Why did you want to cover the subject of “anxious mother”? Is there any carefree mother? Or to put it this way, "Isn't anxiety an emotion experienced by all mothers?"
A very appropriate question. You are right, every mother starts to think and worry about things she has never thought about before, while raising her child and even from the moment she decides to become a mother. There is definitely something for a mother to worry about at every age of her child. Will my baby be healthy while I'm pregnant? Do I have enough milk as a baby? Is he getting enough sleep? Why is he crying? When you grow up a little, growth and development come to the fore, crawling, walking, talking, toilet training, are we early or late? Anxiety about success comes to the fore at school. All this is accompanied by health concerns. Is he eating enough, will he catch a cold or get sick? Does he fall, get injured, have an accident? Of course, we should not forget the most basic maternal concern: “Am I a good enough mother?”
So, is it possible not to think or worry about all these? Doesn't anxiety have a function?
Anxiety is one of our most basic emotions and has a very important function: Protection. Anxiety has kept the human race going through the ages. It is extremely natural and necessary for a mother to worry about her child. Anxiety helps the mother to be more careful and attentive while caring for her child. The human child is the most delicate creature that requires care and attention while growing up.
Then you say that a certain level of anxiety is normal, even necessary. So how do we know whether the anxiety level is normal or excessive? For example, do you think I am an overly anxious mother?
I hear this question mostly from anxious mothers. It is not possible to easily say how much anxiety is enough and how much is too much. After all, this is not a tomato so let's measure it by weight. We can only observe the excessive anxiety through the negative effects it has on the mother and therefore on the child.
If you wish, let's take a look at what an overly anxious mother may experience:
An anxious mother who has sleep problems. is a mother. Almost every night in bed, she struggles with thoughts about her child. Is he in good health? Is he getting taller? Why so often? getting sick? Is he eating right? What should I feed tomorrow? Am I a sufficient mother? Because he cannot stop these thoughts that keep coming back, he cannot calm down and fall asleep. He wakes up in the morning in a miserable and bad mood. He wants to know and control every step the child takes during the day. Scenarios about bad things that could happen to him constantly run through his mind. For example, they are worried that their child will have a serious illness, so they constantly look for signs of illness and frequently go to doctors and have tests done. In fact, he cannot trust a doctor and does not feel comfortable without getting confirmation from other doctors. Or another worried mother writes scenarios about her child being in an accident or being kidnapped and cannot let him out of her sight. He cannot entrust it to anyone, and constantly warns his child not to run, sweat, or be careful.
When you are anxious, stress hormones are secreted in your body that alarm you. Constantly high levels of these hormones in the blood impair physical health. This is why overly anxious mothers experience various health problems. Constantly tense muscles cause neck and joint stiffness, which we call fibromyalgia. Their eating patterns may be disrupted, they may experience overeating or loss of appetite and weight, stomach complaints, and blood pressure problems. They are tense, impatient and angry. Their work performance also decreases due to reasons such as absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, and inability to focus.
In summary, if a mother constantly writes disaster scenarios about her children in her mind, if she has the physical complaints mentioned above, she may experience fatigue, boredom, and burnout. If she is alive and has functional losses in her daily life, it is very likely that she is an overly anxious mother. The first thing such a mother should do is to seek help from a specialist to solve her anxiety problem. When I make this suggestion, the most common response I hear from mothers is: Let my child get better first, I can wait. However, it is not possible for the mother to help the child until her anxiety is resolved.
So how does having an overly anxious mother affect the child?
Excessive anxiety The child of an anxious mother grows up with constant warnings and admonitions. “Be careful, you may fall, get hurt, or get sick.” Let him take steps on his own While his peers are playing on the street, Imez is either at home or his mother is next to him on the street. The message that the child growing up in this way receives from his mother is: "Life is full of dangers, something can happen to you at any moment, you are only safe with me." This attitude is the most fertile ground for the child to become an anxious child.
