Information for Health care professionals
Fear is a normal and useful emotion that alerts you to danger. At certain age stages, it is also quite normal for a child to experience certain fears. For example, young children are more likely to be afraid of strangers or the dark, while slightly older children experience more fears on the social aspect. Fears common for a certain age stage often go away by themselves. For some children, however, their fears grow into impregnable barriers and even more problems.
When a person is regularly very anxious, this anxiety is out of proportion to the danger and causes significant limitations that can greatly disrupt life, we speak of an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety and stress symptoms are the most common mental problems worldwide and often start as early as childhood. These symptoms often do not go away by themselves and can in turn lead to other problems such as loneliness, substance use, social problems, worsening school performance or school dropout.
Anxiety symptoms are often not recognised in time because they can express themselves in many different ways. For example, it can manifest itself in physical symptoms, withdrawn behaviour, or in other behavioural problems or school refusal. Underlying anxieties are not always looked at with these behaviours.
When young people do not get help until the symptoms have escalated, a long and expensive treatment process is often needed, for which there are also long waiting lists. With early intervention, most anxiety symptoms can be remedied with proven effective interventions. Thus, it is important to get there as early as possible.
