Pediatric Nurse Navigator

04/11/2025

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04/10/2025

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03/04/2025

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Anxiety is the most common mental health disorder in children and adolescents. While treatment can be very effective, diagnosis can be tricky, because anxiety can show up in lots of different ways. Here are some of the signs:

• Physical symptoms: Headaches, stomachaches, sweating and racing heart can all be signs of anxiety.

• Avoiding certain situations: Depending on what makes them anxious, kids might avoid things that other kids enjoy or are comfortable doing. For example, kids with social anxiety might avoid playing with other kids or ask to stay home from school.

• Difficulty concentrating: Anxious thoughts can distract kids from schoolwork and other tasks.

• Trouble sleeping: Worrying can interfere with kids’ sleep.

• Disruptive behavior: Kids with anxiety sometimes lash out or act aggressive when they are overwhelmed by uncomfortable feelings.

• Clinging to parents or caregivers: Children with anxiety may have trouble separating from their parents, and need lots of reassurance.

• Being hard on themselves: Some anxious kids worry a lot about failing or looking bad in front of other people. They might have low self-esteem or say mean things about themselves.

Read the full article and learn more about anxiety in children here:
https://childmind.org/article/what-are-the-signs-of-anxiety/

02/28/2025

ARFID became a clinical diagnosis in 2013 with the release of the DSM-5. Because it’s a relatively new diagnosis, clinicians are still learning about the disorder and how to treat it.

In general, early symptoms of ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) look like extreme forms of picky eating. Some behaviors to look out for in young children include:

– Liking very few foods
– Avoiding specific foods or groups of foods based on qualities like texture or color
– Pickiness that gets worse over time, including refusing to eat foods that they once liked
– Anxiety at mealtimes
– Intense fear of choking or vomiting
– Eating very slowly
– Lack of appetite or getting full quickly
– Complaints of feeling sick after eating

Read more on ARFID here: https://childmind.org/article/what-is-arfid/