Support Thread for Mamas of Kids with Anxiety

[yentroc]

I'd love to find other mamas who's LO's have issues with anxiety. Dd (5.5yo) has been having issues with anxiety in some form for years and seems to be getting worse.

We're currently looking for a new therapist.

Parenting her has been such a challenge for me. It takes so much patience, and most of the time I feel like I'm not supporting her in the best way that I can.

Is there anyone else out there to offer support?

[mama2cal&darby]

I have an almost 6yo boy who also suffers from anxiety. He has actually been pretty good lately- although starting grade 1 was bumpy. My DS's anxiety may not be as pronounced as you DD's. I would be interested in sharing journeys.

[yentroc]

Originally Posted by mama2cal&darby

I have an almost 6yo boy who also suffers from anxiety. He has actually been pretty good lately- although starting grade 1 was bumpy. My DS's anxiety may not be as pronounced as you DD's. I would be interested in sharing journeys.

Hi mama!

Dd's anxiety started in the form of severe separation anxiety that just never got better after 18mo. I started back to work when she was 18 mo, (very, very part time). She cried and panicked every.single.time I left starting then, no matter who I left her with (including daddy). She's been in the same small Montessori school (this is her Kindergarten yr) for 3 yrs and still panics at drop off every day.

She has separation anxiety at night even though she slept in our room until she was almost 5. Every night is a battle. Even when she was in our room.

Now that she's a little older and aware of more things, she's starting to get anxiety about other kids noticing her, or laughing at her.

There's more, but I"ll stop here for now.

It's heartbreaking for me to watch her go through this, she has a great, secure loving family... I just wish she could feel that. And she's such a bright little ray of sunshine, I hate to see her suffer.

It's exhausting to have the battles over everything, every day.

Anyway, thanks for reading...

I would love to hear some suggestions for coping (for you and your ds) that you've used.

We got some tools to use with dd in therapy this summer and they seemed to help, but I just didn't jive with the therapist, so we're looking for a new one.

[Starflower]

We're dealing with anxiety with some OCD-type behavior over here. I'll try to post soon when I have more time.

[xzaviers_mama]

My ds is 6, and in 1st grade now. He started having some anxiety type issues when he was about 3. It started with a constant throat clearing "tic". Over the years, that has come and gone... and he also did a head shaking thing for a while.

This year at school has been very trying for all of us. Most mornings he does totally fine, and heads off to school with no issues.... but 7 times this year (so far), he has had major meltdowns in the morning, and we cannot get him to go to school. My husband will drive him to school, and offer to walk him to class... but can't even get him to get out of the car. So far, we cannot figure out what triggers these anxiety attacks, but once they start, it's completely impossible to reason with him.

I have a meeting with his teacher and the school counselor in the morning, so hopefully we can figure out a way to work with him. It's very frustrating to talk to people who say things like "well, he just needs to know it isn't an option to stay home from school." They are clearly not there dealing with him... urgh...

[Harper]

I also have a kid that struggles with anxiety. My dd is 7 and her anxiety is mostly around getting sick with some separation anxiety thrown in. We started with a new therapist in August and she has been 100 times better. You know that look of fear or anxiety in their eyes? The way that they carry themselves that you can see but others can't? Where you can tell that they aren't floating through their world happy and content? Almost completely gone. It's amazing. Now, the therapist hasn't really even started to work with her on the anxiety. She has mostly been working to establish trust so that when she does start to push her on the anxiety stuff, my dd will feel safe. But it's amazing how just the process of getting help has made my dd feel so much stronger.

So the therapy is bankrupting us but so far it's been worth it. It's mostly play therapy thus far. We went to a CBT specialist and it just wasn't for us. I can see where CBT has it's place but dd needed way more attention then just that.

Finding tools is just so hard because the anxiety isn't really based in reality, you know? I do think there is something to be said for pushing kids to do things that they are anxious about--so that you are not playing into their fear that there is somethiing to be afraid of. I think working on breathing exercises is really important so that when they are in the moment of anxiety they have a breating practice that will help them calm down. For dd it was taking 10 very deep breaths and doing it over and over until she was calmer.

