Anxiety is a common problem for young people in the UK, and is one of the biggest causes of emotionally based school non-attendance. 3.3% of children and young people in the UK, about 290,000, have an anxiety disorder (Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain; Green, McGinnity, Meltzer, Ford and Goodman, 2005). Some young people feel self-conscious and worry that other people will think badly of them, some young people worry about getting told off by teachers and parents, or things that could happen in the future. When a young person has been through difficult experiences in their life, like living in a house where there is domestic abuse or where a parent has been too unwell to care for them consistently, they are often “on guard” almost all the time; looking out for any situations where they might need to protect themselves. And when young people are anxious that they might not be safe, it’s understandable that many of them react with anger, trying to protect themselves in a situation that they might not even realise they are seeing as a threat. It’s all too easy for that anger, which was meant to keep them safe, to instead cause difficulties in their relationships with people they care about, lead to punishments by parents and educators, and leave them feeling alone and that they are a “bad” person.
If a young person in your life reaches out and tells you that they are feeling scared, worried or anxious, try to be calm, show that you are interested in what’s going on for them, and let them know that a lot of people go through times in their life when they feel more anxious and that’s okay. If they tend to react with anger, but you think that their anger might be a way of trying to protect themselves when they feel unsafe, it can be helpful to talk through an incident when they are feeling calmer again and be curious about how they experienced the incident. Some helpful questions might be “what do you think would have happened if you hadn’t got angry with x when they did that?”, or “when x did that, did you have any ideas about what they thought about you?”.
It can be really helpful to talk through with young people how our bodies react when we are anxious, so they don’t worry about why their legs feel wobbly or why their heart starts pounding when the teacher asks them to answer a question in front of the class. One of the best ways that you can help young people with anxiety is by making a “fear ladder”; drawing out a ladder and putting the things that make them feel most scared at the top of the ladder, and the things that they feel less afraid of, or steps that they need to take before they are ready to do the things at the top of the ladder, at the right place along the ladder to show how anxious they think they would feel doing them. When they have made their fear ladder, they will need support and encouragement to start gradually working their way up their ladder, trying out the situations that make them feel anxious, until they can achieve the things that scare them most.
The YoungMinds website has some great information about how to talk to young people about anxiety, and techniques to help them keep their anxiety manageable while they are working their way up their fear ladder: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/anxiety/
This was a Guest Post provided by the Condition Management Company, https://www.conditionmanagement.co.uk/. The Condition Management Company works with schools and young people to provide tailored therapy solutions for young people.
