Everyone, from the youngest child to the oldest adult, experiences anxieties
and fears at one time or another. Feeling anxious in a particularly
uncomfortable situation never feels very good. However, with children, such
feelings are not only normal, they are also necessary. Experiencing and dealing
with anxieties can prepare young people to handle the unsettling experiences and
challenging situations of life. Read on to understand the differences between
anxieties, fears, and phobias, and how you can help your child deal with
them.
Anxieties and Fears Are Normal
Anxiety
is defined as "apprehension without apparent cause." It usually occurs when
there is no immediate threat to a person's safety or well being, but the threat
feels real. Anxiety makes a person want to escape the situation - fast. His
heart beats quickly, he may begin to perspire, and "butterflies" in the stomach
soon follow. "However," says Katharina Manassis, MD, author of Keys to
Parenting Your Anxious Child, "as uncomfortable as it feels, a little bit
of anxiety can actually make people perform better because it keeps them alert
and focused on what they have to do." Having fears or anxieties about certain
things can be helpful too because it makes kids behave in a safe way. For
example, a kid with a fear of fire would avoid playing with matches.
The nature of anxieties and fears change as children grow and develop:
- Babies experience stranger anxiety, clinging to parents when confronted by
people they don't recognize.
- Toddlers around 10 to 18 months experience separation anxiety,
becoming emotionally distressed when one or both parents leave.
- Children ages 2 through 6 have anxiety about things that are not based in
reality such as fears of monsters and ghosts.
- Kids ages 7 through 12 often have fears that reflect real circumstances
that may happen to them, such as bodily injury and natural disaster.
As a child grows, one fear may disappear or replace another; a child who
couldn't sleep with the light off at age 5 may enjoy a ghost story at a slumber
party years later. And some fears may extend only to one particular kind of
stimulus, as in the example of the child who wants to pet a lion at the zoo but
wouldn't dream of going near the neighbor's dog.