Negative Behaviour
Negative Behaviour in Children
For some children, teenagers or young adults, Anxiety affects negative behaviours, thoughts and feelings every day, but if you do not seek professional therapy and support, a far more serious set of challenges can emerge. Many children, teens or young adults, can feel anxious or worried just at certain times, e.g. when first joining school, or a house move to a new area whilst losing friends. Other times of temporary worry or stress, can be when revising or sitting important tests or exams.
Overall, anxiety is a deep feeling of tension, fear, worry and unease. The important thing for parents, grand-parents, or other care givers, is to observe and know when your child, teenager or young adult, has reached a stage of very uncomfortable levels of fear, worry or stress.
The main signs and symptoms of anxiety are: feeling scared, fearful, panicky, embarrassed, ashamed, worried, etc. There is a critical point when these symptoms of thoughts and feelings, trigger serious negative behaviour. The typical resulting negative behaviour is: frustration, anger, disruptive behaviour, stealing, lying, threatening behaviour, bullying and manipulation.
Look out carefully for some of the signs below:
- Saying they have tummy ache, headache or feeling unwell
- Over attachment and clinginess to one or more care giver e.g. Parent, Grandparent, Nanny
- Using the toilet more often than usual
- More fidgety, difficulty in relaxing, feeling tense
- Crying a lot or spending a lot of time alone in their room
- Always thinking and feeling negative, e.g. catastrophising
- Quickly getting frustrated, irritable, very angry and regular outbursts
- Not sleeping or waking in the night with scary nightmares
- Loss of appetite, picky eater
- Not wanting to socialise or see friends
- Finding it very hard to focus, concentrate and keep on track, with tasks
Your child may not be old enough or capable enough to recognise, why they feel the above signs.
Common types of anxiety in children and teenagers leading to negative behaviour, could be: a specific fear or phobia, for example, monsters, dog’s, water, spiders etc. While it is perfectly normal for children to have fears and anxieties, some may grow up into teenagers with a more serious specific General Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
Most of the time a foundation of anxieties, fears and stress, result and trigger, outward bursts of very negative behaviour. Anxieties are internal thinking and feeling, but negative behaviour is the outer reaction to the internal fear and discomforts. For example, separation anxiety in older teenage children is often a sign they feel insecure, e.g. one parent has left, or may leave, parents are arguing, moving house and losing friends, being bullied etc.