Articles: Anxiety In Children

Stress anxiety in our youth of today is caused to a degree by the increase in technology that seems to be developing faster than we can learn it. With this rapid growth in technology, our children are plugged into various electronic gadgets, more so than any generation before them. This can result in greater stress symptoms in our children who are still dependent upon the adults around them to make sure that they are growing and developing healthy behaviors.

For younger kids, symptoms of stress develop mainly because of their dependence on media, like video and television. Almost all kids nowadays are exposed to a lot of moving images in the form of movies and television shows, and this has helped make children very dependent on fast moving images to the point where regular life just seems slow and boring. This perception of reality has increased the stress level that kids face when having to deal with situations like school and extra-curricular activities.

Children in elementary school can show stress anxiety in not only school, but at home and even in their outside activities. These children have not learned tools in dealing with stress and thus are at a greater risk of depression and anxiety when confronted with real life issues. For example, if a child is so tuned into their ipod, cell phone, electronic games and the internet, then they can become isolated from normal interactions with family and classmates.

This type of stress anxiety increases a great deal when children reach their teen years, where surviving in high school means being connected through social network sites like Facebook and Myspace. Different circles of popularity have always existed in school, but now that social networks can connect everyone, there is a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety for teenagers to be in the right crowd or risk being ostracized by an entire school, or even beyond that.

The best thing that we can do for children who are experiencing stress anxiety, as a result of technology changing their world, is to recognize the source of the problem and set up appropriate boundaries. It is best if these boundaries are set in place early on, so that kids grow up with minimal exposure to movies and television, and they are monitored when using handheld electronic devices to prevent overuse. If this happens, then these kids will be far more likely to feel less stress when dealing with social networks when they are older.