Recognizing Signs of Anxiety

Many of us – young people included – are feeling more stress right now. It’s important that we support young people in handling emotional challenges in healthy ways, and one of the first steps in doing that is recognizing the signs. Youth may not express stress or anxiety in obvious ways, so look for the subtleties in their behaviors.

Here are some signs that a young person may be feeling anxious:

• They’re more irritable or generally upset and angry.
• They’ve regressed into old behaviors or habits such as thumb-sucking.
• There’s been a change in their eating or sleeping patterns.
• They’re getting way too much screen time.
• They’ve been acting more clingy.

For  more information on anxious behaviors and how to respond to them, take a look at this article from HuffPost.