Reply to Highly Emotional 5 Year Old

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Reply to "Highly Emotional 5 Year Old - Where to Start"

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[quote=Anonymous]All three of my children are deeply loving and highly emotional, but all three also have diagnosed anxiety (they are 14, 11, and 5).  I can reassure that as they get older, they do figure out how to cope and manage these volatile emotions better.  I can tell you a little bit about what has helped the most.

I have to tell you 5 is a rough year in all different kinds of way in terms of development, new situations and higher expectations all the way around.  What has really helped my middle child in particular is being able to call on the school counselor when he needs her.  We are lucky to have an extremely proactive guidance counselor at our elementary school, and if your daughter is having any emotional moments she can't control at school, the counselor is a great place to start.  In elementary, this is almost all the counselors do!  They work with kids about their feelings, talk them through it, and start teaching them the skills now for how to get a handle on their emotions and come down off the ledge.  That can mean working with them individually or helping meditate a conflict between children who aren't sure how to manage.  At our school, our counselor uses a stuffed animal (a "feelings tiger") for example that the kids can use to work through how they are feeling.  Even if it's just for five minutes, my son can pop into her office, talk about it and go back to class happy and ready to get back to it.

My oldest did not finally let me seek out a psych for her until 7th grade even though she has always been high anxiety (she hides it very well by being very outgoing and having a gazillion friends and doing drama club and all other types of things).  Even her teachers didn't even really figure it out, though we knew.  The psych is great (if you want to try meds for example), but again, my daughter (who is now in a GT high school program) has found much better use from her school counselor.  When you said your daughter said she wanted to stop crying but didn't know how, it made me think of my oldest.  At 4, she cried piteously about us leaving her at a class, even though we were behind a curtain in the next room.  She desperately wanted to be able to do it, but just couldn't.  That was the anxiety.  Now she pushes herself all the time to go beyond the boundaries her anxiety creates for her, and she is doing really, really well.  But she would give anything not to have the anxiety in the first place.  But having someone "on site" who can be there for her at a moment's notice is really valuable.  One accommodation my oldest gets at school is a "flash pass," which means if she is getting upset or anxious, she is free to get up and leave the room no questions asked to go to her counselor.

Living it right now with my own 5 year old, and on that count, I'll just send you lots of virtual hugs!  HTH[/quote]

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