anxiety feels like you're in a maze and you're scared something happened to your parents and
you can't find them and you're trying to find your way out as quick as you can
Anxious feelings are like butterflies in your tummy telling you you can't do it. Anxiety is like busy traffic
because sometimes you get distracted with sadness. Sometimes you just don't know what
to do I think people would be surprised that anxieties the most common mental health problem
in children I think it hasn't received the attention that it deserves but anxiety is a
problem that we need to pay attention to and that's if you were walking into a school you
would be aware of the fact that anxiety is a really significant problem for our children
so this is the first time anxiety disorders have been measured in a government a survey like this
so it's a bit hard to know where the rates of disorder are actually increasing but definitely
from teachers and parents are reporting that anxiety is more of a problem than it ever was
before well our time for school can you go at uniform one please it's in the bedroom she has
separation anxiety we actually thought it was part and parcel of kids starting in school and
it got more acute where she was just being very distressed and upset to the extent when she was
running out of the classroom and followed me and chased me down the street I wouldn't let
go of my mom until that the principal had to go involved I was a really embarrassing and
they told me screaming for my mom in front of my whole class the school they didn't
actually say that it was something that needed counseling or support the main thrust of a lot
of advice she's going to go out of it what she didn't so we think about 40% of children who are
experiencing anxiety disorders aren't receiving the treatment that they need understanding the
difference between when it's normal anxiety and when it's something that requires help is
a really difficult decision that parents have to make to me it's when that anxiety starts to
impact on the child's life when they can't switch it off when they can't go to school and they're
not they kind of missing out on activities that most other children are experiencing that's what
I think it's important to seek help separation anxiety started around four or five so we've
had counseling across all those years and now when year three I think we can help a bit more because
she's able to explain how she feels when I do my breathing exercises I feel brave enough to
off someone can you stay with me oh can i play with you to get my mind off like you going away
we know now that if children don't receive intervention early that they're much more
likely to go on to develop anxiety throughout their life and also develop depression and a
range of other mental health problems as well so it's really important that we intervene early to
stop that from happening how have you been happy you've been good and what about those feelings
they've been talking about in your tummy it felt like it was getting really bigger
anxiety is one of these things ideally we'd intervene early because as we get older our
thoughts tend to get quite entrenched and the roots get stronger and wall kind of dug in and
then with children it's it's a lot easier because they haven't got all that stuff to
write over what are some of the ways we can deal with the feelings that we have
also developmentally as children grow into adolescents if things art isn't nipped in the
bud it can really lead to quite quite devastating byproducts and a lot of the time it comes from a
narrative that might have been anxious to start off with and it's turned quite dark
do you have any assignment you'll have to work on over the holidays I built okay I think if someone
was to meet Elizabeth now was a an almost 15 year old that they would have no idea that she'd
suffered such serious problems with anxiety when she was younger my experiences anxiety
it was like mostly at night like I don't know I just remember not feeling really comfortable
with sleeping when she was six or seven we started having trouble at bedtime didn't matter how long
I stayed it needed to be a bit longer it was at the point where it could take two hours to get
her to bed at night she was genuinely having panic attacks at bedtime and was hysterical
I remember mums reaction she was always like you need to go to sleep you need to do this yourself
which I don't never understood like you should just stay with me you should just do this for me
when they said that it was anxiety it was just the acknowledgement that there was an actual problem
that there were things I could change there were ways I could help her to change we know
that anxiety runs in families so if parents are kind of modeling anxiety to that their children
this is one way that it can transmit but also parents who might be more protective of their
kids if it's kind of quite a normal reaction for child's quite anxious and inhibited to kind of
want to rush in and help them but in doing that if parents who do rush in and help too much that
helps to maintain the anxiety in the long run I'm so grateful we were able to deal with it
when she was younger because I can see now in her as a and almost fifteen year old that the
technique she learned as a six and seven year old have become instinctive it was worse when I
was younger and I do get anxious now but mostly I just say I need to just keep going I can do
this I can just like I still just get on with it so the main that strategy that's the parents are
taught and the children are taught is to rather than avoiding situations that you're scared of
is to face them people with anxiety they think that something bad is going to happen in the
situation when it's not as likely as what they think so we encourage kids to gradually face
the situations that they've been avoiding to learn actually you know what it's no scary is
what I thought and maybe I can handle it every time that I do something that makes me anxious
but I do it like gives me a bit more confidence but yeah I did that and I thought I couldn't but
then I did and it's just every time it's a bit more hi my name's Willa kids scientists when
I was in kindergarten I had separation anxiety sometimes I still feel stressed and anxious what
happens when you feel anxious I decided to make the Eureka Prize video because I realized that
once I had anxiety I know how it felt and I know that I understand that other children have it it's
important to remember that anxiety can happen to anyone if you grow edges it's a great idea
to talk to someone about it it's important for us that it that there are conversations about anxiety
as a mental health issue that kids face and we didn't find that there was a lot of information
or dialogue about it it's important for people like me who's had it when they're young to come
out and speak about it to normalize issues like these to give people confidence to help
deal with it for the rest of your life let's take a big deep breathing through nose and blow
out like we're blowing bubbles when I'm a yes I tried to say it's alright I'll give it to go