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[quote=Anonymous]I am putting my 7 year old in therapy for extreme anxiety. Appointments don't begin until the end of this month. So, while we wait, I would sincerely love to hear your strategies for helping your anxious child.

He's in first grade. He makes friends easily. Does great at school. Transitions well. Is emotionally even-keeled.

He really really struggles with performance-based situations, even minor ones. An example would be last night. I took him to the indoor pool (it is a huge pool, which is part of the problem) for a small swim lesson (not swim team), and while he entered the pool building willingly, happily, and excited about swim class,  he literally tried to flee out of the building and then he started sucking his thumb, which he has never done in his life, once they asked him to go to his lane and swim with the teacher. He is not scared of water. He is scared of people/performing/uncertainty. The pool is huge (30 lanes), and it was full of kids. It was way too much for him, and he freaked. He does the same with swim team (which we are pulling him off of). He does the same in many other situations where there are too many people or too much uncertainty, or someone is asking him to do something he is not sure he can do or something is hard for him and he is being watched (like during a lesson). He also cannot do small things like ask a pool staff person for a kickboard to borrow. You can see a metaphorical door shut in his face when you ask him to do something small like that, and he shuts down completely.

HE also says he has a tummy ache almost every day before school, which I bet is related to anxiety. He loves school though, so he is able to go without an issue.

I need your tips! We do not yell, scold, shame, punish, or get angry. We give him space, we model situations, we practice skits, we bring him to new places before a lesson actually begins, we talk through situations, we talk about anxiety and how it makes him feel. [/quote]

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