Anxiety in Kids: Is It Fear? Anxiety? Or a Phobia?

McLean’s Michelle Silverman, PhD, helps us identify the differences between fear, anxiety, and phobias. She also talks a bit about how we can help kids when they encounter each.

Find resources and more about the expert below.

Fear vs. Anxiety

Fear is a basic, universal human emotion—it’s something that we all experience, and it’s our body’s reaction to a threat or danger that’s happening right now in our environment.

Fear activates our fight-or-flight response, which is meant to help keep us safe. So, if there’s danger, it gets us to fight and attack that, and protect ourselves, or it gets us to flee, and get out of there away from the danger.

We often use fear and anxiety interchangeably, in our day-to-day conversations. But they are different.

Fear refers to a response to a threat that’s happening right now in our environment. Anxiety is more future-oriented.

Anxiety is worrying about something that could happen, a hypothetical situation, something that may never even happen.

Anxiety can be helpful because it’s what gets us to prepare, it motivates us. It’s what gets us to practice before we have to give a big speech or practice before a recital.

But anxiety can also be unhelpful if it’s so extreme that it prevents us from doing things that we want or need to do.

Being so afraid of speaking that you can’t give a talk at work, for example.

Anxiety also comes with a lot of worried thoughts, especially about what could happen, or the worst-case scenario. “This is going to be a disaster,” or “It’s going to go horribly,” might be examples of anxious thoughts.

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Some common examples of anxiety disorders in kids include social anxiety. These are kids who have anxiety in social situations like the name suggests. For example, they have a really hard time raising their hand in class, asking for help, going to parties, even eating in front of others can be hard.

Another common type of anxiety disorder in kids is separation anxiety. These are kids who have trouble being away from a caregiver like a parent, and so they might have trouble going to sleepovers or even separating at school during drop off.

Yet another common type of anxiety disorder in kids is called generalized anxiety. Kind of like the name suggests, these are kids who have lots of generalized anxieties about day-to-day things: school, health, grades, safety, friendships, things like that.

What Are Phobias?

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder, in which we experience an extreme fear response to a specific object or situation. You know you have a phobia if it causes a lot of distress, it makes you really upset when you encounter or think about that object or situation, or you go to great lengths to avoid that.

Some common types of phobias that we see in children are blood, shots, needles, fears of the dark, thunderstorms, things like that.

Of course, most of us are afraid of some things. Most of us don’t love getting shots or we don’t love snakes. But those things don’t necessarily get in the way of our day-to-day lives.

If you’re noticing that your particular fear is getting in the way of doing the things that you need to do, or you’re having a much bigger response than most people would, that might be a sign that you’re experiencing a phobia.

Key Takeaways

The good news is that anxiety disorders, including phobias, are really treatable. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, is considered the gold standard treatment for anxiety disorders.