Reply to How to deal with an anxious and sensitive child?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "How to deal with an anxious and sensitive child?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP this piece on child anxiety came out on NPR today.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/15/711213752/for-kids-with-anxiety-parents-learn-to-let-them-face-their-fears

You should search the archives of the Special Needs forum for more information from parents who are farther down the road than you are.  [/quote]

I was going to recommend that too! I listened to that this morning.

I hope this doesn't get moved to the special needs forum. I don't think it's that severe and I think you'll get more responses here. My DD is similar and I too am searching for ways to help her. We've been reading a lot of books on anxiety. I believe that my DD is more sensitive than us and DH and I need to give her what she's missing to help her feel good inside (Maybe the way I always felt lonely my entire childhood). Similar to how people approach relating to others' 5 love languages. When she's very anxious and overwhelmed, we ask her if she needs a hug. The first few times it felt forced (Really? A hug when she's grumpy and feeling overwhelmed?) but then it worked so well. It helps her calm down and realize we're there to help her. Her behavior has really turned around. We also have been talking through things a lot before they happen and then after they happen and weren't as awful as she thought. [/quote]

My child is 7. We've been working with a school based counselor and using the method described in the article. It's been really amazing for my daughter. In 6 months she's gone from multiple crying, shaking anxiety attacks each day, to maybe one a month that takes her a half hour to recover from. And, what I thought was just a high strung personality has really toned down-less whining, less worrying, less social conflict. It's amazing and I wish we had started addressing it sooner.[/quote]

Can you talk more about the method? I did listen to the news article too [/quote]

We completely stopped reassuring. Reassurance was soothing her for a minute but then she just needed another hit so it was making her more anxious. Instead of saying "don't worry" "it's okay" "you'll be fine" we say "you sound worried, what are you worried about?" "do you feel nervous? why?" "Well, if that happened what would happen next? what would you do?" "that sounds hard, what do you think you can do to feel better" So, really helping her slowly build the tools to self-soothe and to talk herself down when she starts catastrophizing. [/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