Parenting News: Children are Reluctant to Share Their Worries with Parents

30 May 2013

Children are known for their carefree, go get ‘em attitude but now, more and more children are beginning to worry and, worst of all, aren’t sharing their worries with their parents.

A survey commissioned by Coiledspring Games has shown that half of parents believe that their children worry just as much as they did at that age.

Worryingly, a third believe that their children now worry more than they did.

Unsurprisingly, the main worries came in the form of the dark, spiders, and nightmares but there were also a few other major concerns that raise alarm bells.

Four per cent of parents believe that they were concerned with their physical appearance as a child, yet 16 per cent believe that their child is concerned with their looks.

Only 8 per cent of parents said they worried about being bullied but 22 per cent believe that it is one of their child’s major concerns.

The most worrying aspect of these statistics is that a fifth of children are not sharing their worries with their parents at all, with only a third sharing their worries ‘sometimes’.

Liat Hughes Joshi, author of Raising Children: The Primary Years (Pearson/Prentice Hall Life) said, “Many of us face occasions when we know something is worrying our children but they aren't opening up and telling us what the problem is.

“It can happen no matter how close the parent-child relationship, and could be because a child is struggling to articulate things or perhaps is embarrassed or feels silly."

Parents found that most comforting way to assure their child was with a cuddle and 64 per cent said that they would comfort their child be discussing what was worrying them.