Hi, I am a person that has suffered from stress and anxiety. My life has been filled with ups and downs, I have had some very bad panic attacks, especially after losing my brother suddenly a little over three years ago.Everything was just coming all at once, my divorce from a husband of 11 years, losing my brother, I was totally OVERWHELMED to say the least!I have since remarried a wonderful loving man, and I am going back to school. My panic attacks are not near as bad as before, and I am feeling much better these days. Thank the Lord. My son is 12 and I have a daughter almost 15,I have noticed that my son is a very anxious child. He thinks that something bad is going to happen to him all the time! I have stopped him from watching the news totally, everytime he heard of someone dying in a car crash, or a plane crash, or a person killing another he freaked out. He said that he doesnt want that to happen to him.I was wondering if this is a hereditary trait? I have heard it was, my mom was very anxious at times and her mom is a major hypocondraich, she thinks she is dying all the time.I want to break this cycle oncw and for all! please if anyone can give me some tips, feel free to contact me!! God Bless!

I'm not very experienced, but I'm of the opinion that a lot of anxiety is learned behavior. So in a way, you could indeed, get it from your mother, although not from the gene pool.

They can easily either learn to try to be perfect, or learn to think that everyone is out to be mean to the specifically, etc.

If you hear a kid saying things that sound off key as far as showing signs of anxiety, think about what you say, and how you say it, in their presence.

Are you in the habit of viewing the world as a dangerous place? I think your kid will pick up on that. Kids learn what they live. This is not to place blame on you, just to get you thinking about what you model for him.

just my two cents.

I would recommend a book, "From Panic to Power" by Lucina Bassett the founder of this website and program. I think most anxiety is learned behavior. My mother had panic attacks as well and I did to at age 18. Depression became the prominent problem later on for me. I remember my mother criticizing people constantly when I was in my mid to late teens to the point that I couldn't stand it anymore. She had some bad thinking habits which I picked up. The criticizing others turned on me and I criticized myself unmercifully, hence little self esteem and depression. My guess is a family cycle has been going on in your family for a number of generations and it's probably learned behavior. I wanted to break it for my son also, but I failed miserably at times. Doesn't mean you will also though.

The Midwest program is a very good program for learning new ways to think, stopping the negative thoughts toward ourselves and others, learning to love ourselves unconditionally, forgive, and a lot more. I suspect your son has learned unhealthy ways to think and this has become an entrenched habit for him. That cycle can be broken with persistence and he can get a lot better but it will take working at it.

My wife is a very emotionally healthy person, so my son and I were lucky there. I've learned what has caused his angst and most of it is Dad, but I have changed big time over the last 3 years or so and remind him every chance I get that he is very intelligent, good looking, very capable as his GPA in college verifies, and I believe in him 100%. Positive thoughts coming from a parent to the child of any age encourage the child and help them to believe in themselves and have good self esteem. Self esteem is the key to confidence and feeling good about yourself. Negative, scary thinking destroys it.

Discover what your son is good at and affirm him by telling him what he is good at as much as possible. You'll find other things he's good at also which will add to the arsenal. Over time, and by spending time with him and showing confidence in him, he'll believe in himself and begin to have confidence. Dads can help a lot in this also by spending time with the child and helping them solve problems. Life is about solving problems. Don't be scared, just start where you are at and build on your knowledge base one day at a time. Over a period of time you will work through problems, develop confidence, and be on your way to breaking the family cycle. I think we have finally broken it in ours.