Searching for a Sign: How to Know if Your Child is Showing Signs of an Anxiety Attack

Children are notoriously hard to diagnose for any medical condition. Not only are their bodies changing so rapidly that doctors don’t always know what’s going on inside of them, but children themselves often have no idea what’s going on inside. Even if they do, they often have a hard time explaining it. This makes it especially hard to identify the signs of anxiety attacks in your children. If adults can have a hard time explaining what they’re feeling and misidentify the signs of an anxiety attack, think what it must be like for a child. You have to watch your child carefully for signs of an anxiety attack, especially because the signs can masquerade as something innocuous like shyness or normal fears. Here’s how you can tell if your child is exhibiting signs of a panic attack.

Signs of an anxiety attack in children are the same as those for adults. Children may have a hard time breathing, their hearts may race, and they may sweat and feel dizzy. None of these are necessarily things you can see in your child, so, depending on the child’s age and ability to communicate, you may need to look for other signs of an anxiety attack. Additional clues include wide eyes, crying, immobility, inability to speak and sometimes urination or defecation.

If you think you have picked up on signs of an anxiety attack in your child, you should be vigilant to see if the attack was an isolated, and perhaps justified, incident or if it was a sign of a deeper anxiety disorder. Besides anxiety attacks, there are many signs that your child may have an anxiety disorder. Look to see if your child is constantly worrying about constant worries about friends, family, school, activities, or things that haven’t happened yet. Try to be aware of obsessive thoughts your child may be having or obsessive behaviour he or she may be engaged in.

Talk to your child, and listen to what he or she says for clues as to what’s going on. Remember, though, that children, tend to misidentify or miscommunicate the causes of problems. A child may show signs of an anxiety attack because of a legitimate encounter with a threat – it is natural for a small child to be afraid of a large, barking dog – and in that case, the panicked reaction is normal. However, the child also may tell you that he was scared of the dog even though in reality he is scared of dogs and cats and cars and streets and strangers and all sorts of things. You should watch for signs of an anxiety attack at other times to help determine if your child had a legitimate reaction or maybe has a phobia or an anxiety disorder.

Finally, remember that at certain developmental stages, anxiety is normal in a child. If you see signs of an anxiety attack in your preschooler, he may just have separation anxiety or be scared of the dark. These things are normal and usually pass as the child ages. As with adults, anxiety is a problem when it interferes with your child’s life. It can also interfere with normal childhood development, so if you see signs of an anxiety attack in your child, try to determine if you have a child who suffers from anxiety and get him or her to a doctor as soon as possible.