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There’s lots of reasons for child anxiety, but here’s a few of the more common or obvious ones. Children are vulnerable and sensitive beings. Unfortunately, parents can tend to forget that, and unwittingly do harm by speaking and acting carelessly towards them.

Psychodynamic theories suggest that if frightening situations make a great enough impact on children, when they find themselves in a situation which reminds them of the original, fearful scene. It needn’t be something which happened in real life; it could even be part of a fantasy. Disapproval, physical threats, and overwhelming stimulation could all be perceived by children as potentially dangerous situations.

Another incredibly frightening situation that creates child anxiety is where s/he fears separation from their mother figure. Initially this childhood separation anxiety can show itself as school phobia. In later years the anxious feelings can be rekindled when the person finds themselves in a situation which reminds them, perhaps subconsciously, of that same threat.

Child anxiety can also manifest as panic attacks which can sometimes begin to occur after an actual or threatened loss of an important person or support system. Perhaps it echoes those early unresolved fears, but although these links have been suggested, it is unclear whether panic attacks are always linked to separation anxiety or not.

With or without the links with childhood separation anxiety, losing important relationships or other kinds of support does appear to predispose some people to panic attacks.

So it seems that incidents in childhood, the way we were brought up and taught to think about ourselves could all have a bearing on whether someone experiences child anxiety, and then eventually in later life develops panic attacks.

Subconscious worries and fears can establish, from very early on, a level of child anxiety much higher than that of happy-go-lucky people. And perhaps because these anxious feelings have ‘always’ been there, this sort of person is quite unaware of them.