How To Identify Stress or Anxiety In Children

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In our last blog, we learned that children experience stress quite differently from adults. Both positive and negative situations can be sources of stress. So, how can one tell if their child is stressed? What are the clues that point to stress in a child? Well, the National Library of Medicine has identified physical, emotional and behavioural markers that can be used to identify stress in a child. Let us take a look at them briefly, ? below:

Physical Symptoms
When a child is feeling stressed or going through a stressful situation, they display a variety of irregular behaviour. For example, one child may experience sleep disturbances in the form of bedwetting, or nightmares. Another child may experience aches and pains in their body such as, headaches and stomach aches, with no additional symptoms that point to sickness or illness.  Their eating habits could also be effected with one child experiencing an increase in appetite, while another chid could experience a decrease in appetite. 

Emotional Symptoms
Emotions are a normal part of human expression, however when they are combined with stress, they are expressed rather differently. A stressed child may display crying, fear, and anger. The fear may be recurrent, new or even irrational. When crying, the child may cry excessively, or seem to be overdramatizing as they cry. As well, when angry, it may be excessive, sometimes leading to physical outbursts.

Behavioural Symptoms
When a child is stressed, they may display changed behaviour such as aggression or stubbornness. Another major behavioural change is withdrawal, which can be in the form of withdrawal from friends and family or, withdrawal from activities that they previously enjoyed. If a child is anxious about being separated from a parent for a period of time, they may cling to their parent or guardian, and this behaviour also points to stress. 

Conclusion

While stress is a part of life, managing stress is a crucial part of emotional, mental and physical health. As such it is important that parents develop ways of assisting their young children to cope with stress. Parents must also learn to manage their own stress in order to be of help to their children. Our next article in this series will be dealing with how children can be assisted to manage stress.