People are aware their child struggles with anxiety and they are working on making changes to reduce the anxiety in the home. It is difficult to know as a parent the degree at which your child is struggling. Parents will ask at what point should my child be in therapy? It is a great question that I get asked often.

If you are seeing cause for concern in your child, it is a great idea to seek therapy. This could mean having your child in counseling by themselves, or as the parent(s) going to counseling to learn strategies to reduce the anxiety in the home. Often, when a child has anxiety there is a parent who also struggles with anxiety. Having the parents receive help for their anxiety in turn can help the children find relief as well.

The following are things to look out for when considering if you need extra help for your child to manage their anxiety. Pay attention to how often and when your child displays these symptoms of anxiety. Children struggling with anxiety may exhibit one or more of these symptoms. The most important one being that it is having an effect on their daily life and functioning.

Signs your child may need counseling for anxiety:

1.       Anxiety is affecting daily functioning

When anxiety starts to interfere with daily life or enjoyable parts of life for your child, this is your biggest sign to get counseling. Most people have anxiety and can continue living their lives. Anxiety that has continued to grow will begin to seep into the regular parts of life. This leads to school being a struggle, they may want to drop out of activities, they won’t want to do things that used to be fun. Withdrawing from activities they no longer enjoy is different than withdrawing from activities that cause anxiety. Stopping the activity may help for the immediate relief of anxiety, however, undealt with anxiety will continue to grow. Working through the anxiety, will help your child to process it, develop strategies to manage it, begin to resume functioning in their daily life and ultimately begin to seek out the things they enjoy.  

2.       Frequent headaches or stomachaches

If your child is suffering from frequent headaches or stomachaches, that have no other medical explanation, it is most likely anxiety. When you get headaches and stomachaches, it is your body telling you that something is wrong. Often, children don’t know what anxiety is or how to process it and it shows up as their head/stomach hurting. Anxiety that has been avoided or left unprocessed will continue to build. The headaches and stomachaches are your body telling you that something must be done with your emotions. Pay attention to when this happens for your child, if it is at a certain time of a day, around a certain group of people, during a certain event.

3.       Frequent crying

When a child is unable to process their anxiety, it can lead to frequent crying or meltdowns. The anxiety that has been built up can stress the child out so much that it leads to crying. With anxiety, children feel a sense of constant danger or threats, endless nervousness or worry. Having these thoughts consistently in your mind can be exhausting. Crying can sometimes be a release of those built-up emotions.  Frequent crying that is more than what is developmentally normal for your child’s age could be from anxiety that is overwhelming to your child.

4.       Trouble sleeping

This will often look like restless sleep. Your child will toss and turn all night. In the mornings, your child is likely to be cranky. Typically, children can push down the anxious thoughts throughout the day with everything they have going on. At nighttime, everything is still, and all the anxieties come up and take over. When your child is having trouble sleeping, it will begin affecting their daily functioning. Sleep is incredibly important for your health, and when anxiety begins to disrupt sleep, it can create problems for all aspects of health.

5.       Need for constant reassurance

This looks like your child constantly asking for reassurance. Some children’s love language is “affirmations” and they will want this reassurance a lot. Some parents don’t give their child “good job,” “way to go,” or “I love you” that often (or it takes the child reminding them to do it). This is not what I am talking about. This is the child’s constant need to be reassured with what they are doing, how they are doing it, etc. They might ask multiple times for reassurance over the same thing. Even when you give them the affirmation they are asking for, they will likely continue to second guess themselves.

A note on this: giving children affirmations and reassurance is a good thing. If your child is continually looking for reassurance, it is because they need it. When your child asks for the same reassurance multiple times in a row, try to identify the need that your child is asking to be met. Are they needing safety, security, nurture, guidance, structure? When you can identify the need, it gives you guidelines for how to respond. Constant reassurance can also be met with, “(child) let’s take some time and sit together and do some deep breaths.” Modeling the coping skill such as deep breathing and doing this with your child can help your child regulate and calm the anxiety.

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For children up to age 14, I highly recommend they seek a therapist who has play therapy training. Someone with this training will have interventions to help your child develop coping skills, process their anxiety, and develop strategies to find anxiety relief. Older teens and adults can process through talking. With play therapy interventions, children are able to process their anxiety in the way they know best, by playing!  

It can be scary to seek out counseling for your child and it can be scary to see your child struggling. When you make the choice to get therapy for your child, you are showing your love for your child by getting them the help they need. It is not a failure to need outside help, rather it is a sign of strength that you are giving your child the resources they need to thrive.