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The first time it happened, I thought my son was sick. He woke up complaining that his stomach hurt. Took his temperature, looked at his throat, asked the usual questions. Nothing seemed obviously wrong, but I kept him home anyway.
The next week, same thing. Stomachache, couldn’t eat breakfast, said he felt terrible. By the third time, I started to realize this wasn’t about his stomach. It was about school.
If you’re a parent in Orland Park, Tinley Park, or anywhere in our area and you’re dealing with something similar, you’re not alone. Childhood anxiety is showing up in ways that don’t always look like “anxiety” at first. It looks like stomachaches on school mornings. It looks like meltdowns over homework. It looks like your previously happy kid suddenly refusing to go to birthday parties or play with friends.
What Childhood Anxiety Actually Looks Like
When we think of anxiety, we usually picture an adult worrying about bills or work stress. But anxiety in kids is different. They often can’t tell you “I feel anxious.” Instead, their bodies and behaviors tell the story.
My son’s stomach really did hurt. Anxiety causes physical symptoms. The body’s stress response kicks in, and suddenly your child has a legitimate stomachache, headache, or feels dizzy. They’re not making it up. They’re not trying to get out of school. Their body is reacting to psychological stress.
Other kids get clingy. Your second grader who was fine with dropoff last year suddenly clings to your leg and cries when you try to leave. Your middle schooler who used to sleep in their own room wants to sleep in yours.
Some kids get irritable and oppositional. You ask them to get ready for school and they explode. It looks like defiance, but underneath it’s fear. They’re trying to avoid the thing that’s making them anxious, and they don’t have the skills yet to express what they’re feeling.
Perfectionism is another face of anxiety. Your daughter erases her homework over and over because it’s not perfect. Your son has a meltdown because he got one answer wrong on a test. The pressure they put on themselves isn’t healthy, but they can’t seem to stop.
Why So Many Kids in Our Area Are Struggling with Anxiety
Something’s changed. Talk to any teacher at Carl Sandburg Elementary or any counselor at Jerling Junior High, and they’ll tell you they’re seeing more anxious kids than ever before.
Part of it is awareness. We’re better at recognizing anxiety now. But that’s not the whole story. Kids today face pressures that weren’t around when we were growing up.
Academic pressure starts early. Even in elementary school, kids feel the weight of assessments, homework, and expectations. By middle school, they’re thinking about high school placement. By high school, they’re stressed about college before they’ve even taken the SAT.
Social dynamics have gotten more complicated. Friendships that used to exist just at school now extend to group chats, Snapchat streaks, and Instagram. Kids can’t escape social stress even when they’re home. A fight with a friend at lunch continues online all evening. Being left out of something is documented for everyone to see.
Overscheduling plays a role too. Many families in Orland Park have kids in travel sports, music lessons, tutoring, and multiple activities. There’s no downtime. Kids don’t have a chance to just be bored, to play, to process their days.
World events affect kids more than we sometimes realize. They hear about school shootings. They worry about climate change. They pick up on parent stress about money or politics. Even young kids absorb more than we think.
And for some kids, anxiety runs in families. If you’ve dealt with anxiety yourself, there’s a higher chance your child will too. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just something to be aware of so you can get help early.
School Refusal: When Anxiety Makes Getting Out the Door Feel Impossible
This is where a lot of families hit a crisis point. Your child refuses to go to school. Not occasionally, but regularly. It starts affecting their education, their friendships, your job.
School refusal is different from truancy. Kids who refuse school due to anxiety aren’t cutting class to hang out with friends. They’re genuinely terrified. They might be afraid of failing, being bullied, having a panic attack in class, or just the general overwhelm of navigating the school day.
The tricky part is that keeping them home provides temporary relief. Their anxiety goes down because they’ve avoided the feared situation. But this actually makes the problem worse over time. The anxiety becomes more entrenched because they never learn that they can handle school.
Parents feel stuck. You can’t physically drag your 12-year-old to school. You also can’t let them just stay home indefinitely. Teachers and administrators might not understand that this is a mental health issue, not a discipline problem.
