Treating Childhood Anxiety Prevents Adult Disorders

[Guest guest]

I don't expect the violent cartoons on the TV helps the subconscious fears

in toddlers. N

 

Treating Childhood Anxiety Prevents Adult Disorders

 

http://story.news./news?tmpl=story & ncid=751 & e=1 & u=/nm/20041224/hl_nm/ch\

ildhood_anxiety_dc

Fri Dec 24, 9:52 AM ET Health - Reuters

 

 

By Charnicia E. Huggins

 

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Panic disorders, phobias and other childhood

anxiety conditions should be treated during childhood so that they won't be

carried over into adulthood, according to advice in the latest Harvard

Mental Health Letter.

 

 

 

Various studies show that anxiety disorders are among the most common

psychiatric conditions present during childhood. In many instances, adults

with anxiety disorders experienced their first symptoms during their early

childhood years.

 

 

Yet many parents may not be aware that their child is experiencing such

symptoms. Since children's minds and emotions change over time, it may be

difficult to distinguish between normal, age-appropriate fears -- such as a

2-year-old's fear of strangers, or a preschooler's fear of the dark -- and

real anxiety disorders, according to the Harvard experts.

 

 

Real anxiety disorders in children are similar to those experienced by

adults. What's more, like adults, a child with an anxiety disorder such as

social phobia is likely to have other anxiety disorders as well.

 

 

Children with social phobia, or social anxiety disorder, are extremely shy

and fear unfamiliar people or surroundings. They may, for example, be afraid

to initiate a conversation or to attend a birthday party.

 

 

Children with generalized anxiety disorder, previously referred to as

overanxious disorder of childhood, experience the same uncontrolled worry

that adults afflicted with the disorder experience.

 

 

Other anxiety disorders experienced by children include obsessive-compulsive

disorder, panic disorder, separation anxiety, simple phobias -- such as fear

of water, fear of choking, or fear of insects, and post-traumatic stress

disorder, which is often the result of severe child abuse.

 

 

The cause of such disorders can be both genetic and environmental. Studies

suggest that some anxiety disorders may be hereditary. Some children can

show signs of extreme shyness, for example, as early as 4 months; their

heart rate increases and they cry and " shrink back " around strangers,

according to the health letter.

 

 

Yet, children usually grow out of such fears or can be treated for them

through a variety of means, including play therapy or cognitive behavioral

treatment, the best-known treatment for anxiety disorders in children and

adolescents.

 

 

Parents need not fear that their child will always be extremely shy, or that

those recurrent nightmares from some horrifying event they experienced --

one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder -- will indefinitely plague

their child throughout their adulthood.

 

 

Shy children do not always become anxious adults and post-traumatic stress

disorder symptoms may fade as children grow older, according to the Harvard

mental health experts. " This is one field in which optimism is a plausible

attitude for mental health professionals, " they write.

 

 

Commenting on the mental health letter, psychologist Dr. Joseph Pirone, an

expert in reality-based anxiety, such as post-traumatic stress disorder,

said that " non-reality based experiences like shyness and social phobia can

be, in some instances, undone just by creating a supportive teaching

environment or social environment. "

 

 

In the case of post-traumatic stress disorder, however, studies suggest that

" unless the individual processes it, symptoms will not go away " as children

transition to adulthood, said Pirone, of the State University of New York's

Rockland Community College campus.

 

 

" PTSD is the anxiety disorder of our time ... unfortunately produced by

man-made circumstances, " he said.

 

 

Pirone added that in order to reduce such symptoms among children, like

those traumatized by the attacks on the US on September 11, " we need to

create a world with less and less hatred, and thereby less and less revenge

and a safer environment for children to grow. "

 

 

SOURCE: Harvard Mental Health Letter, December 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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