Stomach Ache or Difficulties Sleeping — How Children Might Show Anxiety and Stress
A child’s physical and mental health are closely linked and anxiety or stress can be expressed through pain or adverse effects on the child’s physical development or growth. The body and the mind are even more closely interwoven in children than in adults. When children are worried about something, perhaps an argument with their parents or because their favourite teacher at preschool has left, they may show it by being unruly or mischievous or sleeping badly, not wanting to eat or complaining of stomach ache.
The fact that a child has a stomach ache or a headache, is sleeping badly or loses his or her appetite can of course be due to an infection or a physical illness. Physical symptoms should therefore be examined by a doctor. But sometimes there is no physical explanation and what the child is feeling is “psychological pain”. You could describe it as fear, unhappiness and worry that has got into the child’s body. It’s actually not at all surprising. When we become stressed or afraid, a lot of things happen to the body to get us ready to escape or to help the immune system cope with an injury, for example. These are functional things that enable us to survive in many situations, but if they’re repeated over a period of time, they can lead to other consequences such as pain. It may also be the case that adults ask a child if it hurts anywhere when the child doesn’t seem to be fully alert and happy, which perhaps reinforces the tendency to refer to the body. Many studies among school children have established a link between stress and higher instances of children reporting headaches or recurring stomach aches. Stress and anxiety can also get into the body of three and four year-olds and then the child usually complains of a stomach ache. Besides the stomach — usually around the navel — younger children also complain of pain in the their legs, knees and calves.
The fact that small children express fear or anxiety through physical symptoms such as stomach aches is also due to the fact that a child may not know the words to express what he or she is feeling. As adults, we have the ability to stop and reflect on our feelings in a different way to children because our brains are more developed. If we get a parking fine or are told off by our boss, we can relate our frustration to the events, at least when we’ve had time to think it over. Children are still in the process of learning to understand themselves and of being able to use their feelings as messengers of what is happening. For someone who is small, describing discomfort such as a stomach ache can be a concrete way of expressing a vague feeling that something is wrong. If children don’t have the words to describe or don’t understand what they’re feeling, they unconsciously invent a way of expressing themselves.
However, it’s important to point out that the child’s pain is real, regardless of whether the cause is physical or psychological. The fact that a stomach ache may be associated with fear for an older child at preschool doesn’t mean that the stomach ache isn’t real.
Understanding what a child’s symptoms mean may require a little detective work. We might think about whether they’re due to some particular thing that’s happened in the child’s life. Identifying situations in which a child usually gets a pain can provide clues. If you think first about what is worrying or stressing the child, you can sometimes find ways of arranging the environment around the child so that he or she feels calmer. The child may need additional support from a member of staff during certain activities at preschool. Or be allowed to sleep with one of the parents for a while if there have been a lot of arguments or sadness at home.
Children who’ve experienced difficult events such as being a refugee or a trauma may feel physical pain. This isn’t really surprising since we are all a mixture of body and mind. Giving the child care and attention can also be a good way of helping the child. It’s nice for someone who’s small and miserable to have his or her pain taken seriously and be looked after. If you can work out what might have been unpleasant for your child, you can also try and talk about it. Say things like “I suppose it was maybe a bit tough for you today when Mum and I had an argument? We’ve been so angry with each other since we decided to separate. But we love you and everything will soon be OK again”. Even if affection and attention can’t always take away the pain, it makes the child feel understood and looked after. And because the mind and body are interconnected, pain in the body can often be remedied by something that’s also good for the mind.
