Doctors Reveal How To Tackle Anxiety In Children
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- School grades, bullies, peer pressure, and awkward growth spurts. Some parts of growing up can really by tough.
All of these parts of life can trigger anxiety in children.
Images on the news are as disturbing as they are increasingly familiar and inescapable. The content plastered on televisions, newspapers, and websites are scary enough for adults, but what about children?
"How did it make you feel inside?" CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez asked 8-year-old Autumn Bannon.
"Scared," she said.
Autumn is an anxious child, mostly in social situations. Her mother tries to keep her and her siblings away from terrifying world events.
"Usually I don't put the news on if the kids are around or if there was a catastrophe that was happening at the time. I would try to break it down to the best of my ability to explain it or make sense," Tamara Bannon said.
That's a pretty good strategy, according to renowned child psychiatric Dr. Harold Koplewicz. The president of the Child Mind Institute said childhood anxiety should not be ignored.
"Anxiety disorders prime the brain for depression later in life," he told CBS2.
Autumn had something called social anxiety disorder, that got to the point where she just wouldn't talk in any stressful situation.
"Going to birthday parties, going to church, that was difficult for her. Being in the classroom there, going to religious education class, any new event that would heighten her anxiety," Bannon said.
Most parents would say children like Autumn are just unusually shy, but Koplewicz said certain warning signs should lead you to seek professional help.
"If they're more solmen than usual, they're not their normal happy selves, not for two to three days, but for weeks," he said.
Lots of help from the Child Mind Institute and lots of practice talking to people has gotten Autum to a much better place.
"If you're scared to talk to someone, it might be scary at first, but then you will feel proud after you do it," she said.
While anxiety disorders in kids are very common, the good news is that they are among the most treatable of all mental issues in children.
