emotional disorders in later childhood
1.1 Fear
is a normal emotional response to situations involving danger to the subject. Is a differential response to a specific object or situation. It is an evolutionary phenomenon and temporary.
fear in the second childhood
When anxiety refers to stimuli specifically, it speaks for itself fear. Most children experience many fears mild, transient and associated with a given age who are overcome spontaneously in the course of development.
Fear is an early warning system that helps children avoid potentially dangerous situations. The fear of separation is the first line of defense if you break it, then come into action fears of animals and physical damage. From this perspective, fears are instinctive and universal, without any prior training, they have aimed at protecting children from different dangers.
1.2. Fobia
is a special form of fear and reaction disproportionate, irrational, out of voluntary control of the subject, involves avoidance responses of the situation or object fobizado and persistent over time.
1.2.1 Phobias in children
When children's fears are no longer talking about transient phobias. Phobias are a special form of fear. Childhood phobias usually occur more frequently between 4 and 8 years.
phobias of children are linked to fears unjustified and unreasonable to objects, beings or situations which the subject recognizes the illogical, but dominate it repeatedly, results in an inhibition in the field of action and often, in the representation. Child's exposure to the phobic object almost invariably provokes anxiety. For the case of an anxiety disorder must interfere with daily activities of the child.
phobia types:
Social Phobia
The criteria for diagnosing this disorder are :
- Marked and persistent fear of one or more aspects of social performance.
- Intense fear of criticism and public humiliation.
- Fear being with people other than friends or relatives.
- exposure to social situations almost always causes anxiety, biasing, in some cases, a panic attack.
Children with social phobia often reported, varying degrees of depression, as well as little confidence in their abilities and a strong tendency to be stubborn. .
is exaggerated and irrational fear to an object or situation (flying, contact with animals, heights, confined spaces, darkness, insects, etc.). It is the most common phobic disorder . In children, specific phobias are more common: In animals, bedtime, school phobia, In the dark.
. Fear of external action by unusual items, unexpected movement, darkness, loss of balance, strange noises or excessive
. Fear of natural elements: silence, fire, waves, thunder.
. Phobia of animals large and small, for example, dogs, horses, rats etc.
. Fear of people not there, but they keep a considerable real value as they have been described as dangerous and presented under structures supernatural (ghosts, witches, etc.).
. Fear of being discovered by the look of another or manifestations of his own person (fear of blushing).
. Fear that a person close to having an accident or the death of this person.
. Fear of the dark.
1.2.2 phobic child behavior
The attitude of children from phobia and phobic child's behavior are inextricably linked. When the child is often facing the phobic object, can cause real fear reactions associated with autonomic components spending tension that this brings, when you can not help it, the child reacts with a flight of panic not only increases your tension and I could still increase their attachment phobic and fear of future equivalent situations, can sometimes be possible to meet the object, but at the expense of a strong anxiety that might result in a feeling of weakness or depression.
1.3. Anxiety Disorder :
is characterized by a sense of impending danger with an attitude of waiting, a disorder causing more or less deep, personal experience that invades a person.
In children, anxiety is expressed in the form of crying, opposition, tantrums and a pressing need to avoid the situation. A Unlike adults, children do not have to recognize the irrational fear.
fears are a nearly constant factor in the course of human development. The appearance of anxiety in children, far from being a pathological feature, indicating a shift in consciousness that we can observe that the child becomes about your own individuality, its boundaries and its resources.
In the second childhood, the nature of the fears is very broad and appear fears: Animals, Monsters, ghosts and loneliness.
From age 7 have fears about school and sports performance, existential fears and fear of death.
described fears diminish or disappear when the child develops normally. If not, it is likely that we are facing a Anxiety Disorder.
4.3.1 Etiology of anxiety disorders in later childhood
The origin of anxiety disorders play an important role on the one hand, stressful events such as divorce of parents during periods Critics of childhood and, secondly, the educational style of parents with children. In particular, there is a close relationship between anxiety maternal overprotection of children and anxiety responses by them. Anxious children tend to take responsibility for the failures too, have difficulty generate alternative actions and discriminate those that are effective which are not, and finally, tend to be slow in making decisions. Child's excessive attention to their own reactions and their own thoughts helps develop and maintain anxiety.
1.3.2 Classification of anxiety disorders.
- Separation Anxiety Disorder
arises before the real separation or threat of separation from a significant adult (mother), which leads to marked anxiety.
This disorder characterized by excessive anxiety and inappropriate for developmental level of the child concerning his separation from home or people with whom you are connected.
Symptoms:
ü excessive worry and expressed in relation to health or safety of their parents.
ü Fear that something terrible must separate the significant figures.
ü Fear of being alone.
ü Refusal to go to school.
ü Somatic complaints when separation is anticipated.
ü Crisis to separation anxiety.
ü Insistence on sleeping with parents.
ü The boy agrees to stay in school.
As well as somatic symptoms: nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, anorexia.
This disorder is closely linked to Panic Disorder. Clinical studies have determined that half of children with this disorder also exhibit other anxiety disorder and one third of them are also depression. Other studies suggest that this condition increases the risk of developing Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia in childhood or adulthood (Moreau and Follett 1993).
physical and cognitive symptoms are similar to those occurring in adults. It can occur in unexpected and spontaneous, but in general is associated with other diagnoses, especially separation anxiety, school phobia and agoraphobia.
Jealousy marked with aggression towards generally smaller brother. Aggressiveness can be open or veiled, begins or shortly after before the birth of his brother. The child competes with his brother for the attention of parents. Sometimes you see small regression or loss of skills acquired and infant behavior
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
In contrast with specific phobias in this disorder are excessive worry and fear in different situations of everyday life. That is, it is not focused on a particular object or situation. Children with this disorder are changing, over the weeks, the focus of concern.
Symptoms:
- reoccupation chronic and excessive, difficult to control, easy fatigue, frequent somatic complaints.
- moodiness.
- frequent tantrums in situations of change or that the child can be evaluated as dangerous or unsafe.
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
permanent Obsessions are ideas, that burst and plague the sufferer. Are difficult to control and are accompanied by a feeling of unease and anxiety that the child can not discard.
compulsion to call the need to implement an action or have a thought in order to relieve anxiety or to prevent something bad from happening (magical thinking). The obsessions and compulsions impair social life and school. The most common compulsions in children include:
- ritualized hand washing.
- need to repeat, checking and counting.
- Rituals bedtime.
The age of onset is around age 8. Most of the adults with this disorder referred have suffered since childhood , without anyone noticing that they were experiencing symptoms that constitute a disease.
References
. Ajuriaguerra, J. (1984). Handbook of Child Psychiatry. Barcelona. Masson. SA.
. Jiménez, M. (1997). Child psychopathology. Granada. Cistern editions.
. Livia, J. (2004). Epidemiology of Child Psychopathology in the school population of Lima. Master's thesis. Lima. UNFV.