Azine Graff, PsyD

Anxiety is not always easy to spot in children, and since children are often still learning how to identify their emotions, they are not always able to verbalize what they are experiencing. What can make it even more challenging is that a child’s anxiety can overlap with symptoms of ADD/ADHD, as children with anxiety may also fidget, be forgetful or have difficulty concentrating. It is not uncommon for children with some form of anxiety to be misdiagnosed with ADD/ADHD.
Anxiety can also be disguised as irritability or defiance, which makes it all the more confusing for adults to spot.
Most of us have long forgotten the pressures that children face and the various scenarios that can spark worries—starting a new sport, taking a test, making a new friend, and answering the teacher’s question when called upon, to name a few. With a variety of factors coming into play, when a child does not know how to manage their emotions, they will likely exhibit their feeling through a behavior. They may act out and they may withdraw. They may look like they are angry, and even make harsh statements.
Children with anxiety may make statements that are code for something else. Here are eight common examples:
1. “I don’t want to go to bed” may mean “I am afraid of being alone in my bed.”
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Azine Graff, PsyD

It can be hard to consider hugging our child when they are acting out. There’s this fear of reinforcing the behavior, and so we have been taught to punish, remove toys, ignore the behavior, and respond with a poker face.
But consider a time when you had a rough day, snapped at your partner over something trivial, and all you felt you really needed to melt away the stress was a hug or some comfort.
Did you ask for a hug? If so, then what a gift you and your partner have to be vulnerable and communicate so openly. If you didn’t ask, think about why? Maybe what you needed did not even cross your mind. Maybe you were too heated and on the defense to ask.
When we are in a heated moment or feeling a surge of our emotions, it makes it much harder to think rationally. When considering our children and how they are developing their prefrontal lobe (the part that does a lot of the planning and decision-making), it then makes sense that they have much more difficulty in expressing themselves calmly when under stress.

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Azine Graff, PsyD
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​I got into the field of psychology because I wanted to help others, and this desire to help came from my ability to easily empathize. I never knew just how valuable empathy was as a parent until I started noticing the narration running through my mind as my daughter would cry, whine or scream.
I will be the first to admit that when I first became a parent I was not able to consistently use empathy. I was anxious and frustrated that I could not figure out how to help my very tearful (and reportedly colicky) baby during those first few months, and every time I thought I had the parenting routine down, developmental changes made me shift everything.

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Azine Graff, PsyD
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​Parenting is the most challenging job you will ever have and can truly be the most rewarding. It is often those things that push us to question our perceptions, thoughts, and our own values that help us grow into stronger and wiser human beings.
As humans we are cursed and blessed with the ability to reflect on our thoughts and feelings, unlike animals. As a result, we are often able to make changes for the better and improve our relationships with others and ourselves.
In raising our children we have the opportunity to develop new insights and perspectives, if we take the time to reflect on and consciously choose our parenting strategies.

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Azine Graff, PsyD
I clearly remember listening to my then 2-year-old daughter as she was comforting her doll. She
​sounded out the cries of her doll and followed it with, “I got you. You’re safe.”
My heart was melting as she gave her doll the same care I gave her when she would cry from a scraped knee or when feeling frightened. I realize now that this is a form of empathy, as she was empathizing with her “crying” baby and using what had comforted her when she had cried.
As parents we often get caught up with academics—feeling that children must learn how to read early on and solve math problems to succeed—but we forget about the life skills that are needed and not learned in a school book.
Empathy is one of them. Some might think that an empathic child would just be a sensitive child wearing their heart on their sleeve.

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