Anxiety is becoming more and more of a common topic of conversation in our society. Especially now compared to years past it is important for us to understand what anxiety is. However, anxiety does not just effect us but our children as well. Anxiety can be hard for children to understand and deal with. Madison gives us helpful information so we as parents can know the signs and help our children.
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Jen: Hello and welcome to The Parent’s Place, a podcast put out by The Family Place for parents to develop skills that will strengthen families and provide tools that will help each of us in our parenting efforts. No matter our skills, we can always use reminders that help us work towards a safer, happier home. I'm your host, Jennifer Daly, the education director at The Family Place and my co-host is Sara Hendricks, a family educator at The Family Place. Every week, we will interview professionals that will provide valuable information that will make a difference when you apply it directly to your life. Thank you for joining us. Now, let's get started with today's episode.
Sara: Hi and welcome to the Parents Place podcast, I'm your host, Sara Hendricks,
Jen: and I'm your co-host Jen Daly.
Sara: Today, we're going to be talking about children and anxiety, and we have a special guest with us who knows a lot about this topic. Her name is Madison Elliott, and I'm super excited to learn more from you. Madison, would you like to give us an introduction of yourself?
Madison: Sure. Hi, my name is Madison Elliot. I'm a certified social worker. I have a master's degree in social work that I earned from Utah State University in twenty-twenty, and I also received my bachelor's of social work from Utah State University in 2019. I am a third generation social worker. My mom is a social worker and my grandma is also a social worker. So it's definitely something that I've grown up being around and something that I've loved from a young age. Some of my specialties in therapy include EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy, and I'm also informed in different modalities such as dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy. And I am a therapist of The Family Place. I've been working here as a therapist since May 2020. I started here as an intern in August 2019, and I absolutely love working here. It is such a joy to be a part of The Family Place staff and learn from all of my coworkers daily.
Jen: We are so excited to have you here today with us, Madison, and we're excited to be talking about the topic of anxiety and how this is affecting kids. I think, as I've said on many other episodes this past year, has probably created anxiety for a lot of adults, but not just adults, but also kids. So how can we know if our child has anxiety?
Madison: Yeah, I think that's a really great question and a question that a lot of parents might have. First, I want to start off by saying that each child exhibits anxious behaviors differently. So one child might express a lot of what if thoughts or catastrophic thoughts and one child might have trouble sleeping or concentrating, and some children may become irritable or might seem restless. Some children may also exhibit more physiological symptoms, like racing heart, higher blood pressure. They might have the urge to get up and run around. They might walk around a lot. They might pace. They might just have a lot of energy. And another thing to pay attention to is their affect might also change. So they may go from being a very bright, affected child to being a child whose affects a little more flat. So they're, they may have more of a frown on their face, or they may appear to be staring off into space a little bit more, really deep in thought. And another thing to remember, too, is children experience different types of anxiety as well, so they may experience generalized anxiety, social anxiety or separation anxiety. And all of these aforementioned anxiety disorders can also be resultant of past traumatic experiences as well, or they can manifest without traumatic experiences.
Jen: I think back to when- oh, I can't remember. It was right before my husband and I were dating and his daughter would all of the sudden it was when there is a bunch of stuff with ICIS and all of this stuff with war over in the Middle East. And she would just wake up crying. And she was she started spreading rumors that ISIS was going to come and bomb their school and start having lots of anxiety around that. And then it just progressed onto there. So I mean, anything can create this anxiety. So I think it's so important to watch what our kids are watching and what we're watching in front of them, especially when it comes to the news. Because there's a lot of hard things that are reported in the news.
Madison: Oh, definitely. And children are exposed to those hard things in the news on social media. And like you said, they can see their parents watching these things and they might even see them in the newspaper as well, too. So they are exposed to a lot of adult things. And so they take on a lot more adult stressors and a lot more adult worries. So one thing that I wanted to add to what I was saying earlier is as a therapist that works with children, I often encourage parents to ask their child if their child has any big feelings that they want to discuss or anything that's worrying them at this time. Because I think oftentimes we might assume that our young ones don't experience worries or anxiety because they're unaware of what the word means. So, for example, we might ask them, “Oh, are you experiencing some anxiety?” Well, maybe a three or four year old might not know what the word anxiety means. So of course they're going to say no, because that's an advance word for them. But if we're able to ask them in an age appropriate way, “what is your stomach feel like when you have certain thoughts? What is your stomach feel like when you have certain feelings?” Or maybe even talking about worries, talking about worries as being pictures in your head that might make you feel uncomfortable or fears about something that might happen tomorrow or the next week, and asking them how those fears might affect their feelings or any body sensations. And that can help us know if our children, our little ones are experiencing anxiety.
