How to help your child with panic attacks

If your child suffers from anxiety and you don’t know what to do to help them, then you need to read this article. We all want our children to be happy, well adjusted, and healthy. As a parent one of the worst feelings that you can have is a feeling of helplessness when your child is suffering. Like most things in life, in order to ‘fix’ a problem you need to first understand the cause of the problem. Once you understand what is causing anxiety in your child, only then will you be able to help them to cope this ‘debilitating’ condition.

According to Beyond Blue, “In Australia, it’s estimated that 45 percent of people will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime.  In any one year, around 1 million Australian adults have depression, and over 2 million have anxiety”.
 
According to a recent national survey of the mental health and wellbeing of Australian children and adolescents, approximately 278,000 Australian children aged between 4 and 17, struggle with clinical symptoms of Anxiety (The Second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (Young Minds Matter).

What Are The Signs of Anxiety in a Child 

While both adults and children have similar symptoms of anxiety, children usually exhibit these symptoms in the form of overt behaviour.  Children do not always have the communication skills to verbalise their feelings and will instead express them in a behavioural way.  Anxiety related behaviour can often be misinterpreted by parents and teachers for conditions or problems other than anxiety, which can result in an untreated anxiety condition.  This can aggravate the symptoms of anxiety for the child.   To understand Anxiety, you need to be able to recognise the symptoms, and also that it is brought on by fear.  When we feel threatened our brain releases Adrenalin, the chemical we need to deal with the situation efficiently and effectively.  Everyone has this in built ‘survival’ coping mechanism.  Unfortunately, this ‘survival’ mechanism that puts us in a ‘flight or fight’ mode will occur even if the threat is a false alarm.  Children do not always have the analytical capacity to differentiate between a real threat and an unrealistic one and this may cause them to press ‘the alarm button’ when it’s not needed. Unfortunately, when Adrenalin is released in the system during a false alarm it will sit there until it eventually naturally leaves the body but in the meantime, it will cause the uncomfortable symptoms commonly associated with Anxiety.  While everyone will experience different symptoms during Anxiety, the typical symptoms experienced by both adults and children are listed below.   

Common Anxiety Symptoms Experienced by Children

While there is so much information available about Anxiety, there is very little information that is available on the cause and treatment for Anxiety.  Not every child will experience the same symptoms of anxiety or have the same behaviours to cope with Anxiety.  Below is a list of the most common symptoms of Anxiety experienced by children.  If your child suffers from Anxiety you might recognise some, if not all of these symptoms in your child

• Choking sensation.
• Difficulties breathing
• Racing heart
• Palpitations
• Shaky feeling (whole body or in certain areas)
• Numbness and tingling (usually hand, arms, legs)
• Feeling hot and flushed
• Tense
• Dizziness or light-headed
• Nervous
• Sweating (not due to heat)
• Abdominal discomfort
• Nausea

How Children Exhibit Anxiety Behaviourally

Unfortunately, the way a child deals with these symptoms can be misinterpreted instead for “defiant” behaviour or be misdiagnosed for another condition. During the ‘fight or flight’ stage of an anxiety attack when Adrenalin is released in the system, while adults might be able to control the urge to ‘run away’ from the Anxiety provoking situation, and control their emotions, a child cannot.  During an episode of Anxiety a child will have a difficult time containing the emotions brought on by their Anxiety. 

Below is a list of the most common behaviour that children can have when trying to cope with the symptoms of their anxiety.  Keep in mind that every case is different and if your child suffers from anxiety they may have some but not all of these behaviours.   

• Seek reassurance often
• Avoid situations that they feel scared or worried about.
• Depend on others to do things they do not feel confident enough to do themselves.
• Complain about physical pain (usually stomach, headaches)
• Avoid trying new things or new situations or people.
• Frequently exhibit fear.
• Become upset easily.
• Very sensitive.
• Worry excessively.
• Ask a lot of where, when, what, who questions.
• Clingy
• Ask for help and reassurance doing activities they can do themselves
• Won’t go to sleep without a parent or other adult.
• Needs to sleep with the light on. Scared of the dark.
• Cries easily over minor things.
• Worried about making mistakes and failing at something.
• Observe more than participate.
• Scared of certain things that most children of their age aren’t such as,
  Dogs, injections, home invasions, being alone, germs, illness, visiting hospitals or medical clinics, participating in tests.
• Nail or lip biting, hair pulling
  In extreme cases, vomiting.

How to Build Confidence in Your Child to Manage Their Symptoms.

The First Step in helping your child suffering anxiety is to help them to build their confidence in managing their symptoms by a) explaining to them that it is their fear that is causing the physical symptoms that they are feeling during anxiety, and not the situation, b) explaining the Adrenalin and Fight/Flight Theory, and c) teaching them the Controlled Breathing Technique. This should decrease the frequency and intensity of their symptoms, and help them to some extent calm down.