This is where professional help becomes critical. A therapist who specializes in childhood anxiety can work with your child on techniques to manage the fear while working with you on strategies to get them back to school gradually.
Separation Anxiety Doesn’t Just Happen in Toddlers
We expect separation anxiety in babies and toddlers. It’s developmentally normal. But when it pops up in older kids, parents often feel confused.
Your eight-year-old suddenly doesn’t want to go to sleepovers. Your ten-year-old asks multiple times a day where you’ll be and when you’ll be home. Your middle schooler has trouble staying home with a babysitter.
Separation anxiety in older kids can happen after a triggering event. A loss in the family, a parent’s serious illness, or even just growing awareness of mortality can make kids suddenly fearful of being away from their parents. Sometimes it develops without a clear trigger, often in kids who are generally anxious.
The good news is that therapy is really effective for separation anxiety. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps kids understand their fears and gradually face them in manageable steps. Parents learn how to support their child without reinforcing the anxiety.
Social Anxiety in a Social Media World
Some kids are naturally more introverted or shy. That’s personality, not necessarily anxiety. But social anxiety is different. It’s an intense fear of social situations that interferes with a child’s life.
Your daughter wants friends but is terrified to talk to kids at school. Your son avoids raising his hand in class even though he knows the answer because he’s afraid of being judged. They both turn down invitations not because they don’t want to go, but because the thought of going causes panic.
Social anxiety often shows up in middle school when peer relationships become more complex and self-consciousness increases. But it can start earlier too. Some kids struggle with social anxiety from a young age.
Social media makes this harder. Kids compare themselves constantly. They see everyone else’s highlight reel and feel like they don’t measure up. They worry about how they look, what they post, who’s following them. The feedback is instant and often harsh.
Therapy helps kids with social anxiety in concrete ways. They learn skills for starting conversations and maintaining friendships. They practice in a safe environment with a therapist before trying things in real life. They work on the negative thoughts that fuel their anxiety.
Generalized Anxiety: When Everything Feels Like Too Much
Some kids don’t have one specific fear. They worry about everything. School, health, family, friends, world events, things that haven’t happened yet and might never happen.
This is called generalized anxiety disorder, and it’s exhausting for the child experiencing it. They can’t shut their brain off. They ask for constant reassurance. They have trouble sleeping because their mind races. They struggle to concentrate because they’re so busy worrying.
Parents often try to help by reassuring their child that everything will be okay. That makes sense, but unfortunately it doesn’t usually help with anxiety. The child asks for reassurance again an hour later. The worry doesn’t go away.
A therapist teaches kids strategies that actually work. Mindfulness techniques help them stay present instead of worrying about the future. Cognitive restructuring helps them evaluate whether their worries are realistic. Problem-solving skills help them feel more capable of handling challenges.
Finding the Right Therapist in Orland Park
Not all therapists specialize in childhood anxiety, and that specialization matters. Kids aren’t small adults. They need approaches tailored to their developmental level.
Look for someone trained in evidence-based treatments. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the gold standard for anxiety. It’s been studied extensively and we know it works. Exposure therapy, which is often part of CBT, helps kids gradually face their fears in a safe, controlled way.
Play therapy can be helpful for younger kids who can’t yet articulate their feelings in words. Art therapy gives kids another way to express and process anxiety.
Some therapists incorporate mindfulness and relaxation techniques. At places like Evolve Therapy & Yoga in Tinley Park, they can combine talk therapy with body-based practices that help kids learn to calm their nervous systems.
When you call to inquire about therapy, ask specific questions. How much experience does the therapist have with childhood anxiety? What’s their approach? How do they involve parents?
Also ask about practical details. Is the office convenient to get to from your part of Orland Park? What times are available? Do they accept your insurance?
What Happens in Therapy for an Anxious Child
Parents sometimes worry about what exactly happens in those sessions. Will my child just talk about their feelings? Will they be asked to do things that scare them?
Good anxiety therapy for kids is active and collaborative. The therapist builds a relationship with your child first. They need to feel safe and understood before they can do the hard work of facing fears.
