Anxiety in children: Signs to watch for and how parents can help kids feel safe and supported | Health
Children become anxious too! Knowing how to identify the signs is important. (Picture credit: Freepik) Children cannot verbalise their anxious thoughts. Parents need to closely monitor and promptly identify the signs. Children are perceived as carefree, joyous, and stress-free. Anxiety may seem like an adult or teenage concern. But kids, too, can feel anxious and overwhelmed, even if they do not have the words to describe what they are going through. It falls on the caregivers, parents, siblings, teachers, and others around to identify the signs.
Psychotherapist Dr Chandni Tugnait, founder and director of Gateway of Healing, walked us through the possible signs that a child is anxious.
Often, parents expect children to verbalise what is troubling them, but emotional distress cannot always be expressed. She explained, "Most parents expect their child to come to them and say so when something is wrong. But young children rarely have the language to explain what anxiety feels like, so they end up showing it in other ways. Since these signs don’t always look like worry, they are often mistaken for bad behaviour, fussiness or a phase that the child will eventually grow out of.”
The psychotherapist's advice for parents includes being empathetic. She said, "Instead of asking a child why they are upset, it often helps to give them simple words for what they might be feeling, like scared or nervous, and let them choose what fits. Keeping daily routines steady, spending a few calm minutes together without phones or distractions, and staying patient with repeated questions can help a child feel safe enough to open up slowly.”
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.
Adrija Dey’s proclivity for observation fuels her storytelling instinct. As a lifestyle journalist, she crafts compelling, relatable narratives across diverse touchpoints of the human experience, including wellness, mental health, relationships, interior design, home decor, food, travel, and fashion that gently nudge readers toward living a little better. For her, stories exist in flesh and bones, carried by human vessels and shaped through everyday endeavours. It is the small stories we live and share that make us human. After all, humans and their lores are the most natural and raw repositories of stories, and uncovering them, for her, is akin to peeling an orange under a winter afternoon sun. Always up for a chat, she believes the best stories come from unfiltered yapping, where "too much information" is kind of the point. A graduate of Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, and an alumna of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, Adrija spends her idle hours cocooned with herbal tea and a gripping thriller, scribbling inner monologues she loosely calls poetic pieces, often with her succulents in attendance. On lazier days, she can be found binge-watching, for the nth time, one from her comfort-show holy trinity: The Office (US), Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Modern Family. Dancing by herself to her peppy playlists, however, is an everyday ritual she swears by religiously.Read More
