Severe school anxiety-help

[Maggi315]

I thought I had posted about this before, but I couldn't find a thread...so...

Anyway, my 11yo dd has severe, and I mean, severe school anxiety and in general separation anxiety. When she was younger, she managed to make it through 3 years of school, but got so bad we pulled her and homeschooled her.

We moved this spring and she wanted to try to go back to public school and be with her new friends. The school is great, the staff has been great about her IEP and her special needs.

But she is an emotional wreck. She spends all evening alternating between screaming fits, crying, falling asleep from exhaustion, yelling at everyone and telling us she won't go back to school the next day. She wakes me up 1-2X at night to tell me she is upset and can't go to school.

Today we had 6 phone calls from the school. She spent all morning running to the guidance counselors office (that is her "safe" place, she has a permanent pass) crying, breaking down, and not being able to eat/drink all day, it was a disaster (she has only been in school 3 days!). She has friends, likes her teachers, loves her electives (crafts, music, etc.)

She is taking zoloft, tried homeopathy, rescue remedy, social stories, calming CD's, lavendar massages, and journalling. None of it seems to be helping.

So, I am open to ideas, opinions, etc. She has an appointment with a new child psych and her ped thinks she will probably also be diagnosed with bipolar. We are considering taking her down to temple university anxiety clinic, but it is a very long drive, 2 1/2 hours!

[LynnS6]

not sure if you can do much more than you ARE doing.

Things to look at and consider: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - sometimes works wonders with anxiety, and can be as effective as the meds.

Whether Zoloft is the right med for her. The SSRIs are a really tricky in children and adolescents.

At 11 is she going through puberty yet? The increase in hormones might really be throwing her for a loop. The book "Women's Moods" is very good, and might help YOU understand things, though it probably won't help her much.

Is there a way to partially homeschool her? Have her go for an hour a day? And gradually build up.

If you search "Childhood Anxiety" on Amazon, there are a lot of good books. I'm sure someone here will tell you which are the best.

[mata]

my heart goes out to you-I'm truly sorry she's suffering so. I hope you find what works for her very soon.

Roar turned me on to a wonderful book- Freeing Your Child from Anxiety, by Tamar E. Chansky, PhD. There's a chapter devoted to making school work for anxious children.

[NiBeKa]

From DD & me to you and your DD

We too had seperation/school & generalized anxiety disorder. It also brought on OCD. I so feel for your pain and DD's. You sound like you are doing all things in your power. She is lucky to have a strong advocate in her mom. Good Job to you.
I do agree with pp of maybe meds are wrong or affected by puberty. We (dd) tried a few before getting the right one.
We will send anti-anxiety vibes your way

[lucyem]

Food allergies or intolerances making the anxiety worse? I grew up as a very anxious child of very young/immature parents. An alcoholic mother and a drug addicted bipolar father. School was a nightmare. I dealt with my anxiety in the opposite way - I never spoke. I can remember at one point being so afraid of the bathroom another child would have to go with me. I have actually found in the past couple of years food is one major fuel for many of my anxieties. A lot of self experimentation has shown that eating the wrong food at lunch can turn me into a nut by late afternoon. I can get either manic or very depressed. Extreme enough that my husband knows immediately if I had the wrong food. I often wonder if not only the bipolar had been addressed but the food issues had been identified if my father would have lived beyond 47. I can identify verious food issues I have that I know he had. Anyway just a thought.

[teachma]

Originally Posted by NiBeKa

We too had seperation/school & generalized anxiety disorder. It also brought on OCD.

Ds and I have BTDT exactly the same as NiBeKa. It is so, so sad and so, so scary to realize that you do not know what to do to help your scared child. My son was younger (3.5-5 years old) when it was really at its worst, and play therapy once a week with a child psychiatrist (who did not prescribe medication for him) really helped him a lot. He met with his "Worry Doctor" for one hour weekly, and it was the most worthwhile $800/ month I can imagine having spent. At 6, he still has plenty of fears which he readily expresses daily, he does have tantrums and breakdowns due to the overwhelming feelings of anxiety, but the main difference is that we can now live our daily lives normally. In other words, whereas the anxiety used to control us and determine what we could/couldn't do at every moment of the day, we can now proceed through our days as we need to, doing everything we have to do (go to school, go to sleep, etc.) without severe anxiety preventing it. It's amazing what 8 months of consistent therapy did for us. And as glad as am I to be past that, I would start it up at the drop of a hat if I noticed the OCD symptoms creeping back in.