Then therapy typically involves several components. Education helps kids understand what anxiety is and how it works in their bodies. This alone can be relieving. It’s not that something is wrong with them. Their brain is trying to protect them, just doing it a bit too enthusiastically.
Skill-building gives kids concrete tools. Breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, positive self-talk, problem-solving strategies. These aren’t vague ideas. They’re specific techniques kids can use when anxiety hits.
Exposure work happens gradually. If your child is anxious about school, therapy doesn’t mean showing up on day one and forcing them to go. It means working up to it step by step. Maybe first they drive by the school. Then they go in after hours. Then they attend for an hour. Each success builds confidence.
Parent involvement is key. You’ll likely have some sessions with the therapist to learn how to support your child without accidentally reinforcing the anxiety. This is a tricky balance, and therapists can help you figure it out.
Supporting Your Anxious Child at Home
Therapy is important, but what happens at home matters just as much. Here are things that actually help, based on both research and experience.
Validate feelings without validating fears. You can say “I know this feels really scary to you” without saying “Yes, school is scary.” Acknowledge the emotion without agreeing with the anxious thought.
Avoid accommodation. This is hard. When your child is anxious, you want to make them feel better. But letting them avoid the feared situation or constantly providing reassurance actually keeps the anxiety going. Work with your child’s therapist to figure out what accommodations to gradually reduce.
Model healthy coping. Kids learn by watching. If you avoid things that make you anxious, they learn that avoidance is the answer. If you talk about your own coping strategies when you’re stressed, they learn that feelings can be managed.
Maintain routines. Anxious kids do better with predictability. Regular bedtimes, meal times, and family routines provide a sense of security and control.
Encourage gradual independence. Anxious kids often stay in their comfort zones. Gently encourage them to try new things, take small risks, and do age-appropriate tasks independently.
Limit reassurance seeking. If your child asks the same worry question over and over, you can say “We’ve talked about this already. I know you’re worried, but asking again won’t help. Let’s use one of your calming strategies instead.”
When to Seek Help
Some anxiety is normal in childhood. Starting a new school, performing in front of others, worrying about a test. These are typical fears that most kids experience and work through.
But if anxiety is interfering with your child’s daily life, it’s time to seek help. Interfering means they’re avoiding things they need or want to do. They’re missing school regularly. They can’t sleep. They’re so worried they can’t concentrate. They’re not making friends or participating in activities.
Another sign is if the anxiety is causing significant distress to your child. Even if they’re still functioning okay on the outside, if they’re miserable, that matters. Kids shouldn’t have to white-knuckle their way through childhood.
If you’ve tried helping at home and things aren’t improving or are getting worse, that’s a clear sign professional support is needed.
Don’t wait for things to become a crisis. Early intervention makes a huge difference. Anxiety that’s addressed in childhood is less likely to cause problems in adulthood.
There’s Real Hope Here
I’m not going to tell you anxiety is easy to deal with. It’s not. Watching your child struggle is painful. The process of helping them face their fears is hard on everyone.
But here’s what I want you to know. Anxiety is one of the most treatable mental health conditions in children. Most kids who get good therapy improve significantly. They learn skills they’ll use for the rest of their lives.
My son still gets anxious sometimes. But now he has tools. He can recognize what’s happening. He can use breathing techniques to calm himself down. He can challenge the anxious thoughts instead of believing them automatically. He goes to school most days without a fight.
That didn’t happen overnight. It took weeks of therapy, lots of practice, and patience from all of us. But it happened.
Your child can get there too. The anxious feelings don’t have to run the show. With the right support, kids learn to manage anxiety instead of being managed by it.
Evolve Therapy & Yoga
Tinley Park, IL
Phone: +1 (708) 580 7601
https://evolvetherapyandyoga.com/
We specialize in treating childhood and adolescent anxiety using evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, exposure therapy, and mindfulness techniques. Our therapists have extensive experience working with school refusal, separation anxiety, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety in children and teens.
Convenient location serving Orland Park, Tinley Park, Mokena, Frankfort, Oak Forest, and surrounding areas. Most insurance accepted. Call today to schedule an initial consultation and start helping your child feel better.