Distracting physical activity can be really helping. For example, going outside and playing catch. It gets them focused on other things and gets their physical strength/attention on something else besides the adrennilan rush.

Also, breaking down the steps to do whatever it is that they are afraid of (like going to school) into manageable steps can be helpful, so that the goal is to get dressed, put on shoes, get in the car, walk up the steps instead of "go to school."

All of those things helped us to get through the "battle" but I was looking for something that would help us get through the "war" and I think that our therapist is goign to be able to help wth that. She's not going to be able to make the anxiety go away but I'm hoping we can help dd develop lifelong tools to deal with it.

[yentroc]

Thanks for all your replies...

We haven't had full out refusal to go to school but we have a meltdown every.single.morning. Every day without fail, there will be tears and panic before school. Dd is in Kindergarten but at the same Montessori school that she went to for the past two years. Same classroom, same teachers. Totally safe place for her. Yet... she's panicked every single day. It's so hard for me to not get frustrated, but like Harper said, the anxiety is not based in reality. She asks the same questions repeatedly all morning, "Will I have to poop at school? What if I get too hot? How long will school be? Will it go fast?" Over and over and over and over and over. I've started telling her that my answers will not change and that me answering her doesn't make her feel better, and that she knows the answer. So now she's asking, "Is the answer yes Mommy? Is it yes?" over and over and over and over and over. So exhausting for both of us.

We tried one session of play therapy a few years ago, and I wasn't sure it was the right fit for us. Maybe it was just the therapist? Dd was playing with some animals in a sandbox and I felt like the therapist was over analyzing everything she was doing (like, see how the shark is going after the dog? That means she's afraid of something...)

Then this summer we did a few sessions with a therapist who uses CBT which seems to sort of work with dd. We named her worry, "Little Worry Bug" and we all talk to Little Worry Bug and tell her that she doesn't tell the truth, tries to get dd to worry, etc. Dd is only 5.5, and very imaginative, so it works for now, but she is really compassionate too and is now worried that Little Worry Bug will die if we ignore her...

[Smithie]

My ds is 6.5 and was DXed with ADHD with mild anxiety last year - after causing such a horrible scene at his Consecration that I had to take him off the bimah (stage? altar? pulpit? I forget what they call it in churches).

I know that the two things play off each other, but seriously, the trouble caused by the ADHD is nothing compared to the constant pain and humiliation of the anxiety. He could not succeed in preschool. He is homeschooled (and doing great academically, and I love homeschooling and plan to continue with all my kids, but he fact remains that if something happened and I could no longer do it he would be in HUGE trouble and that worries me). Occupational therapy helped a bit (but all his therapy peers had ASD - that is how disabling this "mild" anxiety is). The ASD kids went off to public school where their continuing therapy is covered, and DS and I are continuing to put on foot in front of the other with Religious school, a co-op, zoo class, basketball just starting up now...

Things are better than they were a year ago, truly. But I didn't understand the saying "hell is other people" until I found myself parenting a kid with anxiety To watch his peers shrink away from him kills me inside. Again, it's gotten better, but his anxiety disorder is the single most horrible thing that I've ever had to face, and as far as I can tell, he feels the same way. It's like a demon takes over his brain (his words). We've tried medications, but he was a total zombie - still anxious I think, but chemically restrained from acting on it. The plan right now is to keep on keeping on, and hope that the improvement we've seen in the past year continues.

Wow. This is a depressing post. But anyhow, OP, you are not alone.

[Harper]

Originally Posted by yentroc

Thanks for all your replies...

