What does it look like?
My 9 yo son has an Anxiety Disorder/problem, whatever you want to call it. He was always very emotional ans sensitive, since he was a baby, actually in utero. He was a poor sleeper, ate little, vomited and spit up a lot, and had night terrors.
Now, he is in third grade. He chews off all of his fingernails. He has a habit or "obssession", some might even call it a tic of licking his lips over and over and over. They get dry in the winter, and he started licking them and now can not seem to stop. He also puts his shirt or blanket in his mouth all the time. He likes blankets and stuffed animals and likes to have them with him all the time, makes him feel comforted. He gets very nervous during tests, squirms, fidgets, just can not function well. His handwriting is bad and much worse when he is nervous. He just can not seem to do much when nervous - spell, math, you name it. The teacher takes him off by himself sometimes to work on tests. He releases some of this anxiety at home, I believe, with bursts of hyperactivity. He gets very upset during homework, he cries, screams, buries his head, because it is so hard for him, and much worse due to the anxiety. He is very worried during class and esp. tests about what the other kids are doing, and if he is doing as well as them, or doing it right.
Oh, he also does not like to be alone in a room, is afraid of the dark, easily scared by scarey shows (like Scooby Doo - not adult horror movies), is afraid of heights, and afraid of getting sick or hurt. He pretty much worries about anything he possibly can. The other day he asked me if i thought he was going to go to Heaven. It just makes my heart ache sometimes. 
HTH. GL.
My girls are younger, but they both deal with a lot of anxiety and it manifests in different ways in each of them. One of Emma Jean's coping mechanisms is being a control freak. She also can be rigid and appear defiant. There are also things like stomach pains, hair and finger chewing, etc. She struggles with sleeplessness and worry too. Stimulants used to address ADHD issues sometimes increase a child's anxiety level so if you are concerned and your child is on meds, I encourage you to talk to your doctor.
Abby on the otherhand is fearful and irritable. She also chews on EVERYTHING. She also worries, worries, worries. She does a lot of other weird little things too, but I am not sure how much of that is anxiety oriented.
Devoted,
Mood disorder technically means mood dysregulation. It is frequently used as a dx when docs suspect bipolar disorder, but haven't had enough time to observe a patient. The official dx for my 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son is Mood Disorder-NOS, but both pdocs suspect bipolar disorder. Risperdal is used to treat bipolar, but it frequently doesn't do the job on its own. Kids with mood disorders frequently need a mood stabilizer on board as well. Anxiety and anger (as well as aggression, depressive thinking and excessive silliness) all go along with mood disorders. The complete meltdown over a parental "no" that you described in your post is very typical of kids with mood disorders. While the therapy sounds promising, the right meds can make all the difference in the world.
Some helpful resources on mood disorders in children:
Devoted,
My 12-year-old son has been dx with ADHD and anxiety and also has suspected bipolar disorder following a rage reaction to SSRIs. Didn't you say at one point that your son has a mood disorder? Anxiety can be a large part of a mood disorder. In my son, anxiety presents itself as oppositional behavior (major school avoidance and no homework completed in the last 6 weeks). He can also be fearful of certain activities that other kids enjoy (skiing, amusement park rides, etc.). He sometimes tells us he has a feeling that something bad is going to happen. He, too, bites his fingernails to the quick and once had a panic attack on an airplane.
My son is currently on Depakote for mood stabilization, Klonopin for anxiety, Inderal for migraine management and Focalin XR as needed for school (no holidays or weekends). What meds is your son on?
One of my son's diagnoses is "mood disorder". I guess I was thinking along the lines of depression, etc. rather than anxiety.
I had to try to control his complete meltdown after school because I told him "no" to a friend coming over. I don't like to do that on school nights and on top of that I had cleaned the entire day for lots of company arriving on Thursday and I didn't want the boys to trash the house. Oh boy, was he upset....yelling, screaming, stomping, jumping up and down, crying.
Wildboys, my ds is a little better about putting things in his mouth. He has chewed the zippers off all his jackets, chewed up the sleeves on all his long-sleeved shirts (I don't even buy them anymore), and I'm constantly telling him to get things out of his mouth. He was/is a poor sleeper and sleeps, still, in our room at night. He was a poor eater, also, until about six months ago and he's finally eating like I think a boy should! When he goes to the movie with his father, he asks dh to call me to see what I'm doing, etc. I guess I just never thought of it as "anxiety".
Smallmom, my son was just dx this summer with "mood disorder" along with others. He's on Focalin XR (first thing that's worked very well in awhile) and Risperdal. This is the least amount of meds that he's been on in a long time, but I'm not sure it's addressing all his problems. Right now we've just started a new, experimental therapy (first session was yesterday) and it was this therapist who said she saw anger and anxiety in him. The last six years of various therapies haven't worked, maybe this one will, who knows?
