What Can I Give My Child for Anxiety

What Can I Give My Child for Anxiety? Here is a complete guide to handling your child’s anxiety. From the signs to treatments, you will find it all in this blog!

First things, first!

What is anxiety or childhood anxiety?

Anxiety disorders make your kid fear and worry extremely. As a result, it changes your child's behavior, thoughts, sleep, eating, or mood.

If you are reading this, then you are already sure your child is dealing with anxiety disorders. However, these are the general signs of anxiety.

● Difficulty in concentrating

● Irregular sleep or not sleeping at all.

● Having bad dreams 

● Loss in appetite 

● Emotional outbursts 

● Constant negative thoughts

● Always feeling tensed, worried or fear

● Being clingy and fidgety

Once you see signs of anxiety, the next step is to assess your child comprehensively.

What Can I Give My Child for Anxiety

1. Why should you assess? Aren’t the signs solid enough?

An assessment will help you find the apt treatment based on the signs and its consistency. There are screening tools and questionnaires available online that you use to assess the severity of anxiety. The comprehensive evaluation must include,

● A complete review of the ongoing signs and its duration

● Situations that trigger anxiety

● Review the child’s background

● Family history and mental status exam

● Status of his school performance

● Behavioral changes

The assessment can be of two types - qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative analysis will have categorical classifications (mild, moderate, and severe), and quantitative will be based on a rating (A scale from 0-10).

After the assessment, comes the actual handling or treatment of anxiety disorders. There are natural ways you can treat and help your child with coping up. However, through the assessment, if you find that your child is on the higher side of the scale of fall in the severe category, it is advised that you consult a psychiatrist or counselor.

2. Natural ways to treat anxiety at home

Yoga and breathing exercises: Yoga helps you stay calm and relaxed. Anxiety causes physical discomfort too, and yoga can help to relax the muscles. It will take some time for yoga to have an effect on your child. But there will undoubtedly be a difference over time as it lowers tension and makes the kid focus on himself/herself.

Talk to your child: Sometimes, kids may not share things that are disturbing them to their parents with the fear of being judged. Be a good friend who can help them, and to do so, your kid must trust you with the secrets. Knowing that will help you understand what is triggering anxiety. You and your kid together must come up with a solution. 

Cognitive-behavioral therapy: CBT is a psycho-therapeutic treatment that helps identify negative thoughts or destructive behavior and change it with positive reinforcement. Parents should note that the reaction is spontaneous, and to change something like that, it will take time. To sum it precisely, CBT identifies, challenges, and replaces anxiety that causes disturbances mentally and physically.

3. How does CBT work?

The base of CBT is identifying and accepting that there are negative influences, and you cannot change things that aren't under your control. What can be controlled is your thoughts and emotions. CBT is based on the fact that your behavior and thoughts affect how you feel.

There are various strategies that can be used by Los Angeles family therapy specialist, including journaling, behavioral experiment, role-playing, art therapy, guided discovery, cognitive restructuring, stress reduction, and more. These techniques will help in reducing anxiety by bringing in realistic views. CBT can be used specifically for a problem too, like addiction and phobias. 

4. How will I know if my child needs medication?

Even after a therapeutic intervention or CBT, if your child continues to show signs of anxiety, you may consider medication. However, any therapeutic intervention will take time to effect, but if you feel the anxiety is not manageable and is increasing, then consult a doctor for medications.

5. General mistakes to avoid by parents

Anxiety won't go away as kids grow. It has to be treated, or else the child will face harmful repercussions. In the name of treating, parents make the mistake of removing the factor that causes anxiety. When you do that, the child will think escaping is the coping mechanism for anxiety instead of facing or working on it. The goal is to handle anxiety and not eliminate it.

Another mistake that parents make is invalidating their fears. When you tell your kid that this is not something you worry or fear about, you make them feel more vulnerable. A child’s thought process will be he/she is fearing something that isn’t even worth fearing, which ultimately makes them feel weak. Acknowledge their fear and treat it. 

We hope this blog helps you on what can I give my child for anxiety. On a general note, communicate as much as possible with your child. Your child needs your complete support and trust to go through something as destructive as anxiety.

Author bio: I am Bettye Reinhard, a post-graduate in humanities and communications, and an inquisitive person who loves writing. My forte is digital marketing and everything that has to do with phones and screens. I’m working for https://tinytwig.in/.I am someone who believes that one person can make a change and that's precisely why I took up writing which is the best tool to communicate these days. I have a decade of experience in writing and marketing.