How to Coach Your Child to Control Anxiety Symptoms

Below is a step-by-step approach that you can follow to coach your child to control his/her symptoms of anxiety.  Coaching your child to control the severity and frequency of their symptoms is the first part in the process of addressing Anxiety. The second part in the process that is best introduced once the first part has been accomplished is to identify the trigger so that it can be eliminated. Fear is usually the trigger of anxiety so, once your child is able to tell you when they are starting to feel anxious, and they are able to keep their symptoms at a low level by controlling their breathing, this is the right time for you to explore what they are fearful of – the trigger. You might need to help them with this step  by asking them relevant and specific questions. For example, if they are suddenly anxious just before going to school then you might question them about who or what they are worried or frightened of. Be specific and ask them if it’s a particular student, the teacher, the school work etc

Helping Your Child Identify the Triggers

Identifying the trigger is the most challenging step in the whole process because a child will develop anxiety initially from a situation such as, bullying, and if they experience long-term anxiety, the fear of experiencing the symptoms of anxiety again, can in fact develop into a secondary fear even after the initial trigger has been resolved.  While the initial trigger may have been the bullying, the ‘school’ where they may have experienced the initial anxiety attack can continue to trigger their anxiety.  This can result in your child trying to avoid the school in an attempt to avoid experiencing another anxiety attack.  This is why it is important to help them build their confidence in managing their symptoms, and to encourage them to gradually face the situation that they are frightened of.  Forcing them to face their fear without first desensitising them to it will only heighten their anxiety and reinforce their fear and aggravate the problem.

Addressing Your Child’s Catastrophic Thinking Patterns

In some cases, the fear might be too deep rooted to identify on your own, and your child might benefit from seeking the professional help from a Psychologist to identify the trigger.  Some of the typical triggers that can be identified by a professional include; unhealthy thinking habits such as, catastrophic thinking patterns, and unhealthy coping mechanisms such as, perfectionism, a fear of making mistakes or disappointing people, and a poor self-confidence.  While these are the most common ones, there are other underlying triggers to anxiety that a professional should be able to help identify and address.

Step-by-Step Approach to Help Your Child

1. Explain the Adrenaline ‘flight/fight’ Concept and the Controlled Breathing Technique to your child.

(The script below might be an easy way of explaining the adrenaline concept and the breathing technique to a young child). 

“When you are frightened your body might feel a little different than usual”.

“You don’t need to be frightened of these feelings as it is just your body trying to help you to cope with what you are fearful of”.

“If you want to stop the feelings in your body, you can do this by breathing deep and slow like this, [demonstrate deep/slow breathing]”

“Just fill up your lungs with as much air as possible, and then slowly let your breath out and repeat this until you feel calmer”.

2. Make the Breathing Technique a part of their daily routine.

Once you have taught your child the Deep-Slow Breathing Technique, you want to encourage them to make it a part of their daily routine.  Select typical anxiety-provoking situations or times such as, going to school, doing homework, going to the shopping centre, doing school work, classroom, leaving the house et cetera.  Remind your child to do the deep-slow breathing technique regularly, and how it will help with the ‘unusual feelings’ associated with their Anxiety.

“Let’s do the Breathing Technique together” [For a more effective outcome, perform the Breathing technique for a good ten minutes or longer. The more anxious your child is the longer you may need to perform the breathing technique].

3. Once they are able to control the symptoms of their Anxiety you can explore the trigger.

Take a note of the time, situation, discussion or activity that they were doing at the time of their anxiety.  Ask them specific questions such as,

“Is there anything that has frightened you?”

“Are you worried about anything in particular?”

“What were you thinking at the time when you were anxious”

“Are you worried that something bad is going to happening?”

“What is it about where we are going that scares you?”

4. Addressing the trigger of their anxiety that is, their fear.

Most children would find differentiating between a realistic and unrealistic fear a very challenging thing to do on their own.  You can help your child to learn how to rationalise their fears by teaching them to logically look at the probability of that fear actually happening, and even if it was to happen, how it is likely to negatively impact on them.  This activity is not always easy to do and you might require the assistance of a professional. 

If you have an older child who is suffering from anxiety they might benefit from listening to my You Tube video on Anxiety below or from reading my post:

Click: 3 Effective Ways to Cope With Anxiety. 

Anxiety can be a debilitating condition that if left untreated can significantly interfere with your child’s personal growth, and mental wellbeing. Anxiety is a treatable condition when it is understood well.

Click for more information about my one-hour video program, Heal Your Anxiety,

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