!) you have the power to begin to change the way you feel!
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