Another problem we often see in anxious mothers is that they cannot calmly respond to their children's normal emotional reactions such as crying and fear. It is difficult for everyone to bear when a child is unhappy and crying. But for anxious mothers, the sound of a crying child is like a panic button. They run in panic to the child who trips or falls while walking or is afraid of something and cries, and they want to take the situation under control and silence the child as soon as possible. Seeing the concern on the mother's face, the child thinks, "Something very bad must have happened to me" and becomes even more frightened. For similar reasons, anxious mothers cannot set clear rules and limits for their children. In order to silence the child who is crying because his toy is broken, he says, "Don't worry, we will buy a new one," or tries to draw his attention to another direction. The child is successfully calmed. Making the child forget his current feelings temporarily relieves the mother and the child, but it does not benefit the child in the long run. On the contrary, when faced with obstacles, the development of the ability to endure and struggle with difficulties is prevented. A child who has never experienced disappointment or stress as a child, has never been made to cry, and has been brought up in cotton wool gives up at the slightest problem or expects a solution from others. In order for children to learn to manage their emotions, they need to be allowed to experience all emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness and even anger.
If anxiety is a natural and necessary emotion for children, it may not be excessive. How can we distinguish anxious children? Could you talk a little about the characteristics of overly anxious children?
Children with high anxiety levels are generally respectful, polite, aware of their responsibilities, fulfilling their responsibilities, obeying the rules, meticulous and sometimes perfectionist in environments outside the home. they become. Some people experience bad things happen to their parents when they are away from them. They worry that it might happen. For this reason, they often call their parents on the phone, feel the need to hear their voices and feel relieved. Fears of failure, criticism, dislike, and punishment are another anxiety issue seen in children with this structure. For example, a client of mine who loved playing basketball was running away from the ball for fear of not being able to score a basket during matches, and preferred to pass the ball to someone else instead of trying to score a basket with the balls he received. He quit basketball training this year, saying he didn't want it anymore and was too tired. His fear of failure prevented him from asserting himself in the classroom, and even on subjects he knew, he would not raise his hand, wondering if he was wrong. He would get nervous during written or oral exams, could not remember what he knew, his hands would sweat, and he would pass the exams poorly. Another reflection of excessive anxiety on life is social anxiety. Shyness, reluctance to enter new environments, different social circles, and inability to belong to peer groups affect the social lives of these children. Specific phobias such as fear of the dark, fear of animals, and not being able to take elevators are also anxiety disorders.
To emphasize here again, anxiety is a normal emotion that exists in healthy individuals and has a protective and adaptive function. . Anxiety disorders are characterized by fear or worry that causes significant distress and loss of functioning. It is difficult to distinguish normal anxieties from pathological anxieties during the transition from childhood to adulthood. The most important point to look at at this point is whether anxiety causes avoidance and dysfunction and its continuity.
What are anxious children like in the home environment?
These children, who are defined as obeying the rules, calm and masters outside the home, paint a different picture in the home environment. They are insistent, demanding and even angry in their relationships with their parents. They expect help and support even for tasks they can do on their own. Does something often happen about the issues they are worried about? Or nothing will happen, right? They expect to be reassured by questions such as: Intense question and answer traffic overwhelms and exhausts parents. Anxious children have a very intertwined, cohesive but conflicting relationship with their anxious mothers. Against their mother's anxious, constantly controlling and warning attitude Over time, they begin to feel rebellion and anger. Sometimes things go the other way, and children try to comfort and calm down their anxious mothers. But this, too, is an effort that exhausts the child and again creates anger inside. A child who feels angry at his mother, for whatever reason, also feels guilty about it and tries to suppress his anger.
So, is anxiety genetic? If the parents are anxious people, are the genes the reason why the child is also anxious?
Anxiety disorders are often hereditary. If a mother or father has anxiety problems, it is likely that the child will also have anxiety-related problems. In addition to the familial transition, the overprotective attitude of family members towards each other also gives the message to children that the world is dangerous and unreliable, thus reinforcing existing fears. Parents unintentionally reflect their own way of thinking, values, approach to events, fears and concerns to their children. Over time, children become like their parents. For these reasons, it is very important to include the family in treatment.
How are anxiety disorders treated in children?
Anxiety disorders in childhood are treated individually. It can be effectively treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and family education. If a mother or father also has anxiety problems, they should also get individual help for themselves. Help can also be obtained from drug treatment in anxiety disorders that cause very intense and significant dysfunction and cannot be resolved with appropriate therapeutic approaches.
As a result, anxiety disorders are quite common and treatable disorders. Today, one in every ten children struggles with one or more anxiety disorders. Therefore, another important issue to consider is preventing the occurrence of anxiety disorders. It is much easier to prevent it than to try to treat it after it occurs. Children who have a family history of anxiety disorders and who are temperamentally anxious are candidates for developing anxiety disorders at some point in their lives. If these children are handled appropriately, it is possible to reduce the risk of developing anxiety disorders. In this regard, families
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