When I decided to post this problem at ADD Forums, I read all the items I could find in this forum related to children and anxiety. Now I have even more questions. :confused:

Here is the situation: My daughter Katie is eleven years old, the oldest child of five and has no significant medical problems. I am fairly certain (without diagnosis, as it has not been a big problem for her so far) she is ADD inattentive type. She is very bright and is always way above average on the school-administered standardized tests. Adults often remark about her advanced level of independence and responsibility.

Her school challenges seem to be difficulties with time management, excessive socializing at inappropriate times, trouble recalling basic math facts, and occasional bickering and hurt feelings with her friends. Overall, Katie gets along well with her peers and in my estimation is well liked. She has a group of girlfriends with whom she is close.

She does not seem to have confidence in areas where she could potentially be judged by her friends. Fashion, music, what book to do her report on, etc. In fact, the opinions of her peers is often the only basis on which she makes decisions. Perhaps this is par for the course, I do not remember myself feeling that way, or at least to that degree.

Katie participates in soccer and basketball, which are fall/winter sports. She likes to swim, ride bikes and dance (as long as she thinks no one is watching) for fun. Although she gets plenty of exercise, she is not by nature, hyperactive. Reading, playing video games and watching television top her list of favorite things to do. Thus her nickname from toddlerhood: "Kato-couch-potato"

She has always been very sensitive to the concerns of adults. Eavesdropping and carrying the weight of the world are listed on her resume under special skills. She will quietly suffer under worries such as war, her parents current financial state, the rat that got in the house last winter and severe weather of any kind. We figured out that if Katie is acting out through meanness, dishonesty or picking at her fingers, then we must get to the bottom of it. Nine times out of ten, there is some fear, usually unfounded, or at least way beyond her control. Talking usually helps a bit and for a short time only. We have found that the passage of time plus some proof of an adult's competence in handling the situation are the best remedies so far. That is her background info.

Around this time last year, Katie came to me with a physical complaint of feeling short of breath and chest pain. She seemed to be breathing fine and her pulse was strong. Those are biggies so I called the doctor. He asked if she had been exerting herself physically and she had not. I told him her vitals were fine. He asked if she'd had a cold lately. She had not, but she does suffer from mild seasonal allergies. He said it was probably related to allergies and to keep an eye on her. I told her she was to let me know if she ever got that feeling again so I could keep track. It happened several times more into the summer. I'd estimate three times a month. The episodes were short, not ever more than a minute and a half and always when she was at rest, working or playing at something quietly or watching television.

When I took her for a check up in July, I reported these to her pediatrican. We were very worried because both my husband and I have various heart problems in both our immediate families. The doctor could not find anything wrong with her so he had me bring her to the hospital for some tests. He ordered a chest xray and about fifteen minutes on the heart monitor. Those tests came back fine. The doctor then ordered a test which would have her wear a harness-like apparatus under her clothes for several days to record her heart activity. Before I could get that, we lost our medical coverage. We could not afford the expensive test. School started again and there were no more complaints of shortness of breath or chest pain.

A little more than a week ago, it started up again. I am now thinking it could be several things. First maybe there could be something physiologically wrong with her heart. Maybe the lack of regular strenuous exercise is causing her problems (soccer started at the beginning of the school year and basketball season ended recently). Anxiety or some sort of panic disorder is now on the list of possibilities. Then, of course, there is the unknown.

I am thinking the anxiety angle most strongly now because of what I have read here plus this actual exchange:

K: "Mom, I just had that feeling in my chest again."
M: "Are you ok?"
K: "Yeah, it's gone now. What do you think it is?"
M: "I'm not sure. Do you know what the words anxious or anxiety mean?"
K: "Yes, I know what those mean. They're easy. We had those in second grade. Do you think I have I terrible disease that doctors don't even know about yet and have no cure for?"
M: "I think you just answered my question."

Well, we started laughing our hineys off. Thank goodness she can appreciate irony. For being such a Nervous Nellie, she has an unbelievably cool sense of humor. Her tenseness is puzzling to my husband and I, because we are both easygoing. People often assume we use pot or something, even though neither of us ever have, because we are so laid back and relaxed.

I read here that panic disorder with onset before late adolescence is quite uncommon. Also, I read that the episodes last longer than hers have, peaking at ten minutes, so that confuses me too. Anyway, here is what I'd like to know, if anyone can help:

Can anyone who deals with anxiety issues now remember struggling with such issues at age ten or eleven? What was it like? What or who helped?

If ANYbody has any suggestions, ideas, input I would surely appreciate them. Even though I plan on bringing her this afternoon for a psychiatrist's opinion, the practical experiences and opinions of my pals here at the forums are invaluable!

