Anxiety disorder is a common mental illness affecting millions of people including children and teens. Anxiety is a common human response when faced with real danger but people with anxiety disorder are ruled by fears even without the presence of real fearful situations. An anxiety attack is accompanied by symptoms like sweating, pounding heartbeat and feeling of unreality or going crazy. Anxiety problem or disorder comes in different forms namely GAD or generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, panic disorder, PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder and specific phobias. If your child is suffering from one of the above mentioned mental illnesses, it is important to educate yourself and know the facts about mental illnesses. Understanding your adolescent with anxiety disorder is important if you want to help your child.
GAD, OCD, PTSD and social anxiety are the types of anxiety problems found in adolescent people. Social anxiety is common in late childhood and early adolescence. With GAD, there are reports that 3% of adolescent population are suffering from GAD. OCD is not very common but there are some teens suffering from this problem. PTSD is suffered by young people with traumatic experiences in their childhood. Understanding the facts from the professionals is important. So if you think that your child is suffering from any type of anxiety disorders, it is important to consult a mental health doctor and get the right diagnosis. The help of professionals is necessary in understanding your adolescent with anxiety disorder.
Of course before you could help your child, you have to know how to recognize adolescent anxiety disorder. What are the early signs of anxiety problem in teens? An adolescent with anxiety disorder may display the following signs:
Failing grades or declining school performance despite strong efforts
Isolating behavior or refusal to go to school and refusal to participate in normal school activities
Worries excessively or overly anxious about their homework, performance and grades.
Excessive fear or avoidance of new situations
Frequent absences
Constant nightmares
Depression
Sadness
Hyperactivity or fidgeting
Irritability or frequent tantrums
Restlessness
Tearfulnessv
Substance abuse (drugs or alcohol)
It is important to recognize the early signs because this disorder can be destructive in the lives of young people if left untreated. An adolescent with anxiety disorder may find it hard to function normally in his or her daily life. Failure to treat anxiety problems in children and teens can result to dropping out of school or poor academic performance, behavior problems, violence and severe substance abuse. Anxiety disorder may also lead to depression and there are cases that depression leads to suicide.
An adolescent with anxiety disorder needs medical attention. Talk to your child's doctor and ask about the mental illness or behavior issues of your child. Of course it is important to find a mental health professional with expertise and experience in handling anxiety problems in children and teens. Learn from your doctor about the anxiety problem of your child and how to deal with it. Your mental health doctor can perform a complete assessment of the frequency and severity of the symptoms. Medications, psychotherapy or combination of both maybe recommended by your doctor and it is important for the parents to be supportive and understanding.
Raising an adolescent with anxiety disorder is really challenging but always keep in mind that it is a treatable condition and there are continuous developments on the available treatments so there are good reasons to be optimistic. Understanding anxiety problems is essential to help your child overcome his or her disorder. To know about anxiety and panic disorder alternative treatments visit Panic Disorder Freedom
