For
many children, riding the school bus, taking a test, or even going to
school can trigger some anxiety. Social activities, such as birthday
parties, sleepovers, dances and dating, can also make kids feel anxious.
Personally, I think severe anxiety is one of the worst feelings in the
world.
It can be disabling. Kids have described it to me as feeling like
there’s a brick in their stomach, as if they’ve done something wrong or
something bad is going to happen. Many adolescents describe it as
feeling like something is eating at them and they can’t stop it and it
scares them, or like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.
As a cautionary note, it needs to be stated that when dealing
with severe anxiety, be sure to have your pediatrician rule out any
medical issues that may cause anxiety to make sure it's not a problem
with physical origins.
That being said, anxiety is the emotion we experience in a wide
variety of ways when we’re uncertain about what’s happening, or we feel
like we can’t control the events that are about to happen. Fortunately,
most adults learn to manage this anxiety in a way that allows them to
function effectively and live successfully in society.
Anxiety is really the 21st Century word for fear, although people
don’t always associate it that way. Survival is probably our strongest
primary instinct. And our instincts produce energy in the form of
feelings. One way to understand the feeling of anxiety is to think of
survival as a “fight or flight” mechanism.
Survival is the engine, anxiety is the gas—it gives you the energy to
actually do the fighting or running. For people who have problems
managing anxiety, it feels like their bodies are revving up, but there’s
nowhere to go.
That’s why they talk about feeling nervous, jumpy, uptight, or out of
control. The problem is, most kids don’t know how to process their
anxiety, so it goes unchecked. And many times, it ends up feeding on
itself and building.
How Anxiety Shows up in Your Child’s Behavior
You can often see from children’s behavior the level of anxiety they’re
experiencing and how effectively they’re dealing with it. Younger kids
will basically say, “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t like that,” or, “No!”
Sometimes, they’ll identify a source from their dreams, nightmares,
fantasy life or cartoons. Picture the infamous “boogeyman.”
Sometimes they’ll name something such as school, the bus, a person,
or a room in the house, without being able to identify why. (It must be
noted here that parents have to be very cautious when children show
anxiety about a person, place or thing, and can’t verbalize why.
Experience shows us that kids become very anxious, but emotionally shut
down when confronted with the thought of being with an abusive person or
going to a place where they’ve been physically or sexually abused.)
With many children who experience anxiety, you’ll also see a marked
difficulty in their ability to sit still and pay attention. You might
also see withdrawal: your child may become isolated as they see the
world as an increasingly threatening place. Be alert to the fact that
when you ask them what’s wrong, the reason they might give you will not
always be the source of their anxiety.
This is because they don’t know how to define or express it, and they
haven’t developed the internal problem-solving skills to deal with it
yet. Most kids don’t know how to say, “I’m really afraid and I don’t
know why.” In fact, when kids and adults experience anxiety, they often
don’t know what’s causing it and will find some person, place or thing
to blame it upon.
I want you to understand, when I use the word “anxiety” here, I’m
talking about problematic anxiety. So while anxiety has a whole spectrum
of ways that it’s expressed, how do we know when it’s harmful or
disabling? Make no bones about it: it’s harmful when it triggers
inappropriate behaviors, or when your child becomes too anxious or
afraid to attempt (or complete) an age-appropriate task, or participate
in age-appropriate activities.
So if your child is refusing to go to school, unwilling to take tests
or do normal childhood activities, you need to rethink how you’re both
dealing with the problem.
Here’s How to Understand Anxiety
Here’s a way of understanding how feelings of anxiety affect people differently and what range of behaviors you might see.
Let’s say there are four adults standing in a long supermarket line.
All of them are behind schedule and are feeling anxious, which is
leading to impatience and frustration. But they deal with it in very
different ways. The first says to herself, “It looks like I can’t help
being late. There’s nothing I can do about it. I guess I’ll just have to
explain it when I get to the doctor’s office. They’ll understand.”
The next person decides, “I better get back to work, I can shop
later. It’s not worth being late.” The third person might turn to
someone and say, “Is today a holiday? It seems awfully crowded.” But the
fourth person shouts out, “What’s going on here? Move it along! I’m
late for a doctor’s appointment. I can’t stand here all day!”