We haven't had full out refusal to go to school but we have a meltdown every.single.morning. Every day without fail, there will be tears and panic before school. Dd is in Kindergarten but at the same Montessori school that she went to for the past two years. Same classroom, same teachers. Totally safe place for her. Yet... she's panicked every single day. It's so hard for me to not get frustrated, but like Harper said, the anxiety is not based in reality. She asks the same questions repeatedly all morning, "Will I have to poop at school? What if I get too hot? How long will school be? Will it go fast?" Over and over and over and over and over. I've started telling her that my answers will not change and that me answering her doesn't make her feel better, and that she knows the answer. So now she's asking, "Is the answer yes Mommy? Is it yes?" over and over and over and over and over. So exhausting for both of us.

We tried one session of play therapy a few years ago, and I wasn't sure it was the right fit for us. Maybe it was just the therapist? Dd was playing with some animals in a sandbox and I felt like the therapist was over analyzing everything she was doing (like, see how the shark is going after the dog? That means she's afraid of something...)

Then this summer we did a few sessions with a therapist who uses CBT which seems to sort of work with dd. We named her worry, "Little Worry Bug" and we all talk to Little Worry Bug and tell her that she doesn't tell the truth, tries to get dd to worry, etc. Dd is only 5.5, and very imaginative, so it works for now, but she is really compassionate too and is now worried that Little Worry Bug will die if we ignore her...

Sounds exactly like my dd. Exactly. What we found with the CBT specialist that we saw was that it was like a factory. She wasn't interested in dd or any of us at all. She just wanted to give us the tools (like those listed above) and send us on our way. What we ended up with was a kid that said "Dumb is telling me I am going to get sick" instead of "Am I going to get sick." And neither of those things were fruitful. We had a bit of a honeymoon after the first two appointments but then it all just came flooding back and I didn't like the CBT therapist at all so we stopped going.

Our new therapist really isn't doing that kind of analysis--at least not out loud! We talk for part of the session and then they play. She probably had about six session with dd before we saw her alone. She definitely picked up things from her play but it wasn't overanalytical. It all made perfect sense to me. We've been seeing the new therapist pretty regularly since August and the questions have completely stopped. So has the fear of going to school.

One of the things that we did about the constant questions that had short term success was ignoring them completely. I would make a statement that covered the worried and then tell her that I wasn't going to answer. When the questions came, I changed the subject and instead said something like "Time to put your shoes on." It would definitely work some of the time. We would just keep moving forward and moving forward and trying to leave her "worry brain" behind. But, for us, these little games were not long term solutions and that's what we are hoping to get from our new therapist.

[Harper]

Originally Posted by Smithie

My ds is 6.5 and was DXed with ADHD with mild anxiety last year - after causing such a horrible scene at his Consecration that I had to take him off the bimah (stage? altar? pulpit? I forget what they call it in churches).

I know that the two things play off each other, but seriously, the trouble caused by the ADHD is nothing compared to the constant pain and humiliation of the anxiety. He could not succeed in preschool. He is homeschooled (and doing great academically, and I love homeschooling and plan to continue with all my kids, but he fact remains that if something happened and I could no longer do it he would be in HUGE trouble and that worries me). Occupational therapy helped a bit (but all his therapy peers had ASD - that is how disabling this "mild" anxiety is). The ASD kids went off to public school where their continuing therapy is covered, and DS and I are continuing to put on foot in front of the other with Religious school, a co-op, zoo class, basketball just starting up now...

Things are better than they were a year ago, truly. But I didn't understand the saying "hell is other people" until I found myself parenting a kid with anxiety To watch his peers shrink away from him kills me inside. Again, it's gotten better, but his anxiety disorder is the single most horrible thing that I've ever had to face, and as far as I can tell, he feels the same way. It's like a demon takes over his brain (his words). We've tried medications, but he was a total zombie - still anxious I think, but chemically restrained from acting on it. The plan right now is to keep on keeping on, and hope that the improvement we've seen in the past year continues.

Wow. This is a depressing post. But anyhow, OP, you are not alone.

Wow. That sounds much worse then just a "mild" anxiety. I hope you continue to see improvements. There are definitely kids that outgrow it. My nephew had serious anxiety issues when he was my dd's age and he outgrew them without professional intervention. I just couldn't wait and i was too afraid that they woudl get worse instead of better. We're all doing the best that we can, you know?

