Reply to 15 yo girl had a meltdown about buying something herself

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'd have taken the money back and said, "Fine, then don't get any."  Kids need to push through difficult feelings sometimes, or suffer the consequences. [/quote]

When this is happening with a 15 yr old, a parent needs to actually parent their child and deal with the problem, not be a jerk about it.  Obviously her dd needs real help, not a parent who can't be bothered to their job. [/quote]

As the parent of a younger kid with anxiety, yes it sounds like DD15 does need professional help AND the job of the parent of a kid with anxiety is often tough love. It's really tough when you have a kid screaming "Don't go, I'm scared you are going to die!" to say "I know you feel worried, how are you going to help yourself calm down because you are going to school now."[/quote]

Yes, but that poster was saying to just say, fine, don't get any as though that is it. IT IS NOT IT. As you know, if you have a kid who has anxiety.  Just being an ass is not doing the job.  Anxiety causes people to refuse to do things that they very much want to do ANYWAY so just leaving them out of those things and expecting that to help them is ridiculous.  It is not doing the job as a parent. It is ignoring the situation. [/quote]

We may be saying the same thing. What I would do in that situation. Would be to take a couple minutes to try and get my kid to focus on the source of her anxiety and where she was feeling it in her body. If she wasn't willing to do that or couldn't work through the fear to get the cookies within a short amount of time, I would say with empathy and firmness. I'm sorry you are feeling so worried about this. Give me the money back and you can try it again the next time we come to the store. And then we would go home without cookies. As her counselor explained it me, my job is to let my kid feel uncomfortable, so she can build the mechanisms she needs to self soothe. If I solve her problems, she just gets more anxious because she doesn't have to follow the path of anxiety and get through it. I would never shame her, but I will point out that if she doesn't push herself she will miss out. And this approach has really worked for her.[/quote]

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