I did not tell Katie what this afternoon holds for her because she would just stew and get more nervous causing her to have a bad day at school. I hope she does not feel ambushed. Oh well, I don't expect her reaction to be anything a trip to the mall won't fix. Lets hear it for retail therapy! :rolleyes: Mother of the year.

sorry flakey i have no words of wisdom, but wanted to let you know my thoughts are with you. hope this gets resolved quickly.
retail therapy can be a cure all ;)

Thanks. She's a land-on-her-feet kind of gal. I'm sure it will work out. I'd just like some insight into what she may be feeling. She's not really into sharing these days. Apparently I have morphed into the LEAST cool person on the face of the planet overnight.

Eavesdropping and carrying the weight of the world are listed on her resume under special skills. She will quietly suffer under worries such as war, her parents current financial state, the rat that got in the house last winter and severe weather of any kind.

I could swear you are describing my son and myself at this age. Dakota had the most awful chest pain's and shortness of breath that he would literally turn blue.

We found journalling these attack's to be very useful. Everyone has trigger's if you can identify them then you can either avoid or prepare for them, making the symptom's much easier to control.

Also, Yoga I cannot say enough wonderful thing's about Yoga. Even just doing the breathing excercise's work wonder's for Koda. We started with a book I can't remember the name or author but it was something like YOGA FOR THE STRESSED CHILD. It's easy to understand and well heck I even use it. Dakota has stepped up to taking classes at the YMCA he really LOVES his Yoga and doesn't care what anyone say's about it. With Yoga he has been able to come off his Ativan.

Just work with identifying her trigger's and what calm's her. Then put them to use. Easier said then done I know. I wish I had better advice but as you can see from my last post that thing's change everyday and everyday we have to adapt or lose them.

YOUR ARE A GREAT MOTHER I have no doubt in my mind that with your help your little girl will conquere this just like everything else she attempt's.

p.s. for me when I get the tight chest and shortness of breathe. Stretching helps I stand with my feet apart and reach both hand's as high as I can over my head and take deep slow breath's imagining the muscle's relaxing. I refuse to acknowledge stress I figure it's a muscle cramp lol.

Thank you! I was just about to send you the link and you posted! I still have it in the cut/paste. Great minds.

I do not think she as severe as you describe Dakota. I don't think she actually stops breathing, she just feels like she did. More like a "whoa, that was weird," feeling. I decided not to bring her along to the psych today. I did not want to worry her more unnecessarily. I did tell the doc & he advised what I thought he would; to explore all physiological avenues first. So I guess we'll be going for the expensive test toward the end of the month when the new medical insurance kicks in.

Its funny though, she just told me that she feels like she is missing out on exercise. She decided to start doing situps and pushups while reciting the amendments and presidents in order. How's that for multitasking?

If it is panic attacks, I can't imagine what the triggers would be. This only seems to happen when she is taking it easy, doing things she finds relaxing-never sleeping or doing anything physically active.

I will definitely show her your stretch. Maybe I can convince her that it is a simple muscle cramp, not some exotic, incurable disease :rolleyes: goofball.

I think I will start to actually journal the episodes, instead of relying on my recollections. :rolleyes: goofball me. That is more scientific, right? The doc is sure to take us more seriously with that.

Thank you both so much for your concern and your suggestions.
You are true pals.

FG

I find with MYSELF anxiety kicks in when I'm relaxed and not stimulated outwardly. If my mind is NOT occupied by out side influence's and everyday life my imagination tend's to run off course into the morbid. I start to worry about thing's I have no control over. Hungry kid's, missing kid's, war stuff overwhelms me then.

My son sometimes says that he feels scared and he does not know why. His heart is racing and his face is flush. They last for about 5 minutes or so. Do you think this is anxiety attacks?

Vulnerable Children

Kids, alas, are increasingly susceptible to depression. They also can be anxious and hyperactive. But only recently have researchers discovered that children also are subject to full-scale heart-thumping panic attacks.

Each year in the U.S., more than three million people are seized with sudden, unpredictable terror along with such physical symptoms as heart palpitations, chest pain, choking or smothering sensations, sweating, weakness, and dizziness. Many panic victims believe they are dying or going crazy, and fear doing something uncontrolled. Suicide rates turn out to be far higher for those who get panic attacks than those suffering from depression.

Conventional wisdom holds that panic doesn't begin before late teens or early adulthood. Truth is, almost nothing is known about its life course.