[The4OfUs]

Originally Posted by yentroc

It's heartbreaking for me to watch her go through this, she has a great, secure loving family... I just wish she could feel that. And she's such a bright little ray of sunshine, I hate to see her suffer.

I feel this way about my son. He holds it together at school, and has milder anxiety than others posting here about their kiddos in that he doesn't have panic attacks or anything, his is like a constant low level anxiety about things. He did have a puking phobia we sent him to play therapy for that he worked through, but then it seemed like he wasn't getting much out of the play therapy so we stopped and he's been acting the same since we stopped and hasn't said yes when I ask if he wants to go back, so for now he's not going. He has pretty noticable (at least at home - out in public and in school, he keeps it under the surface and then lets it all out when he's safe here) performance anxiety/perfectionism, and worries a lot about whether his friends like him or not - which seems so crazy to us around him ebcause he's such a great kid. To adults who meet him he is a bright, outgoing, kind, helpful kid who lights up a room; to friends he's the good guy who will help them out if they need it and makes them laugh, and is smart and knows stuff... but inside he's like this little tortured sould who never feels like he's good enough.

His impossibly high standards for himself (both academically and socially) were not imposed by us...though I have learned through a lot of reading I've done that my husband's and my mild perfectionism may have subconsciously dug its way into his brain, even though we have always been supportive and positive of his efforts, we often will comment about how things we do aren't quite the way we wanted them, or when he was littler and would try and get frustrated over doing something, we'd then just do it to get it done, so while we didn't browbeat him and break his spirit by putting him down or having too high standards for him *ourselves*, the way we framed our own lives and experiences may have given him the model for being hard on himself.

The funny thing is, both DH and I are pretty hard on ourselves, but I have a pretty good self esteem in general, and DH does not. I have NO idea how I got the contradiction of being a perfectionist but thinking that overall I'm a prety damn good person. I just wish I could figure it out so I could help my son. All the 'traditional' ways to help kids like this do NOT work with him, he sees right through the tricks and refuses to participate in any 'make mistakes' exercises, etc. His play therapist said that he was really advanced in perceiving other people's emotions and he "just gets it" ("it" being things from social nuances to advanced vocabulary, etc.), which is a comment I've heard from numerous people. Others have called him 'an old soul', and sometimes I fele like that describes him, BUT the torture for him comes from having that old soul in a young/very energetic body with a young brain that is still immature and developing and trying to work all this contradiction out.

[yentroc]

Originally Posted by The4OfUs

The funny thing is, both DH and I are pretty hard on ourselves, but I have a pretty good self esteem in general, and DH does not. I have NO idea how I got the contradiction of being a perfectionist but thinking that overall I'm a prety damn good person. I just wish I could figure it out so I could help my son. All the 'traditional' ways to help kids like this do NOT work with him, he sees right through the tricks and refuses to participate in any 'make mistakes' exercises, etc. His play therapist said that he was really advanced in perceiving other people's emotions and he "just gets it" ("it" being things from social nuances to advanced vocabulary, etc.), which is a comment I've heard from numerous people. Others have called him 'an old soul', and sometimes I fele like that describes him, BUT the torture for him comes from having that old soul in a young/very energetic body with a young brain that is still immature and developing and trying to work all this contradiction out.

Have you read The Highly Sensitive Child? I'm reading it right now and it is my daughter exactly. Sounds like your DS fits the description too.

I'm a perfectionist as well and it's caused me a lot of pain and suffering in my life and I hate seeing my dd going through the same thing.

[almadianna]

Hello all.

I have moved this over to Special Needs Parenting where I think that you will find a lot more support.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[beachcomber]

I think I need to pick up a copy of The Highly Sensitive Child.

My DD (nearly 5) has had severe separation anxiety since about 7 months old. It's slowly gotten better over the past year. For her first 2 years at preschool there were tears at every drop-off and refusals to go to school. Yet when I asked her after class she always said she had fun. I learned over time not to give her too much time to think about upcoming partings or events. On days when we have preschool or when her interventionist comes here, I keep her busy. She knows she has these things but doesn't get much time to over-think it. The more idle time she has to think the more she worries about things.

Even then, she still tells me many times a day how much she misses her dad who has gone to work. Or asks to see her Nana who is here almost daily and sometimes just needs a break from the intensity. It's hard to really understand that for her, living in the present the way she does and not really being able to take experience from one context to another, that she is literally never 100% sure that we'll come back when we leave her at school, at therapy, etc. Even though she's done it hundreds of times and we've ALWAYS come to get her, she's just never 100% sure. I've learned to accept that right now this is who she is. This little girl living in the present with only a dim understanding of the future needs a level of reassurance most kids just don't need.

Things that have helped our partings or transitions:
- goodbye ritual that is always the same. Based on "The Kissing Hand" story, I kiss her hand and she kisses mine and we literally pocket our kisses.
- in the past I've given her a "precious" item of mine to hold for the time we're apart asking her to look after it until I come back to get it
- constant verbal reassurance asking her what happened last time we went to X or to school. Did I come back? Do I always come back? etc
- physical play before the event. Keeping her active and busy helps her release some of that pent-up worry energy

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

Originally Posted by The4OfUs

I feel this way about my son. He holds it together at school, and has milder anxiety than others posting here about their kiddos in that he doesn't have panic attacks or anything, his is like a constant low level anxiety about things. He did have a puking phobia we sent him to play therapy for that he worked through, but then it seemed like he wasn't getting much out of the play therapy so we stopped and he's been acting the same since we stopped and hasn't said yes when I ask if he wants to go back, so for now he's not going. He has pretty noticable (at least at home - out in public and in school, he keeps it under the surface and then lets it all out when he's safe here) performance anxiety/perfectionism, and worries a lot about whether his friends like him or not - which seems so crazy to us around him ebcause he's such a great kid. To adults who meet him he is a bright, outgoing, kind, helpful kid who lights up a room; to friends he's the good guy who will help them out if they need it and makes them laugh, and is smart and knows stuff... but inside he's like this little tortured sould who never feels like he's good enough.

His impossibly high standards for himself (both academically and socially) were not imposed by us...though I have learned through a lot of reading I've done that my husband's and my mild perfectionism may have subconsciously dug its way into his brain, even though we have always been supportive and positive of his efforts, we often will comment about how things we do aren't quite the way we wanted them, or when he was littler and would try and get frustrated over doing something, we'd then just do it to get it done, so while we didn't browbeat him and break his spirit by putting him down or having too high standards for him *ourselves*, the way we framed our own lives and experiences may have given him the model for being hard on himself.

The funny thing is, both DH and I are pretty hard on ourselves, but I have a pretty good self esteem in general, and DH does not. I have NO idea how I got the contradiction of being a perfectionist but thinking that overall I'm a prety damn good person. I just wish I could figure it out so I could help my son. All the 'traditional' ways to help kids like this do NOT work with him, he sees right through the tricks and refuses to participate in any 'make mistakes' exercises, etc. His play therapist said that he was really advanced in perceiving other people's emotions and he "just gets it" ("it" being things from social nuances to advanced vocabulary, etc.), which is a comment I've heard from numerous people. Others have called him 'an old soul', and sometimes I fele like that describes him, BUT the torture for him comes from having that old soul in a young/very energetic body with a young brain that is still immature and developing and trying to work all this contradiction out.

Wow! This is practically my ds2. He's 9 and is in 4th grade, but the things that come out of his mouth are often well beyond his years. His humor is definately well beyond his years as well.

He's gifted with a learning disability and he also hates hates hates making mistakes and is so worried about "looking stupid." Last year we had a hard time getting him on the bus. He would cry in the morning, have night terrors, wouldn't sleep and would be so tired and frustrated. It was so hard to get through the day for him, and just the thought of all that anxiety at 9 breaks my heart. I know how it feels.

