Reply to 5 year old saying his tummy hurts.

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[quote=Anonymous]He may not be able to totally connect that he's worried about anything yet. If you don't find a physical cause, then I would guess it is a little bit of nervous belly and you may be able to start helping him make those connections. Ask open ended questions to try to learn more about his days and try to go a little deeper each time. You may start to find some things through this exploration - "the teacher is always asking me to sit down" "I felt tired in the afternoon" - if you are able to get to some of these things then you can verbalize - "sometimes when we feel overwhelmed, we feel things in our body - sometimes I feel little butterflies in my belly, I wonder if when your belly hurts you might be feeling a little worried." Keep making these connections for him and helping him link how his emotions are connected to his body. This is a good skill no matter what. Then you can help with things he can do when he feels those feelings in his body (practice deep breaths, you could look up progressive muscle relaxation scripts for kids, or like others have said unstructured outdoor play after school would probably do wonders).

Often parents feel like it can't be anxiety because they say my kid doesn't seem anxious, or isn't an anxious kid. But remember that it's normal for us ALL to feel emotions in our body at different times. It doesn't necessarily mean we have an anxiety disorder. When we are extra stressed are work, most of us have physical symptoms. But we may also seem fine to others, because generally we are. They usually dissipate when the stressors are removed or when we take care of ourselves and if they don't impact our daily functioning it's just normal stress/nervousness not a disorder. So think of it more like normal responses to stress that you want to help him learn how to cope with. [/quote]

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