There are many symptoms of childhood anxiety, some of which may not be as obvious to the parents of the children that suffer from anxiety. When you don't have a complete understanding of your child's condition it can make it considerably scarier than when you know what is going on. This is most definitely true in the case of anxiety in children which may be manifesting as aggression or anger.
The symptoms of anxiety in children include a wide array of problems that otherwise seem unrelated. Their grades in school may start to fall, and they may lose interest in the activities that they normal enjoy participating in. They may express fear of failure, or of certain events, or may talk of death-specifically fearing the death of someone that they love. Or they may be unable to express a reason or a focus of their anxiety at all, instead just knowing that they are afraid.
Physical symptoms can exist too. Your child may complain of a headache frequently, or a tummy ache. There may be a general malaise that only occurs leading up to particular activities, such as going to school. Yet on days when they don't have to go to school, or later in the day once they know they will not have to go or are being allowed to stay home, the symptoms stop. This may even escalate into full blown school refusal.
A final symptom of childhood anxiety that you may not have considered is when their anxiety manifests as aggression. As a result they may become aggressive or violent during or after their episodes of anxiety or fear.
When your child begins to experience an anxiety reaction, their body responds to the stress in certain ways. Hormones are released that increase the heart rate and breathing and may eve wreak havoc on their blood sugar. Adrenaline may also be released.
These changes in the body are part of what is known as the fight or flight reaction. This reaction is a protective measure, that ensures that when a person is threatened they have the energy to either run away, taking themselves away from the threat, or fight it off. The adrenaline and other hormones make the person able to achieve strength and speed that they otherwise would not be capable of, giving them a competitive edge when compared to the person or thing that is threatening them, whether real of imagined.
Alternatively, the fight or flight reaction may lead to them fighting. Again this is a defense mechanism, the idea being that when physically threatened, the reaction enables them to fight harder and for longer than they otherwise would be able to. When they need to, a person who is threatened stands a better chance of surviving an attack thanks to this hormonal reaction.
The problem is that anxiety reactions in both children and adults are often irrational. There is no direct threat that they are responding to, instead it is a perception of a threat that doesn't exist (perhaps because they are experiencing an innocent event that has previously been associated with the threat) or are responding to nothing at all-just a feeling that builds within. It makes them afraid, yet they don't know why.
This means that the fight or flight reaction has nothing to actually save them from. There is nothing to run away from, and nothing to fight. Where are these feelings going to go, and what are they going to do?
The urge to run or to fight is still there, and for some children it means that they may lash out against those people close to them. This may be viewed as aggressive behavior, threatening, or even dangerous, but the truth is that it is the child's unconscious attempt at protecting themselves from a threat that doesn't actually exist.
Aggression in this form is simply a manifestation of your child's anxiety, and not in any way deliberately bad behavior. It is not them trying to hurt or harm you, nor a way for them to try and test boundaries or challenge your authority. They are scared, and do now know what to do about it. Often they will not understand what is happening to them, or why they feel the way that they feel, and so react with fists instead of words.
Your child is not in control of their body or reactions when they are suffering from anxiety. They are at the mercy of a part of the brain that acts instinctively and unconsciously, and as such will not be able to control or escape these feelings unless they are helped to by a person external to the anxiety reaction.
Childhood anxiety attacks are driven by parts of the brain that have begun to elicit the fight or flight response when unnecessarily. This may be because inadvertently learned behavior, or because they have been in such high stress situations for so long, that anxiety and stress reactions have become the norm for them. The brain no longer knows how to easily switch into calm mode, and so the child will feel fear, and react with aggression.
Otherwise, it should be always kept in mind that children are often ill equipped to manage and cope with their emotions. A fear or anxiety reaction may make sense to an adult. Yet still plenty of adults experience panic attacks in which they feel completely out of control. How is a small child who is still dependent upon you in many ways, supposed to cope with feelings that grown adults cannot sometimes cope well with?
They frequently can't, and may react in inappropriate or unhelpful ways. Aggression is just one of these ways that they might react, and is especially likely because of the fear, sense of lack of control and threat that they are currently feeling.
Above all else, what parents should know is that this aggression born from anxiety is not your or your child's fault. It is a manifestation, or symptom of the anxiety that they are feeling, and that they can be powerless to control. There are treatment techniques that can help your child to overcome their anxiety, and once the anxiety is once again brought under control, the associated aggression can also quickly stop.
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