Reply to Anxiety in 11yo

Forum Index » Elementary School-Aged Kids

Reply to "Anxiety in 11yo"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My daughter has been worrying about death and being alone since she was 7. She is the youngest of two, and her biggest fear is the rest of us dying and leaving her alone. [b]She doesn’t want her own family one day, so when we’re gone, she’ll really be by herself. [/b]She has gone so far as to ask me if it’s ok to kill herself in that situation. I tried telling her circumstances change, she’ll have friends/other family members, she might want a family after all, she’ll be ready to be independent by then, it’s a future problem, etc.  I can’t seem to say anything to assure her because she seems to have valid points. She cries a lot about this. I don’t know what to do. [/quote]

This is not a thought pattern that is going to be disrupted by reasoning with her. She needs tools for managing the emotional state of being anxious and for helping her put down "sticky thoughts" like this one that are giving her grief. In fact, for people with obsessive thinking patterns related to anxiety, things that seem like "reassurance" often only make the patterns worse.

You are going to have to stop engaging with her on the specifics of this worry (and for Pete's sake deal with whatever issues there are in your own thinking that lead you to say things like the bolded above--not helpful). [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics