How to Notice if Your Child Has Social Anxiety & What to Do

We’re used to hearing about social anxiety in the context of older teenagers or adults, but younger children can have it too. Often, it’s dismissed as shyness, but shyness and social anxiety are not the same. Shyness is temporary and goes away pretty quickly. That’s not the case for social anxiety.

But as parents, what can we do to help our children who are struggling with social anxiety? How can we even recognize they’re struggling with it in the first place? It’s not always easy to know what kids are thinking, but there are other signs we can look out for.

Avoid Social Situations

Anxiety encourages avoidance in people of all ages. That means kids with social anxiety will do their best to avoid social situations. This can be anything from refusing to attend birthdays and other events or simply refusing to speak up in class. They’ll struggle to join groups of people and will have a hard time making friends. Even something like ordering at a restaurant can be a struggle.

As parents, what we can do is pay attention to our child’s behavior. Are they avoiding most, if not all, social situations they come across? Is this behavior normal for other kids their age? Or is this unique to them?

Fears Judgement

Social anxiety is about fearing judgment from other people. If our children talk to us about their fears, we should be able to spot this. Maybe they’ll ask questions like, “What if they think I’m stupid?”. Trying to comfort them as best we can won’t make the anxiety disappear, but it doesn’t need to. It just needs to make us aware of what our child is going through. A constant fear of judgement is exactly what social anxiety is. It’s not rational and it doesn’t go away on its own. That’s why it’s important to learn how to spot it.

Physical Pains

When it’s time to leave the house, our child begins to complain about something. Maybe it’s a stomachache or a headache. Maybe they feel nauseous. There’s no real reason for this. We take them to the doctor, but they don’t find any problems. This could all be caused by social anxiety.

There may be other signs as well. Maybe our kid starts blushing or trembling when it’s their turn to speak. They may start sweating a little too. They’re in genuine discomfort, and the best thing we can do is address this privately instead of ignoring it.

Help with Solutions

If our children share their fears with us, there are many ways we can help them. One of them is by helping them find solutions to their problems. That means tackling every individual worry they have. For example, are they anxious about giving a presentation in class? Practice it repeatedly at home, sometimes with other people there and sometimes without. We can’t make our children’s anxiety disappear, but we can help them cope with it by offering solutions to their problems.

Try Counseling

Social anxiety doesn’t go away on its own. And, as much as we’d love to have all the answers in the world, sometimes we can’t help our children. In those cases, the best thing to do is to take our children to counseling. Fox Child and Family Therapy will be able to give your kids the help they need. Reach us out today at 913-229-5691 to help your child with their social anxiety.