'I worry - some people collect stamps... I worry, I'm very good at it.' This playworker's joking pride in her ability to worry is unusual. We do not normally think of worrying as good or acceptable but rather something that spoils life. And nowhere is this more true than in the life of a child.
Worried children cause worried, if not distressed, adults. They challenge the myth of childhood as carefree, innocent and playful. They may appear isolated and helpless and are likely to make you feel helpless.
'There's something wrong with that child... I know there is... I just can't get him to talk...' We feel worse as we realise that, of course, we can't make children talk. We know only too well, that if we ask children questions, they give answers - usually the answer they think we want. And it is easy to forget that we are not born able to put our worries into words. We all have to learn to do it. Think of the times you have found it really difficult as an adult to explain the exact nature of your worry to someone else. Children have very limited ways of telling adults about their worries. If they don't have the language, then they use behaviour.
Children's disturbed and disturbing behaviour is always a communication, always an indication that a child is worried.
RECOGNISING THE WORRIED CHILD
The most recognisable worried child is quiet, withdrawn and often pale, frequently underachieving. But worried children are different from worried adults. Worried adults may feel hopeless. Worry in children is often mixed with a persistent hope of recovery. They often believe that their worry can be helped if they can only find the right adult. For this reason, hyperactivity, restlessness, constant attention-seeking behaviour can all be an indication that a child is worried and needs an adult to listen. As a nine-year-old boy, referred with possible attention deficit disorder, said, 'People just don't understand about my feet - my feet keep moving 'cos my head is sad.'
WORRYING AS A SOLUTION
'It's no good worrying - worrying gets you nowhere.' Maybe there is some truth in this often well-intentioned statement, but it flies in the face of child development theory.
Paediatrician and child analyst Donald Winnicott talked of the 'nuisance value' of symptoms. Developmentally, children may use worrying as a solution to a problem.Ten-year-old Fliss worried her playworkers at holiday club. Timid and anxious, she made little attempt to socialise with other children but stayed close to an adult most of the time. She had prolonged, and sometimes tearful, farewells to her mother in the mornings. As club drew to a close, Fliss hovered anxiously at the front door so her mother was always greeted by a pale and strained little face. After a particularly tearful farewell one day, her playworker said, 'You know, you shouldn't make such a fuss, Fliss, don't you know how your mother worries about you?'
She was astonished at Fliss's reply, 'I know mum worries about me, what I don't know, is how much she worries.'
Fliss was using worrying as a solution to her fear that her mother forgot her in the hurly-burly of a busy professional life, that she somehow 'fell out' of her mother's mind during the day. What better way to ensure mummy thinks about you than to worry her - the very word implies an exclusive preoccupation. Fliss helps us to understand what worrying is - a kind of work that people need to do! And worrying works. Fliss secured a connection with her mother.
Like many children, Fliss had a problem sharing her worries. She was not necessarily being withdrawn or secretive, she simply didn't know how to put such a deep worry into words. Paradoxically, her main worry was that she didn't want to lose her worry! Her worry was her only way of solving her anxiety, of making sure she had a connection with her mother.
LOOKING AFTER SOMEONE
Tim, aged 12, had a different purpose for his worries. His playworkers'
concern was not that he wouldn't talk about his worries, but that he shared them endlessly with them and, often late into the night, with his single father. 'I don't mind staying up with him,' said Tim's dad, 'I like to think I can help.'
'Poor old Tim,' said his playworker one day, 'you're such a worried chap all the time. What would be different if you weren't so worried?'
Tim thought for a moment. 'My dad might be worried.'
Tim was using his worries to solve the problem of how he could look after his depressed father. He had learned he could help him to feel he was 'a good dad' by supplying him with an endless list of problems for him to solve.
OUR WORRIES ABOUT WORRIED CHILDREN
Children's worries worry adults, and this colours our approach to a worried child. Sometimes, children sense their worry may distress an adult. A bereaved eight-year-old girl asked her mother not to tell her favourite playworker of her loss, 'Cos I don't want Jane to be so sad.' We can all acknowledge a sense of trepidation, as well as concern, when we approach a worried child. 'You just never know what might be coming,' said one honest playworker. And yet, children's worries can seem so trivial, if not bizarre, to adults. Children transferring to a new school may often be most worried about whether or not they will be able to find the school's lavatories. However nonsensical, children need their worries to be taken seriously by adults. When what is real to a child is real to somebody else, then this is what links them to life, the world and meaningful relationships.
It might be worth trying to remember what kind of worry were your parents to you. How we manage worried children will also be influenced by how we were managed as children. Hopefully, most of us grew up surrounded by adults who worried about us. Infants and small children have to make adults worry - it is their way of making sure they are 'held in mind', that someone is thinking about their needs. In this sense, being worried about is reassuring. For older children, being worried about can be restricting!
The quality of the way you were worried about and the attitude taken to your childhood worries, are the first tools you have to tackle worried children at your club. If your childhood worries were taken seriously and calmly, you are likely to be less anxious approaching a worried child than if you were made to feel your childhood worries overwhelmed the adults around you or were ignored or dismissed by them.
Children's worries worry adults and that is to children's credit. Worrying can be a successful way of a child communicating. You may often sense when a child is worried even if you don't know the exact nature of the worry.
And that's important because the child will feel heard. Adults may be very preoccupied with the content of a child's worry - 'What is the matter?' For the child, it may be much more important that you simply understand that they are worried. Even children are entitled to a private life. They may choose not to share their worry, but they are reliant on you knowing that they are worried.
Andrea Clifford-Poston is an educational therapist and author of The Secrets of Successful Parenting - Understand What Your Child's Behaviour is Really Telling You (How-to-Books, 9.99).
Talking to worried children
* Ask yourself, 'Am I in any way resistant to hearing what this child might have to say?'
* Avoid direct questions.
* Talk in general terms, for example 'Some children get worried about ...'
or 'Boys of ten often worry ...'
* Children may relate to the phrase 'secret feelings' rather than the word 'worried', for example, 'Some children may have a lot of secret feelings about ...'
* Ask yourself, 'What might this worry be a solution to?'
* Is this child using worrying as a way of not thinking about something?
