When a child’s anxiety looks like anger — from raisinglifelonglearners.com by Colleen Kessler
Excerpt:
Simply put, anxiety does not always look the way we think it does in children.
When we limit the experience of anxiety to only what can be seen and combine that with the limit of emotions children are aware of, it is a recipe for the perfect storm.
Generally, children don’t recognize anxiety when they’re experiencing it. Like learning primary colors first, children are only aware of a handful of emotions they can experience. Happy, sad, afraid, angry, excited. Their emotional experiences are painted with these primary feelings, leaving them with only a few options to choose from.
Simply recognizing that the vigilance and tension he’s feeling are actually anxiety have helped my son to let go of some of the anger and fear he’d been using in an attempt to cope with the overwhelming feelings he didn’t understand.