We finally got him on an IEP, and that did help some. But this year, he had to change schools for redistricting, and it started all over again. They hadn't put anything about his anxiety in his IEP last year, but at the IEP meeting this year, I had them add it. So hopefully he'll have more support at school about to deal with those moments when he feels like he's going to just shut down.

[Guinevere]

Thank you for starting this thread. I'm dealing with anxiety issues in my 6 yo DD and right now, they're kicking my butt. I swear this has been one of my biggest parenting challenges ever!

DD has always been "sensitive" and more easily scared than my other children. But her fears didn't really veer outside the realm of normal until this past summer. What started as a fear of the dark (quite normal) expanded into fear of being alone in ANY setting.

Now she won't be on a floor of the house that no one else is on, even to just dash upstairs to grab something. She won't go out to the car alone to get her shoes, won't go 3 doors down the street with me WATCHING her walk to meet up with her other sibs to play. She cries every.single.morning before school and often for hours AT school about being separated from me, Dad, and from her brothers and sisters. And she's only in school for 4 hrs. a day, 4 days a week b/c she's homeschooled the rest of the time (charter school.)

As if all that wasn't enough, she has a peanut allergy and 2 weeks ago, she was inadvertently exposed via cross-contamination and ended up in the ER with an anaphylactic reaction. You can imagine what this has done for her overall anxiety level! Now she refuses to eat anything unless she can watch me prepare it and even so, she cries multiple times a day because she's afraid of peanuts. We don't even have any peanuts in the house, but this doesn't reassure her.

I recently finished the book "Freeing Your Child From Anxiety" which had some good CBT techniques and relaxation things to try -- she likes the balloon blowing exercise and it does seem to calm her down when she melts down. We've met with one therapist, who confirmed the anxiety dx, but couldn't continue meeting with her b/c her openings didn't work for our schedule. Need to call the other 3 people on the list. I also attend a monthly support group of parents in my children's school whose kids who require more "involved" parenting , and they gave me a couple of good suggestions that I plan to try out.

They were:
1. Let her have a small object (on a bracelet or necklace or in her pocket) to handle and rub when she feels scared.
2. Create a mantra or affirmation of a few lines and repeat it to her every day and have her repeat it to herself, something like this:

"My name is ______.
I am a 1st grade girl.
I like butterflies and school.
I am strong and brave."

So far, we haven't had ANY success with the concept of the Worry Bug, but I do think I can use CBTs of desensitizing her to the peanut phobia -- the book gave some good, concrete suggestions about that which I plan to try. The separation anxiety is harder to fight, though, and is infinitely more frustrating. Her world is shrinking before my very eyes, and she really would like mine to shrink along with it (i.e. never leave her for any reason, ever.)

Nice to chat with others who are dealing with this, too.

Guin

[hadleys_mom]

My dd just turned 7 and has anxiety issues (along with SPD, a severe visually impairment, apraxia, hypotonia, and NVDL). It is only in the last month that someone has been able to put a label to what the behavior is. In the last year things have really started to intensify and what started as just repeatedly asking the same question over and over again, like her brain was stuck on a subject, now she will say that everything makes her nervous and she is needed lots of reassurance before doing just about anything. It hasn't yet stopped her from doing anything but the anxiety beforehand is pretty intense. Our developmental pediatrician referred us to a behavioral psychologist. Does anyone have any recommendations of what type of doctor to see? There is so many options, I'm confused on what is the best fit.

[Heavenly]

My son is almost 10 and he has a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and separation anxiety disorder. His anxiety is pretty bad right now, or maybe we are just noticing it more now that the bipolar is mostly controlled by meds. He is scared of being alone in a room, or on a floor of the house. He is scared of lots of things that children his age wouldn't be. It is very hard to find help where we are (Ontario, Canada) so at this point we are just dealing with it as best we can and trying to be there for him.

[girlzmommy00]

My youngest dd is 8 and has an official diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress disorder & currently a learning disability NOS (about to start further testing through the school to pinpoint that one).