Sara: I think that's so good with our little ones, but even into like elementary school age, that's where I'm at with parenting, and I can see that being really effective because they still don't know how to answer. Yeah. Do you experience anxiety like they would have no idea how to answer that? Yeah. And so that's really great. I also in past episodes, Jen has mentioned doing a notebook back and forth between parent and child. Yeah, that would be a great opportunity to have your kids talk about some of those things that might worry them posing those questions to have that conversation. Because sometimes it is hard to say it out loud, but writing it down can make it easier.
Madison: Absolutely. And it might be scary for kids to see those things out loud too. So having somewhat of an anonymous per se place to write those things down where they don't have to come forward essentially and say, “this is what I'm worried about,” but giving them kind of a safer avenue to do so they might be more willing to do that rather than saying, I'm worried about the world ending or I'm worried about my friends at school not talking to me or I'm worried about having a test or my teacher getting mad at me. And one more piece of advice that I'd like to give is children's worries. They may seem silly to us, but to the child they are a big deal. So as parents, I think it's really important to validate their worries, even if they are worried about a monster under the bed or if they're worried about someone at school being mad at them. Those seem like really menial things to us, but to them it's a huge deal. So dismissing that or saying, Oh honey, that's not a big deal, it may make it harder for them to feel comfortable coming forward in the future when something extremely major is happening, or even when something small is happening.
Jen: I remember being at a school that I worked at, and I saw this teacher talking to these two fifth graders that were just so upset at the fact that they were going to be going to different middle schools. And then a couple weeks later, they were fighting and the same teacher was talking with them and said, “Don't you remember we're going to different middle school? So what does it really matter? You're not going to see each other anyways.” And that's just like, No, this is a huge deal. These are really good friends. Their developmental level, they're thinking, I'm not going to have another friend as good as you. And so, it's just, yeah, validating their feelings and not making them feel like this is a silly thing is super important because if you make it a silly thing, then the door is closing.
Madison: Yeah. And that really hurts your rapport with your children. And it can really impact your trust with them as well, too.
Sara: Well, and as a parent, I always try to remind myself, like this child has eight years of life experience. You know? And so what seems really unimportant to me, it is a big deal to them because that's their world. They don't know much beyond that yet. And so we do need to take their concerns seriously and validate them in their feelings.
Jen: I was just going to say, I think we need to coin that the ‘chihuahua effect.’
Sara: What is that?
Jen: Because I've shared before, I believe on the podcast about having my chihuahua for the first time in the rain. And when she came to a puddle, all four feet just went down and like, I'm not going into that puddle. But she had never experienced a puddle before, so I'm going to call it the chihuahua effect.
Madison: Maybe she needed someone with her to show her that that puddle was safe. And that’s what you did.
Jen: And I was there. I did. But yes, the chihuahua effect.
Sara: Well, when you think about her point of view with that puddle, the reflection of it is the sky. And so that would be super confusing.
Madison: Yeah, especially when you're tiny.
Jen: The same thing with kids. They only have so many years of experience and they don't know
Madison: And where they're at developmentally or cognitively. These things are huge. I mean, they don't. Their prefrontal cortex is are not developed enough for them to understand impulse control or the fact that this probably won't be the biggest deal five years from now. But they can't think that far ahead.
Jen: Problem solving skills, making good choices. All these things that's just not developed yet. It doesn't actually develop until later in late teen early adulthood.
Madison: You know, I'll be twenty-eight tomorrow, and I will say mine is probably not. Not even fully developed I think it's still got a little bit of growth to go, but that's OK. We're always developing, we're always growing and those connections in our brain never stop. They keep coming.
Sara: So, you touched on this a little bit, possibly when we talked about how us, as parents can know if a child has anxiety. Yeah. And so, I don't know if it will be similar answers, but how do kids express society?
Madison: You know, it's kind of similar to what I said earlier. I would say that different symptoms can manifest in different ways and different children. And that sounds like a really generic answer, but it's very true. So I want to first start off with a little bit of evidence base. So as therapists to diagnose any type of mental illness, we use what's called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or also known as the DSM five and the DSM five, states that the criterion of generalized anxiety include feeling irritable, having trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, or mind's going blank, feeling restless, keyed up or on edge, and an individual finding it difficult to control the worry and worry that persists on more days than not. And doing a little bit more research, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention state that children may also notice fatigue, headaches, stomach aches or GI issues as a result of anxiety, too. And there's also different types of anxiety disorders as well. So there's generalized anxiety, which their worry applies to many different situations. It's not just isolated to parental separation or social settings. So naturally, next I would talk about social anxiety or separation anxiety, and there's also anxiety that can come as a result of trauma. Now, like I said, each child is going to express anxiety differently, but I think parents are great sources of information because they're so attuned to their children and they're able to recognize when something goes wrong. So parents know if their child is acting differently. So I would say, observe your kids and parents if you're worried about your children experiencing anxiety. I would say just observe their behaviors. And if you're noticing that maybe they're more tired than normal or they're a little more reserved to talk about things that are happening, or they're asking you a lot of questions that sound really catastrophic. Check in with them and just ask them, talk to them. Like I said earlier about those big feelings or anything that might be scaring them and get on their level down to eye contact. Validate them and let them know that it's going to be OK and that you're going to be there for them. And oh, another thing I wanted to add to the first part is some children may also experience physiological responses to anxiety, where they become really shaky, sweaty or their hearts race. And sometimes children may also become really withdrawn, quiet. They may isolate themselves, or they may become very tired or restless. They may be moving around a lot more than normal.
Jen: I really like that, you said, to get down on their level because that's one thing with kids is we can increase that level of intimidation, scariness if we don't get on their level. And because we're much bigger than that. I always try to compare it with parents. You know, if a basketball player came up to you and started talking down at you, how would you feel? I mean, it's intimidating. And so, I love that you say get down on their level. It takes away that intimidation and scary factor out of it. Mm-Hmm.
Madison: Mm-Hmm. Absolutely. And that eye contact and attunement is so amazing for them as well, too, just for a parent to look at them and mirror them. There's that effect of mirror neurons that can be calming for children, as well as for adults, too. Being able to have that moment with your child to talk to them about anxiety, maybe even saying something like, “Hey bud, I've noticed that you've been a little more active this week. Can we talk about that?” or “I've noticed that maybe you've been in your room? Or is there anything that you want to tell me about that? Is there something on your mind? Is there a reason why you've wanted to be alone?” and even telling them “It's OK to want to be alone? I just want to know how I can support you if something is wrong.”
Jen: You talked a little bit about how anxiety can be caused by trauma. Are there other causes for anxiety?
Madison: Some research suggests that certain individuals might possess a genetic vulnerability to anxiety and that these genes can be expressed in certain environments. Some children may also develop anxiety as a result of trauma. Like I mentioned, so I kind of want to go a little deeper into that if that's OK. When a child experiences trauma, obviously it's something that was out of their control. It's something that they didn't consent to. It's something that they didn't want to happen. So, for children, when they don't know what's coming next or when they're not familiar with new situations or new people, their brains may interpret that as a threat or some sort of harm. And as a result of trauma, children can become stuck in a state of fight versus flight, where they're constantly ready to run away from something potentially threatening. So, I also, this is just my own personal opinion, this isn't necessarily based in scientific fact, but I believe, too, that a lot of stimuli in our environments at school with our peers might also cause anxiety, too. If we think about social media and we think about games, Nintendo Switch, online, Apple Play games or Google Play Games. Those can become really addicting and we can become anxious when we're not able to get online and check our Sims, or we're not able to get online and check our Animal Crossing or play Minecraft with our friends.
Sara: I understand what you're saying because I worked with a group of youth and we had an activity where they couldn't bring their phones with them, and it was an overnight activity and some of them just freaked out. They couldn't have their phones because it was such a security blanket for them. And then there were things like having a streak that they didn't want to lose by not being able to have their phones with them. And so, I can see how that would add to anxiety.
Madison: Absolutely. And I think I talk a lot in therapy with my clients about psychological safety crutches, and I do believe that our phones can be a safety crutch because it's that outlet that we have where we can disassociate from what's going on in our current world. We don't have to think about our problems or we don't have to think about things that stress us out. And so the thought of not having that security blanket, like you said, Sara. It can be really scary. And I think all three of us can even admit that maybe our phones are a security blanket for us, sometimes to you. Yeah, it's a really easy way to kill time and it becomes habitual. I can't think of a night this week that I haven't gone to bed looking at social media or videos, something like that.
