Understanding Anxiety in School-Aged Children
Children with anxiety struggle in school, which might also be challenging to observe. Anxiety might be mistaken for nausea, acting out, ADHD, or learning disabilities. Additionally, other forms of anxiousness could manifest themselves at school. Kids may worry about various things, including being dropped off at school alone, speaking out in class, and feeling that their work needs to be flawless. When a child seems unfocused or restless throughout the class, teachers may assume they have ADHD (Blomsø 9).
After a summer or holiday break, some children may not want to return to school. Anxiety may also be the cause. Other signs of nervousness in the classroom include having tantrums or repeatedly asking the same questions. There is a problem of poor quality treatment of anxiety disorders, but the solution is the use of an improvisational theater group to improve the condition of students.
Challenges in Identifying and Treating Childhood Anxiety
When called upon to participate, some children become unresponsive. Other students refuse to turn in their assignments because they want them to be flawless. Teachers may assume that those students are uninterested or have a learning disability. To further complicate matters, children with learning difficulties may experience significant anxiety before receiving a diagnosis if they experience academic failure.
Physical ailments can sometimes be a symptom of anxiety. Anxious children frequently have headaches and stomachaches. They occasionally have breathing difficulties or racing heartbeats when they become worried. Additionally, worried children frequently visit the nurse’s office.
Despite its detrimental effects, most teenagers with social anxiety disorder do not obtain therapy. In contrast to behavioral issues, difficulties may not be as apparent to parents and instructors. This is a result of the fact that these kids are less violent and energetic.
Many parents are not aware of how seriously ill their child is. Additionally, some parents think their children “grow” out of social anxiety. Socially anxious adolescents could not get treatment because of the disorder’s nature. This results from the possible stigma attached to mental health conditions and the anxiety of unfavorable judgment.
Improvisational Theater as an Innovative Intervention
Schools may help young people who require therapy overcome obstacles by implementing interventions. Teenagers with social anxiety disorder do not get the assistance they require. However, a method also aims to assist kids in reducing their anxiety symptoms without putting them under excessive pressure or stigmatizing them. Improvisational theater is considered a potential psychological aid for enhancing well-being and reducing symptoms, as it involves regular exposure to social situations (Felsman et al., 21).
As for treating anxiety disorders in schools, adolescents who had previously suffered social phobia reported a decrease in their symptoms, leading experts to believe that this strategy has promise. Increased social skills, optimism, creative self-efficacy, comfort with performing work for others, readiness to make errors, and a minor decrease in depressive symptoms are predicted as a result of this improvement (Felsman et al. 17). Teens with social anxiety can benefit from easily accessible, non-clinical improvisation instruction at school.
Redefining School-Based Mental Health Support
The conventional approach to treating children’s anxiety is fraught with issues. However, there is precedent for adopting improvisational theater to enhance students’ psychological well-being. Teenagers with social anxiety issues who participate in a school improv program demonstrate minimal levels of stigma, low expense, and a more accessible environment to lessen these symptoms. This enables medical professionals to study and implement novel therapeutic modalities without always resorting to overly aggressive medicines and invasive procedures. Children can express themselves more freely, improve their social skills, and relieve their nervousness in a theatrical setting.
Works Cited
Blomsø, Caroline Ytrearne. “Representations of Anxiety Disorders in Young Adult Literature–Mental health, empathy development, and young readers in the EFL classroom.” MS thesis. Høgskulen på Vestlandet, 2022.
Felsman, Peter, et al. “The Use of Improvisational Theater Training to Reduce Social Anxiety in Adolescents.” The Arts in Psychotherapy, vol. 63, Elsevier BV. 2019, pp. 111–17. Web.