Child Anxiety Disorders

Child anxiety disorders are common. Here is a list of common child anxiety disorders. These anxiety disorders can also be found in adults but are more likely to be found in children and adolescents.

Children and adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder tend to be overly concerned with the quality of their performance in school or sporting events, even when they are not being evaluated. They also worry about punctuality, may be obsessed with concerns about disasters, tend to redo tasks if not perfect, and look to others for approval and constant reassurance.

Separation anxiety disorder is not categorized as a child anxiety disorder but it is listed under the heading "disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence." This child anxiety disorder is diagnosed when a child exhibits uncharacteristic anxiety about separation from home or the person to whom he is most attached. In order to be diagnosed, the problem must span at least four weeks and cause significant distress or disruption in functioning.

Phobias diagnosed in children include specific phobias, or fears of certain objects or places, or social phobia, fear of social situations. Specific phobias are so common in children that they are not diagnosed unless they noticeably interfere with the child's functioning.

Social phobia is tricky to diagnose in children because they often do not have much control over their exposure to social situations. Given that children frequently have anxiety about interactions with adults, a diagnosis of social phobia requires that the phobic response occur in peer settings. Children may express this phobia through clinging, crying and tantrums, freezing or not speaking.

Children with obsessive-compulsive disorder exhibit features similar to adults with this disorder although compulsive behaviors in children can be confused with symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Some experts believe that OCD is more common among children than asthma. OCD in children may be exhibited though a child's preoccupation with lucky or unlucky numbers, having parents check to make sure things are clean, needing things to be arranged in a certain order, hoarding, or constantly asking for reassurance.

Posttraumatic stress disorder in a child may become evident through reports of nightmares and repeating of the trauma through play. While not common in childhood, panic disorder is often first diagnosed in late adolescence.

Child anxiety disorders are likely to disappear as the child matures so it's totally unnecessary to over react and put the child on medications that may have a negative impact on the child's natural development and maturation. Child anxiety disorders are common and should not be considered a serious problem unless they noticeably and adversely affect the child's ability to function as a normal child would.