Realising that your child is suffering from anxiety and panic attacks can be stressful and worrying for all concerned. As parents it is sometimes difficult to understand what is troubling your child and exactly why they are suffering from such anxiety. Once you have established the noticeable presence of a problem you can then take the next step of dealing with the underlying factors and deciding whether it is time to get some professional help from a child psychologist.
If the root of the problem is easy to isolate and eliminate, you may find that your child can then put it behind them and they will soon be restored to their former happy and relaxed self. If, however, you have trouble in pinpointing the cause, or if you child is still suffering from the symptoms of stress and anxiety, you may feel worried that the problem is escalating. In this case you must evaluate the situation and decide at what point you need to get help from someone with experience in the matter.
There is no doubt that parents are definitely first in the line for helping to resolve the problem. Many children will be helped over this period just by identifying and eliminating the problem. Others, however, may still exhibit the signs of stress and anxiety and not be able to let go quite as easily. In these cases you may not be able to put everything right just with hugs and reassurance. It can be very difficult to know the best way to approach the subject with your child as they may not be at all willing to communicate their thoughts with you. Sometimes they may even see you as being part of the problem and back away completely. It may even be that you can make the matter worse if you approach it from the wrong direction and do not come over as being sympathetic. We are not all natural psychologists! You must never blame yourself it you feel unable to cope with your child’s anxiety and panic attacks.
If, after a couple of weeks of noticing that your child is showing signs of stress and is becoming anxious, your attempts to extract information regarding the problem have made no headway, it may be time to ask for the best way of dealing with the situation.christian therapist
A good start may be through their school. The staff at the school spend many hours with your children and sometimes strike up an excellent rapport and understanding. There may be one member of staff in particular whom your child finds more accessible and to whom they have opened up. This is not necessarily the person with whom they spend the most time and it may not be their principal teacher. It could even be one of the part time staff or perhaps one of the staff responsible for the children during their break and lunch times. Enquire at the school and they should be able to give you an insight into any behaviour which they think that they can help with. You must not blame the school and staff, in the same way that you should not blame yourself, if they have not noticed anything until you mention it! Some close communication between yourself and the school could go a long way to identifying the problem and helping your child.
So… after trying to help your child through the situation to the best of your abilities and trying to find a close ally at their school to give a hand you find that they are still locked into a circle of anxiety and stress, it is time to seek some help from an experienced specialist.
There are many specialists who can help with child anxiety, stress and panic attacks. You would be wise to contact your family doctor – either with your without your son or daughter – so that they are made aware of the situation and to enquire about any programs or contacts that they may know of. Most practices will have ties with child psychologists and should be able to point you in the right direction. One of the main problems in doing this is that you will have to involve your child in the equation as he or she will have to be evaluated by such a specialist and they will have to spend quite some time with them before they can help. They will have to take time to catch up to the point where you and your family are when it comes to the various phases of the problem and just what makes your child “tick”. In the long term, however, establishing a relationship such as this between child and specialist can be invaluable. If this is something that you think is the best plan then, like I say, start with your family doctor as it is far better to have them recommend someone than just picking someone out of the telephone directory with no referral. Costs vary for therapy sessions such as these and make sure that you are fully aware of any commitments that you are making before you start any course of treatment. They can be costly and it is difficult to know how long a series of treatments may need to last and just what the total will be by the time you are happy enough to end them.
Other alternatives include virtual therapy sessions where you child is in contact with a specialist via the internet. These are becoming more popular with adults but obviously you may be very wary of using such a service for your child. It is difficult to verify qualifications and authenticity of such on-line therapy services and although it can be a good idea for adults, I am not sure of their suitability for children.