As you can see, all of these people are afraid of being late to
something that’s important to them, but they manage their anxiety in
very different ways, and their actions appear to have very different
outcomes. One person leaves, one person decides it’s OK to be late, one
person processes the situation with the man standing next to her, and
the last person starts shouting and blaming others, which is the least
effective way of dealing with the problem.
It’s important to note that they probably all wound up being late,
but three of them dealt with this situation in a way that didn’t trigger
severe agitation or lead to inappropriate behavior.
Our goal for children is for them to learn the skills to manage their
anxiety in a way that is effective. We measure effectiveness here by
how much they let the anxiety disturb them and how much it affects their
functioning.
Three Kids, Three Reactions to Anxiety
Now, let’s look at three kids who have to ride the bus to school. All have anxiety about riding the bus for different reasons.
Zachary, the first child in our scenario, resists getting out of bed
and getting dressed. If you could listen in on his thoughts, you’d hear
him saying, “I don’t want to get up. I don't want to go to school today.
I don’t want to ride the school bus. Will doesn’t like me. He teased me
yesterday and my friends all laughed at me. They don’t like me
anymore.”
When his parents come to wake him, the look on Zach’s face and tone
of his voice communicate that there’s something wrong. But when they ask
him what’s bothering him, he’s only able to say, “I don’t want to go to
school!”
When his parents say, “But Zach, you’ve been doing so well. Yesterday
you were saying how much you liked your teachers and friends. What’s
wrong today?”
And he responds, "Can you drive me to school? If you drive me to
school, I’ll be OK. I don’t like the school bus anymore.” At this point,
he’s is probably saying to himself, “I can’t ride the school bus. Will
is there. I don’t like the bus. I don’t like school.”
He’s making the problem more severe by projecting how bad the
situation will be before he even gets there. And he’s trying to solve
the problem by controlling his environment externally—by getting his
parents to behave differently. On some days, one of his parents may be
able to drive Zach to school, and so he might proceed to get dressed,
and he experiences that ride as the solution to his problem, although
it's only temporary and he hasn't developed any skills to deal with the
real problem.
The second child, Olivia, has the same thought, but her mother says
angrily, “No, you have to ride the bus. Your dad and I both need to get
to work, so we can’t take you to school today. I’m going to stand right
here while you get dressed because I can’t be late for work.” What
ensues is a passive power struggle in which Olivia is doing things
slowly while her parents are becoming increasingly annoyed and
frustrated.
All the while, the child may be saying things to herself like, “They
don’t care about me. I can’t ride the school bus. Why don’t they just
take me to school?” When the parent finally gets her into the kitchen
for breakfast, she may refuse to eat or only want very sugary things,
unconsciously sensing the sugar may give her more energy to deal with
her feelings and the situation.
She might be thinking, "If I’m slow enough, I won’t have to ride the
bus because it won’t wait for me," but she may not be conscious of that
plan. To her, it just feels like the most natural thing to do is slow
down, because she doesn’t want to go to school. In a sense, she’s
digging her heels in.
When the school bus arrives, she goes to her room to get her sweater,
but she doesn’t come out. Her parents yell, “Come on Olivia, the school
bus is waiting.” The bus honks, and her dad goes out and holds up his
hand, and then goes to look for Olivia. Her parents find her in her room
lying on her bed.
Imagine now that she’s saying things to herself like, “I can’t ride
that school bus. They don’t understand. I’m not going today. They can’t
make me.” Eventually the bus leaves. Her parents are frustrated and
angry with Olivia and embarrassed by her behavior.
They yell at her for behaving so poorly and punish her with no TV for
a week. Her dad grudgingly takes her to school in the car, lecturing
her all the way, while Olivia gives him the silent treatment. Inside, at
this point she might be saying something to herself like, “I don’t care
what they think. I didn’t have to ride the school bus, and I’m glad.”
In these two cases, neither child had the skills to identify the
source of their anxiety and process the problem in a way that let them
deal with their fear of riding the bus effectively. One avoided the
problem by manipulating his parents into taking him, while the other one
shut down and hid from the problem by not meeting her responsibility of
getting on the bus, thereby invoking her parents’ anger, and getting a
pretty severe consequence.