Jen: Every night my husband tells me “Goodnight, I love you.” And I'm like, “OK, I'm going to color for a little bit” because I have a coloring app on my phone and all. And sometimes it ends up being 11:30 12 o'clock at night and I'm still coloring. So, yeah, definitely you get lost in that world. Yeah. I was also thinking about just home life and how that can create anxiety. I mean, if there's a lot of tension between mom and dad or partners or whomever it may be, that can also be a source of anxiety for kids.
Madison: Yeah, yeah. And I think also too, kids are a lot more observant sometimes than we give them credit for. And they know when we're worried about finances or when we're worried about our safety, they're able to pick up on those things and they take those things in and they think about them and they think about their safety as well with their family and children don't like to see their caregivers hurting. It can be really scary for them. I'm really glad that you bring that up, Jen, I think that's very, very relevant.
Sara: Well, and I think that you make an important point that all those adult problems, children don't understand, they don't have the mental capacity to process that and understand what it means. And when we're projecting those problems onto them, it could be causing anxiety. I used to teach a parenting class in the jail, and I remember one of the dads that was in my class had made a comment that he is just real with his kids. He’s open. He talks to them the same way he talks to adults. And when we understand child development, we know that that isn't the best approach. We are talking with our kids because being open and real and honest with them doesn't mean that we bring them into every adult problem that we have. Yes, because they can't process and understand that, and so just causes anxiety for them. And so we have to remember that where their brains are at and what is appropriate to share with them. It doesn't mean we're lying. We're just we're not telling them everything. Yeah.
Madison: Well, they start to internalize it where they're the problem. You know, I'm causing financial problems or I'm causing the fights between, you know, my parents or whatever the case may be, it's they're now putting on themselves saying that they're the main problem, the cause of the issue.
Sara: So, can you speak to us about if anxiety is more prevalent now than it used to be? I don't know if there's like statistics that you can share with us.
Madison: Yeah. So, I think this is my answer to this is kind of a twofold answer. So one thing that I want to point out is in the past couple of decades, there's been a real surge of people coming forward talking about mental health, which is fantastic. And I think that we should continue to do that. Obviously, as a therapist, I'm a total proponent of that. Please talk about your emotions. Talk about. How you feel? Fantastic. And I think now that people are more comfortable discussing their mental health, a lot of rates of anxiety have gone up in the past 20 or maybe even 40 years because it's not as stigmatized as it was back in the day. We used to have a belief that we would just, you know, put on our big kid pants and deal with it, right? We're not going to talk about our worries. We're not going to think about things that make us upset. We're just going to go on.
Jen: Suck it up, buttercup.
Madison : Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's the thing. And I remember as a kid being told, you know, not by my parents, but I just remember that being a common phrase. Suck it up, buttercup. Get over it. You're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. That's not a big deal. Don't worry about things that haven't happened yet. All of those things. And now our culture stance is a little bit different on anxiety. We recognize that anxiety is a real thing and that it can be very daunting and very overwhelming. And sometimes certain situations can exceed our internal capacities to cope. And we do need to learn coping skills. We do need to talk about things. We keep those things bottled in. It's like a soda bottle. It's going to explode under pressure. And I also think, along with that, our world is also different today. I believe that the rise of social media has created a lot of feelings of inadequacy and might lead to other triggers for young children, teenagers and young adults. Getting on social media. There's a lot of comparisons. There's a lot of negative thoughts that we might have about ourselves, and that can also create anxiety. It can create some identity confusion. And also, I think too, going along with the topic of social media and the internet. Sometimes children are exposed to many developmentally inappropriate things online, too. That can cause a lot of anxiety and can also cause them to feel really uncomfortable. Another thing I wanted to add about I was feeling more comfortable talking about our mental health is that we don't have this mentality anymore, that we must suffer in silence and we talk about what we experience. People feel more comfortable going to therapy. They feel more comfortable saying, “I'm going to meet with my therapist” rather than “maybe you should go see somebody.” People used to always say that now it's like it's more socially acceptable to see a therapist now, which is so great, and I would recommend it to anybody. And even if you're wanting to go into the mental health field or the therapy field, I would recommend doing your own personal work before you get started too. And recognizing your triggers and things that make you anxious. And if you are a parent and a therapist, have your own therapist and anxiety now is more well discussed and more researched, and people have more access and knowledge to know what the symptoms are. Throwing out some statistics. I was doing some research to see how anxiety has grown in the past 20 years, and I found a statistic from the National Institute of Mental Health that states that from the years of 2001 to 2004, the overall percentage of persons with anxiety was thirty one point nine percent. So to compare this, I looked at a couple of different studies and I found a study by Michael Daly and Eric Robinson that examined percentage changes in anxiety for adults from late 2019 to mid-2020 so around the peak of the coronavirus. And it stated that anxiety rates for persons in the U.S. grew 8.1 percent. I had a really hard time finding statistics on children, but thinking about how that has increased so much for adults. I can't imagine what the increase has been like for kids,
Sara: For sure.
