Common anxiety disorders found in children

The following are some of the anxiety disorders, which are commonly to be found in children and adolescents:

Children and adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder tend to be excessively anxious with the excellence of their performance in school or sporting events, even when they are not being evaluated. They also worry about punctuality, may be fanatical with concerns about disasters, tend to redo tasks if not perfect, and rely on others for endorsement and constant encouragement.

Separation anxiety disorder is diagnosed when a child exhibits abnormal anxiety about separation from home or the individual to whom he is most emotionally involved. In order to stamp it as a disorder, the problem must extend at least four weeks and cause significant suffering or disruption in performance.


Phobias diagnosed in children include specific phobias, or fears of certain stuff or places, or social phobia, fear of social circumstances. Specific phobias are quiet common in children and that they should not be diagnosed unless they obviously impede with the child’s performance (e.g., refusal to go outside due to the fear of encountering a dog). Social phobia is complicated diagnosis in children because they often do not have much control over their exposure to social situations. When a child is frequently having anxiety about communications with adults, social phobia is diagnosed. Children may express this phobia through clinging, crying and tantrums, “freezing,” or not speaking.

Children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show symptoms alike adults with this disorder, although compulsive behaviors in children can be confused with symptoms of attention deficit or, hyperactivity disorder. Some experts consider that OCD is commoner among children than asthma.OCD in children may be evident through a child’s obsession with lucky or unlucky numbers, having parents check to make sure things are clean, needing things to be arranged in a certain order, hoarding, or constantly asking for reassurance.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTTS) in a child may become apparent through his report of nightmares and repeating of the trauma through play.

Panic disorder is not very common in childhood and often first diagnosed in late adolescence.