In either case, the source of the fear is the same: They’re not going
to be safe sitting in the back with Will. This fear is both real and
valid, but in both cases, the kids managed their anxiety in a way that
didn’t help them solve the actual problem. And that problem is that they
have to ride the school bus to school and find a way to keep themselves
safe from the bully.
For many kids with anxiety issues, it’s passive resistance, not
aggressive resistance. You’ll see them refuse to get dressed in the
morning. Or the bus comes and they won’t get on. Believe me, it will
manifest itself in a million different ways.
Now imagine a third child named Will. He has the same problem with
anxiety and he says to himself, “Kids don’t like me. They think I’m fat
and ugly. They don’t want to be my friend. I don’t want to ride the bus
with them. They call me names and tease me.” Will fights with his
parents and he pulls the covers over his head and refuses to get out of
bed.
His parents, who have dealt with his high level of resistance in the
morning for years, have learned that when they bribe him, he’ll respond.
So his mother winds up saying, “I’ll give you those Pop Tarts you
wanted, but you have to be in the kitchen by 7 a.m.” Even then it’s a
challenge to get Will up. His siblings have learned to stay away from
him.
Finally, he eats the Pop Tarts and goes back to his room. His parents
are really stressed out by his behavior now because it’s starting to
affect their jobs. Their employers have made comments about them being
late, so now they’re taking turns with Will and saying they’ll giving
him an extra snack of cookies just to get him on the bus.
So Will finally gets on the bus and sits in the same back seat as
usual. Although he’s also overwhelmed by anxiety, he deals with it by
picking on the other kids. Will’s strategy is to get the other kids
before they get him. He calls them names and says, “You’re fat, you’re
stupid.” He kicks kids under the seat and pokes them.
When they complain to the bus driver, Will’s response is “I was only
playing, can’t you take a joke?” The bus driver has to intervene and
say, “Calm down, Will.” Will has given the driver some lip and back
talk. It’s not at crisis level yet, but the driver is wondering what
he’ll do if Will hits someone or breaks the rule and gets out of his
seat and comes toward the front of the bus.
Will’s method is yet another way of dealing with anxiety. He becomes
the bully. He hides his fear by attacking others, and strikes out at
other people to hide that fear. His reaction is part of the fight or
flight mechanism we discussed earlier.
The first two kids are using flight, by avoiding the source of their
anxiety. This boy, Will, is using fight as his strategy. He tried
flight, by attempting to stay in bed, but once he couldn’t resort to
flight anymore, he started to fight. In the end the old saying seems to
be true: Bullies, after all, are really just afraid.
In all of these cases, the parents were left to wonder why their children were upset, anxious or afraid.
Sibling
rivalry has existed as long as families. It can be caused by birth
order positions in the family, sex of the children and age differences.
If you think about the conflicts that arise between spouses, friends and
other personal relationships, it is no wonder that children with
differing personalities and ages would also have conflicts that must be
addressed and diffused. Parents have long looked at sibling rivalry and
wondered how they can change or end the feuds that can get so easily
out of hand.
Parents
know that when it comes to raising multiple children, there are
personality clashes, ability battles, attention ploys, and multiple
battles only to conclude that sibling rivalry is part of family life.
The degree of rivalry, along with whether or not it has long term
consequences, either positive or negative, depends on how parents handle
the situation. 
All
marriages go through periods of insecurity, changes and challenges.
It's how you handle each challenge and face each change that decides
whether you save your marriage or let it fail. Marriage is a total
commitment to the success of a team over individual accomplishment. You
must be able to face each challenge as a team from a unified front in
order to find the path to happiness. If your marriage is experiencing a
difficult time and you're not sure where to turn, here are some
suggestions for how to save your marriage before it's too late.
Our
traditional model of marriage in the United States has remained stable
and unchanged for more than 50 years. We have based our expectations on
the relationships of our parents and grandparents and learned our
beliefs about marriage based on the need for financial security,
continuity and support. As the world changed and more women have had to
integrate family life with work life, this model, although traditional,
is not geared towards partnership and supporting individual needs.