Panic Attacks In Children
Panic attacks in children are increasing gradually throughout the world. It is unfortunate that most parents do not recognize this psychological issue in their children. They think that children can not have panic attacks, as they don't have life's tension and stress of responsibilities. Children are unable to communicate their feelings of discomfort and fear. This situation is responsible for anxiety disorder in children.
Causes of Panic Attacks in Children
- Pressure of Competitions:Children are experiencing increased family as well as school pressure these days. Health fitness and performance in sports make a child's life stressful. The immense competitions in all aspects of life force them to be more serious about their future than ever before. The fear of failure and fear of being criticized by other children and adults result panic attacks in children.
- Family Issues:Many children witness family issues such as parents' relations, financial problems, sibling rivalry and so on. Children have to struggle to fulfill their physical and emotional needs. All these factors affect tremendously on children’s psychology, therefore children victimize to panic attacks.
- Inheritance:It is noticed that children who have family history of psychological disorders are more susceptible to panic attacks. Usually, adolescents have more chances to be affected from attacks than compared to younger children.
Identifying Panic Attacks
It is important to identify the root causes of panic attacks before you treat any child. History of attacks and that child's past behavior are important in identifying the panic attacks. There are three major methods by which the treatments for panic attacks are applied:
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is related to children who experience attacks due to fear of events, conversations, friends and social factors. Relaxation techniques are helpful to treat GAD types of panic attacks.
- Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) includes the separation of a child from parents at early years of schools. There fore, you need to make children aware of the situation and seriousness of life. This method is proved very effective to treat children with panic attacks due to parental separation.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) used to treat when children attend school after long-term gap in education. It includes rewarding student for regular attendance in school to make children familiar with situation.
There can be some events or objects that children try to avoid them in day today's life. They feel frightened to face these objects. These types of occasions signal that children are suffering from panic attacks.
However, these attacks need sometime to be detected for proper treatments due to its unexpected recurrence. Children will not have attacks at the time of doctor's appointment. Therefore, doctors cannot directly point out the exact reason of psychological disorder in children.
Hence, it is very important for parents to notice all the psychological changes in child's behavior. They must seek doctors if they have witnessed children experiencing any panic attack. The combined treatments of medications and parents psychological support to children will be definitely helpful to treat such panic attacks in children.
