Kids and Anxiety: What You Need to Know
Kids and Anxiety: What You Need to Know
By Bobbi Dempsey | March 12, 2020
Dr. Dana Dorfman, PhD, psychotherapist and co-host of the podcast “2 Moms on the Couch,” echoes the connection between inability to express their situation and an array of physical symptoms. “Because children do not have the vocabulary, life experience, and developmental capacities to identify and verbalize their feelings, they may be less likely to do so,” Dorfman says. “Thus, anxiety may manifest in behaviors that may be easily misinterpreted. Some examples include tantrums, difficulty sleeping, difficulty separating from parents, nightmares, regression from previously acquired skills like toilet training and sleeping through the night, rigidity (being inflexible or highly demanding), irritable mood, changes in eating behavior, and excessive clinginess. Children may also exhibit tension or anxiety by nail biting, lip biting, tics. Anxiety in children can also manifest physically: such as stomachaches, headaches, and sensory sensitivity (hypersensitivity to noise, light, and touch).”
