My 7 year old cries over everything! Help?

[Anonymous]

My DD is 7 and she cries about everything, including some stuff that I considered ok to cry over at age 3 but at 7 is abnormal. Examples: saying she can’t have sweets for breakfast, telling her to brush teeth, can’t find the clothes she wants. She also loses it when she has to make a simple decision like what to eat for breakfast. She cries when asked to do anything she doesn’t want to do. And lately she has been crying in front of the neighborhood kids. They ride bikes around our neighborhood with masks on and she cries whenever they have to go inside or she has to go inside. I almost feel like she cries more now than she did when she was 5.

Does anyone have tips on how to teach a child that tears aren’t the only way to express frustration, anger, and sadness? I try to console her and help her through it but I also wish I could say “you are 7 years old. Don’t cry because you can’t find your socks.”

[Anonymous]

Is she getting enough sleep?

[Anonymous]

The Magic DCUM ball says: anxiety.

Search "anxiety and CBT" in this forum and you'll pull up a lot of info.

[Anonymous]

She may just be a sensitive child who you need to guide thru being upset.
But is it possible that you tend to give in to what she wants when she cries?

[Anonymous]

why does it bother you when she cries? if you're worried she'll be teased, let it happen and let her decide if she wants to stop. crying on its own is not a bad thing. if it's keeping her from actually doing what she needs to do, then that--not the crying--is the issue.

how do you say no to her or give directions? does she have enough of a routine? does she get enough of a warning to transition activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She may just be a sensitive child who you need to guide thru being upset.
But is it possible that you tend to give in to what she wants when she cries?

OP here. We don’t give in to her when she cries. She is very sensitive and I can try to help her when she feels sad or angry. I hope that eventually she’ll process feelings better.

But I don’t know what to do when it’s crying over something ridiculous. This morning I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and offered 3 choices, one of which was cereal. She picked cereal and I said ok. When she got it, it didn’t have enough milk in it, so she burst into tears about it instead of just asking for more milk. (This is what inspired me to post this thread). It bothers me is the instinct was to cry instead of just saying something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why does it bother you when she cries? if you're worried she'll be teased, let it happen and let her decide if she wants to stop. crying on its own is not a bad thing. if it's keeping her from actually doing what she needs to do, then that--not the crying--is the issue.

how do you say no to her or give directions? does she have enough of a routine? does she get enough of a warning to transition activities?

It worries me that she will be teased. Since there is basically no school, the kids on our street are her only social outlet and I don’t want them to tease or shun her.

Her routine is not so great right now because DH and I both work FT. Im home every day and he’s home a few days a week. She has some virtual camps in the morning and then she has to entertain herself. She has lots of specific things she can do (art, etc) but does get a ton of screen time because we have to do our jobs.

Usually we just say “no” to her. She tends to try and control most situations so “no” is what she needs to hear because otherwise she tries to negotiate and that leads to a meltdown. I try to not say “no” over things that are inconsequential so it’s not like she hears no a ton of times each day. For directions I’m pretty well, direct. “Please sit down for dinner” etc. I’m polite but am clear that she is not being asked to do something. I don’t ask when I know that she can’t answer “no”. So we don’t do “do you want to brush your teeth?” We do “it’s time to get ready for bed, please go brush your teeth”.

She has a really hard time with transitions and I feel helpless for how to deal with it. She can tell time and I give her countdowns. “Bedtime in 30 mins” 20 mins, etc. I try to break things down into small chunks and put them in order that they need to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is she getting enough sleep?

Most of the time, yes. She gets 10 hours. She wakes up starving though most days. She has a hard time with dinner and I don’t force her to eat (just try a bite of everything) so she can be really angry in the mornings.

[Anonymous]

Ordinarily I just send kids to their rooms to "go take a minute and pull yourself together" but this pandemic combined with all the trump shit combined with all the protests it taking its toll. Yes, even on kids.

So I'd be sympathetic to when the other kids have to go inside and treat her like a three-year old by narrating her feelings. "Sure is a bummer everyone can't stay out playing longer, huh? You barely get to have any fun with kids and then they have to go inside."

But when she cries about not getting sweets at breakfast I'd kind of laugh about it. "Larla, this is silly - you KNOW you can't have sweets at breakfast and you do know when you CAN have sweets. Are you planning to cry about this every SINGLE morning?"

[Anonymous]

Aw poor girl. I wouldn't shame her about crying. They're just an outlet for emotions and different people feel different things.

What i do with my kid is when she's calmer, I ask her if crying is what she chooses to do. Would she rather cry or do X? X being the thing she's crying over. For example, would you rather cry or ask for more milk? Which one is more effective? Would you rather cry or ask for 10 minutes more play time? Is your goal to cry or play more? You can choose. And you can choose to stop crying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She may just be a sensitive child who you need to guide thru being upset.
But is it possible that you tend to give in to what she wants when she cries?

OP here. We don’t give in to her when she cries. She is very sensitive and I can try to help her when she feels sad or angry. I hope that eventually she’ll process feelings better.

But I don’t know what to do when it’s crying over something ridiculous. This morning I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and offered 3 choices, one of which was cereal. She picked cereal and I said ok. When she got it, it didn’t have enough milk in it, so she burst into tears about it instead of just asking for more milk. (This is what inspired me to post this thread). It bothers me is the instinct was to cry instead of just saying something.

I would mostly ignore the tears in that scenario. The kid is 7. She can get her own damn milk. "You seem upset about something. How do you think you can fix your problem?" At 7 I would definitely not be pouring milk into my child's cereal for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She may just be a sensitive child who you need to guide thru being upset.
But is it possible that you tend to give in to what she wants when she cries?

OP here. We don’t give in to her when she cries. She is very sensitive and I can try to help her when she feels sad or angry. I hope that eventually she’ll process feelings better.

But I don’t know what to do when it’s crying over something ridiculous. This morning I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and offered 3 choices, one of which was cereal. She picked cereal and I said ok. When she got it, it didn’t have enough milk in it, so she burst into tears about it instead of just asking for more milk. (This is what inspired me to post this thread). It bothers me is the instinct was to cry instead of just saying something.

I would mostly ignore the tears in that scenario. The kid is 7. She can get her own damn milk. "You seem upset about something. How do you think you can fix your problem?" At 7 I would definitely not be pouring milk into my child's cereal for them.

I agree. I would ignore as well.

[Anonymous]

Mine has been doing the same lately. I think he is really anxious about starting school again. He asked if he could catch Covid from zoom.

[Anonymous]

My 6y old is the same. And she can go from crying to laughing and back to crying in a blink of an eye. It is a joke in our family.

She also tends to start talking in a whiny voice.... we tell her to stop and start over without whining or crying.

Most of the time we just tell her to stop crying - “stop crying! This is no reason to cry”

“Stop crying! I can’t understand you when you are crying. Now, start over and explain the problem....”

And sometimes it goes like this: “stop crying or go to your bedroom- I don’t want to hear it”.

[Anonymous]

Op,

Planned ignoring:
https://www.nemours.org/content/dam/nemours/wwwv2/filebox/service/health/parenting/tips/13plannedignoring.pdf

She may grow out of it. Some people are just more prone to tears. I wouldn’t worry about it at this point. (But yeah, I could see why this would get on your last nerve.)