By Arnab Dey
Children imitate everything they see and experience around them. As they do not have judgment power yet, they cannot differentiate between good habits and bad habits.
So, if they are kept in an anxious environment, they will develop anxiety and other severe mental health issues at a surprisingly young age.
Especially when children are surrounded by anxious parents, they tend to absorb their panicky qualities immensely. So, it is quite a necessity to heal the anxious patterns in parents to prevent children from imbuing them.
So, if you are also curious about — “How parental anxiety affects children’s growth?” I have got you covered.
In this article, I will be exploring the diverse elements in parental anxiety, how to identify them, and heal them before it’s too late.
So, keep reading to know more!
How To Identify If Your Child Is Developing Anxiety?
Since parental anxiety can significantly affect the emotional health of children, it is better to identify it at the earliest.
Most children start showing anxious behavioral patterns through various signals. And, as parents, it is your job to read the signals and understand the anxious mentality of your child.
So, here are some signs that your children might show when they are anxious:
- Acting overly cautious or fearful
- Regularly complaining about stomachaches or headaches
- Feeling difficulty staying separated from you
- Avoiding any kind of new experiences or social situations
- Constantly seeking reassurance from you
Now, this behavior signals can highlight how your child is anxious about their day-to-day activities. So, try looking out for them and understanding how your anxiety is impacting your children.
Anxious Parents: The Nature Of Anxiety In Parents
Does anxiety get passed down? Research has shown that parents with anxiety (parental anxiety) may carry some of these genes.
Through parents’ offspring’s biological inheritance, children are more prone to develop anxiety disorders at some point during their lives.
Nevertheless, anxiety disorders among parents can come from different sources. These are:
- Financial stress
- Work-related pressure
- Fret over their child’s working conditions and future
- Problems in relations
- Health fears
- Sufferings in the past
Parents who have anxiety disorders may feel a lack of mental disability to meet life challenges, which can be one of the main symptoms that they experience.
These feelings could appear as fidgeting, disruptive sleep, or thoughts of dread that never leave their minds.
Is Anxiety A Learned Behavior?
As mentioned before, anxiety disorders often run in families, but this is not due to genes but rather to learned behavior. This parental anxiety led to:
1. Children May Copy Anxious Behaviors:
Kids learn from role modeling and imitation of their parents’ actions. Therefore, if their parents are in a constant state of anxiety, fidgeting, or fear, they may feel anxious too. The children may then start thinking that anxiety is the appropriate way of expressing fear during the challenges they face.
2. Children May Feel Unsure And Scared:
Children living in a situation where their parents are always nervous may develop the perception that the world is a dreadful place, and as a result, they may get a feeling of fear that is otherwise not necessarily needed for these situations.
3. Children May Try To Take Care Of Their Parents:
Some children could be trying to help or amuse their disturbed parents by their side. Nevertheless, this approach, however affirmative it is thought to be, can draw the children to the less expected situation of being responsible for their parents’ emotional well-being, and this responsibility comes with the added weight of emotional disturbances.
4. Children May Have Trouble Expressing Their Feelings:
Unless the parents are willing to free up and talk about their worries (parental anxiety), the children will instead learn that sentimental talks are not proper. So, they can end up not talking about their fears and worries, holding them inside instead.
5. Children May Develop Anxiety Themselves:
Residing with an anxious parent, then in turn, will increase the chances of the kids developing anxiety disorders. The vulnerability of the genetic character, along with different environmental influences, can be the basis of anxiety disorders in kids.
6. Children’s Academic Performance May Suffer:
Constant fear and stress in the family life of kids can contribute to their ability to concentrate in school. This may lead to low academic performance and feeling stressed always.
7. Children’s Social Skills May Be Affected:
Anxious parents are often overprotective. Consequently, their children will be deprived of critical social skills, which may lead to them having trouble befriending others.
How To Help Your Child Combat Anxiety?
Even though knowing that your child is developing anxiety is the first step, healing it is vital. So, here are some measures to help your child combat their anxious behavior.
1. Get Help For Yourself:
First things first, before helping your child, learn how you can manage your anxiety. So, seek the guidance of a therapist or consult a doctor to manage your parental anxiety from impacting your child’s growth.
2. Talk To Your Child:
Although it sounds stupid, talk therapy is remarkably beneficial for young children. So, try to talk with your child and allow them to express their anxious and cautionary thoughts. This will help you to know why they are struggling and how to help them.
3. Learn Coping Skills Together:
Along with your kid, you need to learn the coping mechanisms for your anxiety. So, take on the therapies and coping skills together — deep breathing, journaling happy thoughts, thinking positively.
4. Make Your Home Peaceful:
As the saying goes, “A peaceful home is the sanctuary to a healthy mind.” So, instead of keeping your kids in a chaotic environment, try to keep the mood at home cheerful, pleasant, and welcoming. So, the kids can feel safe and peaceful.
5. Enjoy Family Time:
Stay together, read, take a walk in the woods, or play board games. It’s a great way to bond and have fun. Letting go of worries for a while.
6. Take Up New Family Hobbies
As a family, learn something, like gardening or a musical instrument. If you immerse yourselves in such a project, that dreadful and negative mood will surely subside.
7. Stay Active:
Exercise feels good. Encourage your child to join a sport or dance. Make exercise easier by participating occasionally. This includes swaying and swinging together, and there are some fun moments that are sure to keep everyone happy.
8. Seek Help If Needed:
If you’re still worried, don’t hesitate to talk to an anxiety specialist about your parental anxiety issues. Specialists can help with your anxious nature from the root and suggest more ways to implement with your child that can help you feel reassured.
Healing Parental Anxiety To Build Safer Environments For Children
Parental anxiety can influence a child’s social development and ability to form relationships. Therefore, understanding the root causes of parental anxiety is crucial for addressing its effects on children.
Choose one of the methods above and see if it works for your family. Remember that the small steps you take can have a big impact on your stress-reduction (aka parental anxiety) journey.
True, by your willingness to help and thus make them feel at peace and happy, you are already succeeding.
Never forget that looking after your own mental health and giving your kid a warm and caring environment means that you are managing the situation effectively.
And at the same time, you are giving your child essential skills for life that they will need to survive in the future.
The process of fortifying your own spirit to confront, handle, and regulate your own parental anxiety means that you have invested in your family’s mental and emotional well-being, not only for now but also for their future.
Also Check:
