Anybody on here deal with Anxiety?

[Agility Customs]

So lately my 8 year old daughter has started showing signs of having crippling anxiety, Anybody on here ever deal with anxiety in kids? If so please send me a PM or post up I have some questions and I am honestly open to suggestions on how to deal with. She is currently seeing a therapist once a week but beyond that we are kind of just playing along and being overly patient. Although its been going on long enough and I feel our over leniancy is just enabling her at this point..... I am open to anything.

I have always been a suck it up and get the hell over it kind of person so I am having a hard time relating to her situation which is one reason I feel like I have been so Lenient up to this point.

 

[nnnnnate]

Is your daughters anxiety about anything in particular or general? My nephew was struggling with it for a long while too but seems to have gotten significantly better through therapy. Its hard to relate when its something you haven't dealt with but trying is important which I'm sure you understand. I deal with anxiety and my wife is an educational psychologist who tries to helps kids learn coping mechanisms for this.

 

[Agility Customs]

Is your daughters anxiety about anything in particular or general? My nephew was struggling with it for a long while too but seems to have gotten significantly better through therapy. Its hard to relate when its something you haven't dealt with but trying is important which I'm sure you understand. I deal with anxiety and my wife is an educational psychologist who tries to helps kids learn coping mechanisms for this.

Lately she cant seem to make a full day at school without just having a major come apart. Up until this point School has always been her favorite thing in the whole world and she is advanced in nearly subject. She goes to a charter school so they dont stay in one room all day like most elementary schools. She has a total of 5 teachers. When she started this school year everything was fine until about 2-3 weeks in and then the problems we are currently dealing with surfaced.

 

[nnnnnate]

Since she is at a charter school that means she likely doesn't have access to an ed psych in school, correct? Where does she go when she has the come aparts? Or who helps her when they arise?

In my case anxiety is something that fluctuates throughout the day and week. The unknowns that can come up at work or stress from deadlines tend to cause my flair ups. I obviously don't know whats causing the anxiety for your daughter but the constant change in school *might* contribute to that. Being with different teachers throughout the day and potentially the change in expectations from each teacher is something to possibly consider.

 

[mesha]

Real anxiety, like what your daughter is going through, is a terrible thing to deal with. One of the hardest parts is people that don't have anxiety can't "see" the problem so they have a hard time understanding. It is great that you and Heather are trying to be supportive. It is also amazing that you have her in therapy. If nothing else she will know her parents take her problems seriously and care about her.

I have close family members that deal with horrible anxiety. The thing that helps the most is a solid reliable support structure. It sounds like you are building that for your daughter. Children with anxiety often struggle with self confidence as well. It takes a lot of positive mentoring and a lot of effort on the part of the people involved in the support structure to help kid realize success in things they did not know they could succeed at. In the words you are using to praise her, yourself, others, focus on the effort portion rather than the end result. Anxious people see their actions as black or white. Either they were 100 percent perfect at something or they 100 percent failed. If she is struggling with a spelling test praise her for the hard work she put in studying. Even if she isn't struggling and gets an A. The words you chose can matter you might say, "you are so smart! You got 10/10". Instead, you could say, "Wow, look at the hard work you put into that spelling test. It shows me that when you practice something you can get it". It sounds kind of silly and I am NOT saying everyone should get a medal kind of thing. I am just saying she might need help realizing that her effort directly relate to the outcome. 8 year old little people are still learning how the world works.

I would also recommend some role playing and mental imagery. Identify some things she is struggling with and act it out with her. If she is worried about returning a book to the librarian at school have her return it to you or Heather. Talk her through steps of things she is worried about. When you or a family member is going through a decision it could be beneficial to share in the process with your daughter. I don't want to go to work today, but here is how I am dealing with it kind of thing. Then you can share how the day worked out and the things you were worried about got taken care of.

It is likely that her anxiety will follow her through the rest of her life, but with a good support system it will not be debilitating. She can absolutely be happy, and handle it.

 

[rholbrook]

I had a child with severe anxiety, you would never know it now but we had a great therapist that really helped out, that along with some medication. Everyone thinks that medication is evil and means they are nuts but the reality is sometime our neurons just dont' link the way they should and if medication can help that, then do it and make sure they stay on it. Anxiety is real and can be crippling as you have seen in her case. If you need the doctors and therapists names I would be more than happy to provide them to you. The Therapist we used was amazing for helping them logically think through the situations that caused the anxiety. Helped them rationalize the situation but we couldn't have my child sneak out of school to run home 3 miles during the day.

