Childhood anxiety is not so very different form anxiety in adults. Hopefully children can get over anxiety and panic attacks faster, if it is caught early and the cause dealt with.
In my case it was not caught early. I was firstly diagnosed with an ear infection (The cause of my dizziness) and then shipped off to see a neurologist and given an EEG scan to check for tumours and epilepsy. It was some obviously a relief to have the results turn up negative, but I do remember being disappointed when I realised that if it were epilepsy I could be treated by taking a simple course of medication.
It was several years before I told my parents about my symptoms and it wasn’t until I was twenty-one that I was successfully diagnosed as suffering from anxiety. By that time I had been suffering frequent bouts of anxiety for nine years.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy wouldn’t have helped much. With childhood anxiety I think the cause is important. It is bound to be unhappiness in the home, parental strife, insecurity, bullying at school or too much pressure. Sometimes a homosexual child may feel constrained by a conservative family, and anxiety can easily result from inner-self doubt or anger. So rather than using CBT alone, I would suggest looking for the cause. If my causes (low self esteem, insecurity, unhappiness in family life, unhappiness at school, not having space to be myself, depression) had been dealt with, I would not have grown into finding the anxiety of my childhood so normal and everyday that is was hard to let go of.
If Childhood Anxiety is not dealt with in childhood it will surely go on to cause anxiety or depression in adulthood.
