>> Dr. Aimee Kotrba: Today we are going to be talking about anxiety, and my plan is to discuss the difference between normal versus atypical anxiety presentations to give you an explanation about the most common anxiety disorders in children and teenagers. Then I will provide some tips and specific recommendations on ways to effectively work with those children in the school setting.
Learning Outcomes
- After this course, participants will be able to identify the warning signs of common anxiety disorders.
- After this course, participants will be able to describe the development and maintenance of anxiety.
- After this course, participants will be able to list the ways anxiety can negatively impact academic and language development.
- After this course, participants will be able to label five specific strategies for helping children cope with anxiety in school.
What’s Normal Anxiety?
In terms of what normal anxiety is, anxiety is not by itself a bad thing or a negative thing. We actually benefit quite a bit from having anxiety about certain subjects. Normal anxiety does not interfere with daily life. It is a normal, natural part of emotion. If you think about it, anxiety tends to drive us in many ways. If I have a big presentation or webinar coming up and I am looking through my slides and practicing because I am a little anxious, that is actually a positive thing. There does, however, reach a point when that anxiety becomes negative - when we get negative feedback and negative outcomes from the experience of anxiety.
Anxiety in itself it is not bad. It is an inborn tendency that helps us and saves us in many ways. It is actually an enjoyable emotion for many people. If you think about scary movies or going out on Halloween to haunted houses, there are some fun things about the feeling of anxiety or fear. However, when it becomes excessive, when occurs often or when it gets in the way of daily functioning, there may be anxiety disorder manifesting.
When considering daily functioning, you want to put it into the perspective of a child's daily functioning, which is different than an adult’s daily functioning. For a child, their daily functioning consists of a few factors. One is being able to care for themselves, or adaptive behaviors. Another one is being able to socialize appropriately with peers. A third one is being able to function at school. Those are what I would consider to be daily functioning - adaptive behavior, social skills, and functioning in the classroom setting; being able learn in an academic setting. If we have an excessive, persistent problem in any of those daily functioning activities, then this is when we might suspect that there is an actual anxiety disorder manifesting.