Jen: Especially in those times where we couldn't go out. We had to stay home. They couldn't stay with their friends, definitely. And then having to go to school and wearing the masks to wear that then decreases their ability to look at faces and read the expression from teachers or other kids. I understand the importance of keeping everyone safe. We don't want to be passing the coronavirus, but I also my heart goes out to all of these kids. And yeah, I mean, us as adults, too, how much do we depend on someone's face and that expression and how anxiety can be just increased with not having that ability to see?
Madison: Yeah, it's nice to be able to look at people and read their body language and their nonverbal cues, and-
Jen: It's almost like a text, we're always talking on a text. Yes, you never know the intention because you can't see their facial expressions.
Madison: Yeah, it kind of. It takes away the connection. And I think too, when we're talking about social anxiety in regard to COVID 19, I would imagine that social anxiety may have increased for some folks as well, too, because we got so accustomed to being at home with our primary circles, with maybe with parents, with kids, with roommates, we got so accustomed to being in our own environment and as humans, we're creatures of habit, and so having to go out and relearn how to behave in certain settings or how to interact with people, it can be really it can provoke a lot of anxiety for people.
Sara: I would imagine a lot of people are experiencing agoraphobia, just not knowing how to be around other people.
Madison: Sure.
Sara: You know, worried about germs as if they're safe.
Madison: Yeah. And I can't really speak to those statistics and I'm not. I'm not quite sure about that at this time, but I can definitely see how the coronavirus would have had a great impact on agoraphobia in persons already presenting with this condition, as well as with contamination type OCD.
Jen: Yeah, I remember my first conference or training I went to when we were able to go back in person. And there's all these people and I'm like, I really think I've forgotten how to interact with other people. And it was really, as we're standing in the lunch line, I'm like getting really nervous because there's people in front of me, people behind me, and I'm like, Should I talk to them? Should I not talk to him? It was, yeah.
Madison: How far away should I stand?
Sara: And what is that for me is like, I don't know how they feel about me approaching them. You know, it's not that I'm uncomfortable, but I don't want to make them uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of those feelings.
Jen: Anxiety, all over the place.
Madison: Totally, totally. So, I don't know if this is, like, super appropriate, but sometimes I like to share with kids that anxiety can sometimes be helpful. So, anxiety might be that desire for us to perform well beyond time. Meet new people, do good things. But I always tell kids that when our feelings to exceed become rigid and we might shame ourselves, or we might per cerebrate or obsess if we don't do these things well, that might impact our daily functioning. And that might indicate that maybe that's not the most helpful anxiety at this time.
Jen: I just feel like this is such a complex topic.
Madison: Absolutely.
Jen: And I really appreciate the fact that you're willing to come and talk to us and give us the basics so that, yeah, we as parents can kind of know what steps to take if we are noticing some differences in our kids. So, thank you, Madison, for coming and talking with us. If you would like to reach us, you can email us at Parents@TheFamilyPlaceUtah.org or you can reach Sara and myself on Facebook. Sara Hendricks - The Family Place or Jen Daily - The Family Place. If you have more questions for Madison, you definitely can reach out to her through us and we will get her that information and get you those questions answered if you have those. So, I'd like to give a shout out to Costa Rica for joining us in listening to our podcast. And also, I'd like to give a shout out to Ohio and for all the listeners there. Thank you so much for your support. We hope you have a great week and we will see you next time.
Sara: Thanks again for listening. The Family Place is a non-profit organization in Logan, Utah, with a mission to strengthen families and protect children. We call ourselves starfish throwers. If you're unsure what that means, refer back to our introduction episode where we explain it. The good news is you can be a starfish thrower too by subscribing to The Parent’s Place podcast and liking our social media pages. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with others and help us get our message out to more people. Also, be sure to check the show notes for links to information referenced in this episode. That's all for now, but we'll catch you again next time on The Parent’s Place.
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