Panic attacks are most common in patients in their mid-teens on up to about 40 years old. Those who are younger, patients begin to experience their attacks by the time they reach 16, though some might even experience them sooner. One study in particular disclosed some patients could be as young as 4 when they ensure their first episode. We may tend to think of panic attacks as an adult thing, but that theory is flawed.

The study just mentioned analyzed nearly three hundred children and teenagers, from four years old to nineteen years old. All of these patients were patients being treated for psychiatric problems who were being treated for an array of ailments resulting from problems with obsessions or anti-social behavior but not for panic attack episodes. But the study did reveal that more than one quarter of the subjects, experienced panic attacks. This by no means concludes that a quarter of all children have them, but it does confirm that youngsters do have attacks, and furthermore that there is a high probability that these attacks can be triggered by pre-existing psychological defects.

Still, there are some skeptics in the medical field who don’t fully believe that younger patients, most notably the very young, really do have panic attacks as such – or any kind of anxiety attacks for that matter. Regardless, it’s now a well-known fact that, that even though kids don’t always feel as much fear before or during an attack as adults tend to, children are still able to feel the same sense of panic as adults. A lessened fear response isn’t really very extraordinary. Children, in their innocence, often do things which adults wouldn’t dare, while adult panic attack patients have more experience with all of the potential dangers and tragedies in life.

There must be a great many parents who have swept their child out of a potentially dangerous situation, and have subsequently described to the child what potential harms their actions might have caused them, often in grave detail. Taking this into consideration, a child might not be capable of describing their episode as a panic response, the description of what actually happens to them physically does fit.

Personality

Just as one might encounter panic personality theories about adults, so too are there companion theories regarding child patients and corresponding anxiety treatment. Some observations point out that they tend to be rather quiet, timid and nervous of speaking out. Like adults with the same condition, they may feel a severe lack of confidence. They have a tendency to think very poorly of themselves, and that they are lacking in many areas.

They tend to think of themselves in terms that are disapproving and critical. For instance, they could perceive themselves as having low grades, when in reality, their grades are very high. Those standards that they put in place to achieve, in addition to the perceived expectations they believe other influencers in their lives have on them, not to fail but to exceed at any cost tend to be the root cause of their self-loathing and the like.

Due to such poor levels of self-confidence, these kids are also much more vulnerable to being criticized or ostracized, and might therefore avoid social interaction altogether as a precaution. What’s more, the fear of failure, they’re increasingly less likely to attempt it in the first place. So instead of being bold and daring, as most children are in the thrill and excitement of childhood with so much to explore and discover these children shy away from risk outright.

Reserving themselves like this because of their self-image issues, lack of self-confidence, and fear of failing, these children are among the most vulnerable to complications stemming from high anxiety.

As you can see, there are many similarities among children and adults who suffer from panic attacks.

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