So New York psychiatrist Donna Moreau, M.D., put out a call to local emergency rooms for kids who might be brought in with the distinctive but disabling symptoms. Ninety children were referred to her for clinical testing at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where she heads the anxiety and depression unit. Of the 90 brought in, 90 percent proved to have bona fide panic disorder.

The youngest is a seven-year-old who complained of a racing heart and breathing trouble. In young children as well as adults, panic attacks occur spontaneously, not in reaction to obvious psychological stress. In kids, the attacks are often misdiagnosed as separation anxiety or school phobia. Typically, fear of having a full-blown panic attack leads victims to restrict activities and avoid going to school or other public places.

"These children are really suffering," says Moreau. "It takes a long time for them to be diagnosed."

When adults with recurrent panic attacks -- about two percent of the population -- are asked to recall their first physical symptoms, one in five pinpoints adolescence. No study yet indicates how many kids are prone to this disorder or what happens to them in adulthood.

Both drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapies work in adults and, presumably, children with panic disorder. Identifying panic-prone kids and providing treatment may stave off serious consequences seen in adults. Many alcoholics may actually be panic sufferers trying to quell the disabling symptoms with nature's best-known anti-anxiety medication.

By: PT Staff
Originally published by Psychology Today: Mar/Apr 93

Between a touchy temperament in infancy and anxiety disorders in adulthood lie two highly significant things: Parents.

Babies may be born with a propensity to overexcitability in response to stimulation, but it's parenting practices that determine whether such infants become fearful of unfamiliar people and events later in childhood. In a picture now emerging of the psychobiology of anxiety, researchers and clinicians of various stripes are discovering how early experience and inheritance interact to shape behavior for life.

While innate infant reactivity contributes powerfully to later anxiety disorders, the development of anxiety is scarcely inevitable.

"Parents' actions affect the probability of anxiety disorder in the child," report Harvard psychologists Jerome Kagan, Ph.D., and Doreen Arcus, Ph.D., who have studied hundreds of infants and followed them for up to five years so far. Arcus told an annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Philadelphia that among parents who impose limits on their children's behavior, none of the overexcitable infants wound up fearful at age two.

By contrast, at that age, over 40 percent of highly reactive infants typically are behaviorally inhibited, displaying avoidance, ceasing activity, crying, and generally showing distress in the face of unfamiliar people, objects, and events.

Indeed, psychiatrist Michael Liebowitz, M.D., reported at the same symposium on fears and inhibitions that "overprotectiveness brings out the worst in kids." As head of Columbia University's unit on panic disorders, he finds that an unusually high proportion of panic patients report having had overprotective parenting in childhood.

True, behaviorally inhibited kids experience stress in situations most others find un-threatening. But shielding them from stressful events is hardly the solution.

"All the parents [in our study] are middle-class and loving," Kagan points out. "Among them, two philosophies are represented. One is, 'I have a sensitive child that I must protect from stress.' So this parent, finding the child playing in the kitchen trash, tends not to set limits with a firm 'Don't do that,' but distracts the child. As a result, the child does not get the opportunity to extinguish the fear response."

The other, more authoritative--not authoritarian--philosophy views discipline as education, and requires the child to adjust to the world. This parent has few qualms about saying "No. No trash," and lifting the toddler's hand from the trash before distracting him. "It's a subtle difference--but a profound one," says Arcus.

Still, "teaching children how to cope with the experience of stress is important," Arcus and Liebowitz agree. Parents who allow their children to deal with life's day-to-day troubles help them develop more resiliency and better coping strategies. "Overprotective parents actualize the tendency to anxiety disorder."

TEMPERAMENTAL JOURNEY

o Approximately 20 percent of white infants are born with the high reactivity pattern that gives rise to the inhibited temperament.

o White babies are generally more reactive than Asian babies.

o Inhibited kids have narrower faces than uninhibited ones. It's known from animal studies that stress hormones in utero inhibit the lateral growth of the upper jaw bone.

o Temperamental patterns of infants can be detected in utero by heart rate measurement.

o Early infant reactivity reflects inherited excitability levels of nerve cells in the amygdala.

o Inhibited kids show higher rates of attention deficit disorder than do noninhibited kids (33 vs. 10 percent).

o Parents of children with behavioral inhibition have significantly higher rates of panic disorder, social phobia, and general childhood and adult anxiety disorders.


Originally published by Psychology Today: Sep/Oct 94

Coming Up Short: Family Stress http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7038

Stress Management: http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7039

I also just read a book called THE WORRIED CHILD it touches a lot on childhood anxiety. I really found it helpful and have started inplementing suggestion's into my son's daily life. So far so good.