 

[Agility Customs]

Since she is at a charter school that means she likely doesn't have access to an ed psych in school, correct? Where does she go when she has the come aparts? Or who helps her when they arise?

In my case anxiety is something that fluctuates throughout the day and week. The unknowns that can come up at work or stress from deadlines tend to cause my flair ups. I obviously don't know whats causing the anxiety for your daughter but the constant change in school *might* contribute to that. Being with different teachers throughout the day and potentially the change in expectations from each teacher is something to possibly consider.

We live in small town Tooele and luckily we have personnal relationships with alot of the teachers outside of school so they have been helping Brooklyn and accomodating her needs even just letting her call home without a trip to the office (she will just use there cell phone) Generally when she has an issue she will call my wife and Heather can calm her down. Sometimes she calls 3 times per day other days its only once.

 

[Greg]

I deal with anxiety indirectly... my wife has had some pretty bad anxiety attacks in the past. She is on a low-dose medication that will probably end up being long term, at this point. In the past, she would get a prescription, stay on it for several months then when she felt better, she'd quit taking it. Our current doctor told her there is nothing wrong with being on a low-dose medication permanently.

Her last anxiety attack was pretty bad, I truly feared for her health. We had to make a pretty big effort to get her back to the doctor and on a prescription, then focus on getting her healthy again. I do my best to keep things pretty mellow and not cause any issues... our lives are pretty tame. I don't know that she has had any anxiety attacks due to me... I sure hope not, at least!

 

[xjtony]

With my wife part of the challenge for me has been realizing that she really can't help having anxiety about stuff. She even realizes that sometimes the things that send her over the edge are not a big deal, but she still can't help it. Learning how to deal with it without pushing her to "just calm down" has taken time and learning on my part

 

[rholbrook]

I deal with anxiety indirectly... my wife has had some pretty bad anxiety attacks in the past. She is on a low-dose medication that will probably end up being long term, at this point. In the past, she would get a prescription, stay on it for several months then when she felt better, she'd quit taking it. Our current doctor told her there is nothing wrong with being on a low-dose medication permanently.

Her last anxiety attack was pretty bad, I truly feared for her health. We had to make a pretty big effort to get her back to the doctor and on a prescription, then focus on getting her healthy again. I do my best to keep things pretty mellow and not cause any issues... our lives are pretty tame. I don't know that she has had any anxiety attacks due to me... I sure hope not, at least!

This is one of the biggest problems. Just because you feel better doesn't mean the problem left. You need to make sure she stays on the medicine always. That is the reason she is feeling better. It takes the medicine to make that happen, remove the medicine and the problem is back. Its not an antibiotic where you take it for a week or so and then its all good. Make her stay on it permanently. It doesn't mean she is crazy, it just means something is not connected correctly and the medicine helps in reconnecting it.

 

[rholbrook]

We live in small town Tooele and luckily we have personnal relationships with alot of the teachers outside of school so they have been helping Brooklyn and accomodating her needs even just letting her call home without a trip to the office (she will just use there cell phone) Generally when she has an issue she will call my wife and Heather can calm her down. Sometimes she calls 3 times per day other days its only once.

Something we used for a bit was we sent a picture of mom and dad that my child could keep in their pocket that they could look at if they needed and if it was really bad, then use the phone call as a secondary thing.

 

[Greg]

This is one of the biggest problems. Just because you feel better doesn't mean the problem left. You need to make sure she stays on the medicine always. That is the reason she is feeling better. It takes the medicine to make that happen, remove the medicine and the problem is back. Its not an antibiotic where you take it for a week or so and then its all good. Make her stay on it permanently. It doesn't mean she is crazy, it just means something is not connected correctly and the medicine helps in reconnecting it.

Yep, I know! It's taken awhile for us both to figure that out.... she is pretty good these days. I made her set a nightly reminder on her phone to take her meds. We joke about it....

