Feb
Tips On Overcoming Anxiety in Children
Signs and symptoms of panic attacks are most common in patients ranging in age from 15 to 40. In the younger age range, attacks tend to start manifesting themselves by about 16 years of age, though some might even experience them sooner. One set of findings, for example, disclosed even some can be as young as four years of age and experience them. We may tend to think of panic attacks as a phenomenon only experienced by adults, but it’s becoming apparent that this isn’t the case.
The study just mentioned looked at about three hundred patients, between the ages of four and 19. All of the children were under the care of a psychiatrist that suffered from a variety of mental health problems that stemmed from overall issues with obsessions, compulsion or other anti-social behavior and not necessarily for panic attacks. Interestingly, however the study did reveal that more than one quarter of the subjects, experienced panic attacks. This doesn’t mean that a quarter of all children have them, rather, it merely reveals that children are capable of experiencing them, and furthermore that there is a high probability that these attacks can be triggered by pre-existing psychological defects.
There are some medical specialists who have queried whether children, especially very young ones, are actually capable of having a panic attack – or any kind of physical symptoms of anxiety attacks for that matter. Regardless, it’s now a well-known fact that, that even though kids don’t always feel as much 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 isn’t all that remarkable really. Children have had less life experience to induce them into fear, whereas grownups have a far greater capacity.
Of course there are many parents who have had to save their child from a potential perilous situation, followed by wails of confusion as their ‘innocent’ adventure (climbing out on the upstairs window-sill, for example) comes to a sudden end. So, while a child’s point of view on their panic attack experience might not actually be described by them as being panic, the description of what actually happens to them physically does fit.
Panic Personality
Just as there are theories about a ‘panic personality’ in adults, you’ll find similar schools of thought with regards to children and corresponding anxiety cures. Many have reported that they tend to be rather quiet, timid and nervous of speaking out. Like adults, they may feel a severe lack of confidence. They also tend to score low in terms of self-esteem.
Thoughts they have with regards to themselves are often disapproving and critical. For example, they
might think they do very badly at school, when in reality, their grades are very high. Those standards that they put in place to achieve, on top of the ones they imagine those around them have for them, to excel and achieve are at the root of such self-critical feelings.
Due to such poor levels of self-confidence, they are particularly sensitive towards being criticized or ostracized, and might therefore avoid social interaction altogether as a precaution. If they fear they won’t be able to do something successfully, they’re increasingly less likely to attempt it in the first place. While many of their peers might enjoy taking risks they tend to hold back from taking risks.
Reserving themselves like this due to their lack of self-esteem, absence of confidence, and fear of failing, these children are among the most vulnerable to complications stemming from high anxiety.
In conclusion, there are countless irrefutable parallels between these observations of children who panic and traits which tend to appear in adults who have panic attacks.