She'd always been a very, very sensitive child but she broke her arm twice with in 10 months, the second time was a compound fracture where her arm was badly deformed, bones out & she needed emergency surgery to put her arm back together. She ended up with PTSD from all that & her anxiety went through the roof.

Really it just breaks my heart to see her like this. She has bad anxiety attacks where she can't breathe. She has nightmares from the ptsd so she gets very anxious before bed. Any mildly stressful situation leads to a full breakdown. Halloween was awful. She was too afraid & anxious to knock on doors. My 11 year old dd & I helped her out. She constantly lives in fear of breaking her arm again or some sort of serious injury. In her mind, it's not if she'll break it again, but just when.

I just wish she could enjoy being a kid.

She's been in therapy since the summer. It's sand play therapy & just regular talk therapy. We got really lucky & found an awesome therapist who I love. She still has a ways to go but I have seen progress, too.

She's about to start testing at school for the learning disability. She had psych testing over the summer that was extremely upsetting so I worry about the school testing but we need to do it so she can receive services there, too.

[Harper]

Originally Posted by Guinevere 

They were:
1. Let her have a small object (on a bracelet or necklace or in her pocket) to handle and rub when she feels scared.
2. Create a mantra or affirmation of a few lines and repeat it to her every day and have her repeat it to herself, something like this:

"My name is ______.
I am a 1st grade girl.
I like butterflies and school.
I am strong and brave."
 

 

 
 

We did these two things with dd as well. She had a necklace that I would encourage her to rub when she was feeling anxious. It was helpful--especially when she started to put her hands in her crotch whenever she was anxious! This was a good way to stop that quickly. We also tried the affirmation but didn't have as much luck. She just wasn't buying it, you know? She would say it over and over again but it didn't really make the anxiety stop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hadleys_mom 

Our developmental pediatrician referred us to a behavioral psychologist. Does anyone have any recommendations of what type of doctor to see? There is so many options, I'm confused on what is the best fit.

There are so many options but I think the most important thing is that it is someone who you like and trust. I guess that seems like a no-brainer but we took dd to a therapist that I didn't like. I had no reason not to trust her but that came pretty quickly behind not liking her. She was a childhood anxiety CBT specialist which was what I thought we needed. But it turned out to feel like a factory. They had no interest in dd and her anxietys or our family. It was just step one, step two, step three. Dd didn't respond well to it. She is very verbal and analytical and there were times when I felt like she was outsmarting the therapist and she would just move on without addressing what dd was talking about. When we took her to someone who specialized in children but not anxiety per se, she was so much more engaging with dd about a variety of things. AND, dd responded to her almost immediately. When I was interviewing therapists, they would all spend A LOT of time on the phone with me before setting up the first appointment. (I only had one that said that I had to come in for a visit to talk and that that visit would cost $250. Um no.) We got lots and lots of recommendations both from friends and from her school. After the first therapist, I just trusted my instincts when I was talking to someone on the phone. I understood then how important it would be for me to really like them--not just respect their credentials. The anxiety books all say you have to pick someone that says "CBT" but my therapist said that's just because it's the CBT people are the ones writing the books and that there are many other ways to work with anxiety. Good luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by girlzmommy00 

I just wish she could enjoy being a kid.

She's been in therapy since the summer. It's sand play therapy & just regular talk therapy. We got really lucky & found an awesome therapist who I love. She still has a ways to go but I have seen progress, too.

 

This was just how I felt about dd. Like she wasn't enjoying her childhood. I am so glad you found an awesome therapist. So did we. And since she's been going, dd is really acting so much more like a normal kid. She just moves through her world with so much more ease than she had before. We're working now in therapy on pushing her in some directions that she is uncomfortable with and that make her anxious--sleeping without her daddy and me and dh going out and leaving her with her grammy. Neither of things are too terribly important to us but this is part of the therapy. In order to teach her the tools to deal with anxiety, we need to manufacture it in a controlled setting. So far so good.