 

[nnnnnate]

I take meds for anxiety/depression and ADHD. I've been taking them for about 6 years and don't see myself ever not taking them in the future. My mood and mental state is very different when I miss doses. My anxiety rears its head in fixation. Could be something simple like "why didn't she text me back, or he meant X when he said Y and really isn't happy with Z.... I never fixate on the good things, just how something could be construed negatively. With the meds I'm able to logically think and analyze situations where without them I automatically go to everything is on fire and I'm 2 seconds from imploding myself. I struggled A LOT from 18-28 because of this. Now at 34 I feel like I am finally myself and that I have pretty good coping mechanisms in place to keep me grounded.

I'm so sorry that your daughter is dealing with this. I hope and pray that my son (3) will never have to deal with the issues I face but feel a small amount of comfort knowing that I have figured out a way to cope with them and hopefully would be able to help him in some way. Best of luck and kudos to you and your wife for not ignoring it and recognizing it in the first place.

 

[glockman]

School is a huge source of anxiety. I had such bad anxiety that I just did not want to go to school ever. I pretty much dropped out of high school because I hated it so bad, even though I loved learning. If there is one thing that is causing your daughter anxiety, like peers or social pressures it is very helpful to have a therapist that understands how to incrementally expose her to those things.

If you have a hard time understanding it, try listening to some of Jordan Peterson's Youtube videos about anxiety. He is extremely intelligent and has thousands of hours as a clinical psychologist. Many of his speeches on depression and anxiety were eye opening to me.

 

[Asbjorn]

Anxiety is a tough one, something I have been living with my entire life. There’s been a lot of good advice shared and I applaud you for recognizing it’s not something you can just “get over”. I too have that general “get over it” mentality about life, but learned the hard way when I tried to apply it to my own situation. It only led me to a pretty dark place and nearly got the best of me.

When I was in 4th grade (I’m now in my 30’s) I experienced exactly what your daughter is going through. I’m not sure what the root of the problem was, but eventually a classroom/teacher change seemed to do the trick for me. For months my parents tried everything - from dragging me into school, calling the police to talk to me about truancy, to therapy, to meds. It sounds like your daughters situation in school is a bit different as she is switching teachers/classrooms throughout the day. To me, that’s something that would trigger some anxiety in me as I tend to strive in a consistent environment with set routines.

Some things that currently help with my anxiety:

-Meds. As said before, they aren’t as bad as some may think. My wife and I are pretty anti-pharma but I’ve come to accept that it’s just something I have to do.

-Look up “grounding techniques”. There are a ton of them out there, and you may find that one of them works great for your daughter when she starts to feel anxious.

-Having a strong support system is key. Sometimes you just need someone to help you talk through something and ease the uncertainty.

-Patience. Meds take time to work (if you choose to try that route) and it’s easy to get frustrated when you don’t understand why someone would be anxious about something that doesn’t exist or isn’t actually a big deal. I got very angry with myself many times over this with my own situation.

I’ve never openly talked about my experiences like this, but oddly it seems easier from the security of my keyboard among many of you I have never met. Your daughters situation hit close to home and if anything I shared is useful then it’s worth any embarrassment I might feel. Which leads me to my last point, please make sure your daughter doesn’t get the impression that this is something she should be ashamed about or needs to hide. The stigma surrounding mental health is still quite a challenge and something I hope will change for future generations.

 

[Jesser04]

My son deals with sensory issues he is in 1st grade he went to a charter for kindergarten and hate school. We switched him to the school that is in our boundaries and we’ve seen a huge improvement he enjoys school now. It sound weird but something as simple as riding the bus with kids in the neighborhood has made his day more enjoyable he sees familiar faces and it makes him more comfortable.

 

[ID Bronco]

My 13 year old daughter started having these very similar issues last year. It was nearly all school related, and it was near the end of the year so we kind of worked through it, then no issues all summer. About a month before school started we went to a doctor and explained what it was like, dreading going to school, calling me in total panic mode, coming home, all of it. Anyway, they gave her some medication and it took a little while to get the dosage correct, but that with her texting me at lunch has made it 100% better. We give the praise, support and she is happy and healthy once again. It's tough to see, but know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It was and is really hard for me to understand it, but it doesn't matter if I do. I can see it's real, and when the medication helps so much, it's easier for her to understand she's not broken, she just has a chemical problem. If this would have been one of my boys, I might not have been as kind about it. I hope not, but I may have told them to suck it up more. Don't let that happen. It's amazing how many of us have to deal with this in some way, and never knew it. Good luck. Oh, making sure they know they have self worth that comes from God, not from acceptance of other people is very helpful too. At leas it has been for her.