Imagine yourself in this situation. You have an urgent meeting with a client. This is a huge deal you can’t afford to miss, but this is the time your car won’t start. The doctor has diagnosed your mother with a terminal disease.
Your son is dating a girl you don’t like, and your nanny is unwell today. This situation leaves you stressed and worried. Our daily activities and situations pile up, and it’s a lot to handle. Don’t worry; you’re fine and not going crazy. These are important and natural emotions. Everyone goes through these moments. At times it’s difficult to keep up when our stress and anxiety levels rise above the norm.
Now imagine how a teenager with Adolescent triggers for adolescents resulting in confusion and uncertainty. These changes confuse them, and insecurities creep in, awakening constant anxieties in a teenager’s mind. While an adult might have channels to seek help, in teenagers it’s a whole different ball game. Most adolescents across the globe are diagnosed with anxiety and avoidant disorders. Most kids who had a poor coping mechanism tend to develop anxiety disorders when they’re adolescents. Instead of addressing issues that are of concern, they choose to avoid them. It is vital to address this avoidance early to help them cope with stressful and overwhelming situations before the anxiety grows.
Often when anxiety becomes chronic, most adolescents withdraw from the real world, making it hard for them to attend school, causing their academic performance to drop. It also affects their ability to interact with family members, friends and their participation in social activities becomes poor. If anxiety doesn’t develop into panic attacks and phobias, they create feelings of uneasiness.
What are the Possible Symptoms of Adolescent Anxiety and Avoidant Disorders?
If you suspect that your adolescent child is suffering from a certain anxiety disorder, you should seek medical help. You can consult with a psychiatrist. This will help your child to get the right diagnosis and early management of the disorder. You will find that with the help of a mental health doctor, it becomes easier for you as a parent to understand and walk the journey with your teenager.
Are you able to recognize if your child is suffering from an adolescent anxiety disorder? Can you tell what the early signs of anxiety problems are in pre-teens and teens? Below are few symptoms that will help find out if your adolescent has anxiety and avoidant disorder:
- Your child may be having constant nightmares
- Hyperactivity and fidgeting is a symptom you cannot afford to ignore
- Does your child seem sad?
- How is your kids’ performance in school? Are the grades declining even after extra efforts?
- How is your child’s social behavior? Frequent isolation, refusal to go to school, difficulties in participating in normal school activities are possible symptoms of adolescent anxiety
- Depression
- Restfulness and tearfulness is also another symptom that shouldn’t be ignored
- Excessive intake of alcohol or drugs (substance abuse) is a major sign of anxiety among the adolescents
- If your child gets irritated easily and causes tantrums, you should consider it a symptom of anxiety disorder.
- A new environment and situations scare him or her. Suddenly, he has excessive fear, which are possible signs of anxiety disorder
- Constantly worries about their grades, performance, and homework
- Frequent absences
It is advisable to have a close relationship with your kid. It will help you recognize the early signs of adolescent anxiety disorders. If left untreated, it can cause a lot of harm than good to a young person’s life. It becomes difficult for an adolescent suffering from anxiety and avoidant disorder to function normally in society today.
It would be best to start treating anxiety disorders at the early stages. This is important as it helps children or teens deal with their behavioral problems, substance abuse, dropping out of school, violence, and improve their academic performance. Also, if left untreated, anxiety disorders often lead to depression, and severe cases of depression may result in suicide.
It is not easy to raise an adolescent with anxiety disorder, but one should not lose hope since it is a treatable condition. You just need to get anxiety treatment from professionals. Besides, there is continuous development in improving and coming up with better treatment; hence we have to remain optimistic. It is important as a parent to understand your child’s anxiety and walk with them on their journey to recovery.