Could someone tell my what anxiety looks like in a ten-year-old boy? We've had yet another person tell us that our son looks like he has lots of anxiety.http://www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/articles/about_anxiety. html
Charlie, now 11 years old , is entering 6th grade in a middle school. Each September since kindergarten the start of school has always been a struggle for him. This year his distress escalated with the added demand of starting in a new school, and by November he missed twenty-six days of school. His academic work has suffered, and his teachers have sent his assignments home. Charlie insists that he can't complete them without his mother's presence. He worries that something bad may happen to his mom while he is in school.
Corinne's mother tried everything she could think of to get her 14-year-old daughter to join an after-school club or accept invitations to parties at classmates' homes. Corinne insisted that she would rather stay home and read; she didn't think she fit in with her friends any more and didn't know what to say to them. When she did venture out with a cousin, it took her hours to do her makeup because she didn't think she looked quite right.
Charlie has been diagnosed as having Separation Anxiety and Corinne has Social Phobia; both are types of Anxiety Disorders.
Everyone worries sometimes, but there are some people, even children, who just can't stop or ignore their worries. It has been estimated that five to twenty percent of all children have been diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder, making it the most common internalizing mental health problem children face. Studies also suggest that teens with an Anxiety Disorder are at risk for developing Major Depression. Although school refusal is not a specific diagnostic category of anxiety, it is important to assess the specific type of anxiety that prevents a child from attending school. The most common types of Anxiety Disorders in youth are:
Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is characterized by a child's extreme fear of being away from home or from their primary caretakers. The main fears of SAD children center around being lost or of something terrible happening to them or their parents. These children often refuse to sleep alone and often crawl into their parents' beds during the night. They may complain of nightmares, stomachaches or other physical symptoms, and often refuse to attend school due to their fears of separation. About four percent of all children have SAD, which should not be confused with normally occurring separation anxiety seen between eighteen months and three years of age, or the stranger anxiety which is typically seen at seven to eleven months of age. To meet the criteria for a diagnosis of Separation Anxiety Disorder the child must have particular symptoms of excessive anxiety for at least four weeks.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) takes the form of excessive and uncontrollable worry. Children with GAD worry about many things, such as the future, being on time for appointments, health, school performance, crime, change in routines, and family matters. Typically, the child worries when there is really no problem or any realistic circumstance to cause the worry. GAD is often accompanied by muscle aches or tension, concentration difficulties, sleep disturbance, irritability, or other physical symptoms. To meet diagnostic criteria, the child must exhibit at least one physical sign of anxiety, such as restlessness or sleep difficulties, for more days than not in the past six months.
Social phobia (SOC) is an excessive fear of being negatively evaluated, rejected, humiliated or embarrassed in front of others. Therefore children and adolescents with social phobia fear a wide range of situations such as giving oral reports, gym class, speaking to adults or peers, starting or joining in conversations, eating in public, and taking tests. They may fear unfamiliar persons, and therefore have difficulty making friends or meeting new people. The term "painfully shy" is an apt description. Some studies have shown that youth with social phobia may have a heightened risk for other problems in adolescence and adulthood, such as problem drinking and depression resulting in part from social isolation and limited social contacts.
Panic Disorder with or without Agoraphobia (PD) is recognizable by the classic symptoms of a panic attack such as shortness of breath, pounding heart, tingling and numbing sensations, hot or cold flushes, and terror when in certain situations or places. During a panic attack the child feels intense fear or discomfort, a sense of impending doom or sensations of unreality. Panic attacks may or may not accompany agoraphobia, the fear of being stuck in a situation where help or escape is unavailable. Panic attacks occur less frequently in children, but are not unusual in adolescents.
Children of any age have worries, but when the worries and fears don't go away, are inappropriate for their age, and stop children from engaging in their usual activities in the usual way an Anxiety Disorder may be present. For example, a child may be so worried about getting a perfect score on a test that he studies without respite; a child may be so afraid of not having the right answer that she never raises her hand. Youngsters who have an Anxiety Disorder behave in ways to control or avoid a situation that makes them anxious, or to get attention. An Anxiety Disorder can occur seemingly without warning or be present for a long time without anyone realizing what it is. The earlier the onset, the more likely that a child will suffer with multiple anxiety disorders and other complex comorbid disorders such as depression, before reaching adolescence.
Anxiety Disorders result from a combination of family and biological influences. Studies suggest that young children who are temperamentally (at birth) shown to be shy or tentative in unfamiliar situations may be more prone to anxiety. Some research suggests that anxiety may be caused by a chemical imbalance involving norepinephrine and serotonin. Yet more research is necessary to examine the relationship between anxiety and serotonin. Other research implicates specific brain mechanisms, involving hormones and respiratory functions, as potential pathways to anxiety. Anxiety Disorders tend to run in families, but the complex relationship between genes, biological systems, and anxiety is not well understood. Moreover, evidence suggests that anxiety and phobic reactions can be learned, either through direct experience or observations of others.
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