Anxiety in Childhood

Abstract

Anxiety experienced by children is real, frightening, and often debilitating. The behavior of anxious children can be mistakenly seen as disruptive, attention seeking, and manipulative. Anxiety during development is normal, however for some children anxiety can become so severe that they may be at risk of developing anxiety disorders. Early identification of children who are at risk of developing anxiety disorders is imperative so that they can be taught how to cope effectively with anxious thoughts and feelings that interfere with their daily functioning. In this chapter the nature of childhood anxiety is examined with a particular focus on the traditionally recognized trait anxiety, which refers to a predisposition to respond to threatening stimuli in a certain way; and a recently recognized construct, anxiety sensitivity which is essentially the fear of anxiety-related bodily sensations. Evidence in the research literature indicates that adults with a high level of both trait anxiety and anxiety sensitivity reported a significantly higher incidence of anxiety disorders. Based on these findings a recent study was conducted to determine whether the same may be the case for children. Results of the study are reported in this chapter. Furthermore, how children cope with anxiety is discussed and ways of encouraging children to adopt effective coping strategies to manage their anxiety are also outlined.