What is Anxiety?
Everyone experiences feelings of worry from time to time. In fact worry is a natural response to the pressure of daily life and its our brains way of letting us know that something needs our attention. We can actually use our worry to our advantage when we’re doing something that we’re passionate about or something that is of risk, but that is a positive and calculated one.
In today’s hectic and constantly busy world it’s no surprise that people are experiencing more worry. Mainstream and social media play a big part in today’s constant feeling that a threat is just around every corner. The fact that our children and young people are increasingly more exposed to ‘perceived’ danger can become all consuming for their underdeveloped brains to cope with.
As humans we are conditioned to look out for threats, just as we did in the caveman days when the biggest threat was being attacked by a bear. As we’ve evolved our brains are still programmed to look out for the ‘Bear’, only 9 times out of 10 there isn’t one, but our minds cannot tell the difference between a perceived threat and a real one so we can become overly worried about something that isn’t real even though it emotionally and physically feels like it is. The good thing here is that we can use that to change the way we think of things and enable us to thank the bear for coming to keep us safe, but that he’s not actually needed here and can move aside.
Signs of Child and Teenage Anxiety
As parents it can be difficult to spot the signs of child and teenage anxiety so here are the most common:
- Lack of eye contact (this is a sign that they are shutting down emotionally)
- Shoulder shrugging when being spoken to (this is a sign that the brain is overwhelmed)
- Inability to focus (due to the anxiety becoming all consuming)
- Headaches and stomach aches (these are physical symptoms that anxiety is present)
- Tiredness (another sign that they are shutting down emotionally and physically)
- Feelings of sadness (due to not being able to understand what’s happening)
- Challenging behaviour (down to them not having the skills yet to communicate their fears)
- Rudeness (the logic part of the brain has gone off line and again they are struggling to understand and communicate their fears)
- Panic attacks (this happens when they can no longer control the physical and emotional symptoms and their anxiety has fully taken over)
The Fight, Flight, Freeze response
The above signs are a result of your child or young person entering what we call the ‘fight, flight, freeze response’ (FFF for short). Becoming aware of which response is their go to one, can be incredibly useful to both you and them. Becoming aware of your own is also key for you being able to regulate yourself when things get tough for your child or young person.
For simplicity let’s use the example of the BEAR in terms of how you deal with it when each of the FFF responses are switched on.
Fight – Speaks for itself really as you will want to fight the bear when this response is triggered
Flight – Again it’s quite self explanatory as when this response is switched on you will want to run from the BEAR
Freeze – In this response you will want to hide from the BEAR. Like a chameleon, you may want to blend in and disguise yourself so the bear can’t see you.
It’s very natural to enter all 3 responses. For example, you may initially fight and then freeze, or fight and then flee, or flee and then freeze. However, we tend to have an initial go to response in the first instance which is a tell tale sign that the response has been triggered.
In terms of school, this can lead to avoidance of either people, places or situations that are triggering one of these responses.
What can parents do to help Teenage Anxiety?
Another difficulty for parents can be that their child or young person may not be able to express how they feel. Parents need to feel comfortable really listening to what is being said and to remain curious when speaking to their child or young person about their feelings. Parents also need to know how to model healthy regulation of their own emotions which can be hard for some, particularly if this wasn’t modelled for them as a child.
When a young person reaches secondary school age they may be able to recognise their own feelings, but are still unable or unwilling to discuss them. The human brain is not fully developed until around 25 years of age and up until that point we live primarily in our emotional brain, and when our young people hit puberty there is a development surge in the brain which can cause A LOT of big emotions that as adults we see as over-reacting, but to our young people this is very REAL and often a scary and confusing time.
Allowing a space for your child or young person to turn to where they know they will be fully seen and heard is incredibly powerful. They don’t always want you to fix their worries. Quite often they just want you to sit in their worry with them for a while whilst they work it out for themselves.
If you found this article and teenage anxiety helpful you may like to visit the online shop or digital download pages on the website for more helpful resources to further support your child or teenager with anxiety.