anxiety issues

What seems to work as far as how it is addressed to your child? Do they listen to reason? Does anybody else find themselves thinking in advance about minimizing anxiety causing things? At any point or what point do you give in to it?[/quote]

I certainly thought about minimizing anxiety in advance for one of my sons who tended to overreact and for those of my students who did the same. I even think about it when it comes to myself. Anxiety isn’t something that can be ignored or brushed by. Some children more than others seem to feel there are shadows in corners and need patient explanation and demonstration that there are not.

I never saw it as giving in to it. We all have different needs and different need levels. I see it as a kind of counsel and comfort offered to a anxious, frightened child even though their fears seem extreme and sometimes even irrational.

Jen
My dd has had only mild anxiety issues so I don’t have any personal experience dealing with it. Can I ask you though, is your daughter medicated and if so has the Dr considered that the medication may be aggrevating the anxiety? Stims for ADHD can do that. My next question- have you considered or are you getting any counseling for her to help her with the issue? Anxiety is a fairly common co-morbid disorder with ADHD, meds or not.
I did a quick search and came up with these, I haven’t read them, so please do not think I am endorsing them at all, I have been to the about our kids site before and am pretty sure that it wasn’t a sales site.

www.aboutourkids.org/articles/adhd-anxiety.html
www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0902/ 6_28/67835324/p1/article.jhtml
www.centerwatch.com/patient/studies/stu39429.html - 20k

Thanks Roxie. I did check out those links. Yes my daughter is on stimulants. However, if anything I have seen an improvement. I have questioned whether she has a comorbid anxiety disorder or she has anxiety issues due to the ad/hd. The dr. seems to think her anxiety comes from not being in control of her world and on sensory overload since she was born. In other words, the dr thinks the anxiety is a result of the ad/hd not a separate issue. Since this is still relatively new we’re still watching and observing. So far, she’s better so it is my hope that the dr is correct. It’s just like I said, sometimes things are still popping up.

Sara, I do agree with you. To see my child so upset over something that seems minor to others one might think she was faking or just overreacting. I know for her the fear is very real. It breaks my heart and I stay calm and try to reason it out with her. I do find myself less and less having to anticipate her reactions as she is getting better every day.

I guess I’m still questioning this whole bedroom decision. On the one hand, I think why not move her bedroom. It would mean losing a room in our small house and who knows where the stuff will go. On the other hand, I think I set up that room to be my daughter’s place to go to work, be creative, study with her and help her without distraction. Her bed won’t fit plus the family computer is in that room. She needs to have that area as well. She is sharing a room with her sister which in the long run really does make her feel better. And the dr advised us not to let the anxiety control how we live. So, I was just curious how others deal with this and how they do it.

JenM-

How old is your daughter? (I’m sorry if I missed this info. somewhere…)

I ask b/c one of our trusted advisors recently told me that anxiety about death is a common and developmentally appropriate thing around age 10. SO when my ds got flipped out and a little compulsive after the death of his hamster I was able to put it in that context.

He too is an anxious worrier, but not fearful, kid. (one of the reasons we haven’t tried medication to date…)

I would definitely speak with a psychologist or psychiatrist if you think anxiety is an issue. It doesn’t have to be a full flown anxiety disorder. Psychotherapy (and working on his school issues) really made a difference for my son.

We try to acknowledge his feelings (” I know thinking about death makes you nervous” without changing the way we function as a family.

My 8 yr old son is extremely anxious, also. When he was 4, he would watch his hands to see if they were growing. He didn’t want them to grow. He has to have lights on to sleep. Most of the time he crawls into bed with his little sister during the middle of the night. The Dr. said that at their ages, that was fine. However, we try to help him stay in his room as he is getting older. We have a radio in the room because he has to have some noise. I have to go in after he falls asleep to turn it down to a low level. I don’t know how he falls asleep with it so loud! Many times we find the lights on all over the house when we wake up. He walks in his sleep and is afraid of the dark.

He is anxious about being alone. When he’s taking a shower, he has to know that I am in a room nearby or he can’t do it. Any little illness he gets, he starts crying and worrying. Yet, one day he split his forehead open and was an absolute trooper. He even had to wait 4 hours in the ER before he was seen (with a gaping hole in his head). He never cried, fussed, or whined the whole time. He was even great with the needle. But at home, one little bobo can cause hysterics.

He would not let us take of his training wheels because he would fall and break his head open. He fought us for months on this issue. However, all the other kids were riding around the cul de sac and he wanted to join them. Finally, after much crying, he did it and is already jumping curves, etc…We are working on his inline skates now. That’s going to take a while. However, trying to get him down from the monkey bars has always been a problem. He loves to climb and jump. Go figure?!!

We have to give him heads up when we are making or changing plans - he doesn’t care for surprises. He’ll worry about every little thing. How will we get there? Do we have enough money? Are we leaving on time?

He is anxious about so many things that it has become a way of life that we really don’t notice as much anymore. We have learned how to eleviate much of his anxiety by giving him some control over the issue he is worried about. Info is very important to him. It seems that he thinks ahead and can picture many outcomes - then he becomes anxious. If we help him to rule out certain scenarios or realize how rare the scenario is, he does better.

I can’t really complain as I know where he inherited it. It’s just awful to know your child is experiencing the same feelings as you do. How horrible. Hopefully, we will help him learn coping skills that will make this more manageable before he becomes an adult.

I have a daughter with ADHD and anxiety/phobias. We deal with a different doctor for the anxieties and phobias, someone that specializes in it. I use to lie in bed with my daughter a lot but now I really try to get her to use tools to fight off the fears. She is almost 8 now. We are a team. I encourage her and she does the dirty work (ie flushing a bad image down the toilet for example). She is really proud of herself when it is SHE that wins against the fears. “You have to face your fears” is our plan starting a couple of months ago. She also uses a CD alarm clock so that she can listen to music as she goes to sleep.

My 8 year old has a 5 year old sister that has OCD and some night time fears. 6 months ago I was still sitting in a chair in her room until she went to sleep. About 2 months ago I moved to the hall and 2 days ago I move to my own bed across the hall and diagonal. There is no way that I am going back to the hall or into her room. We’ve worked too hard to get this far. This was not a home-grown idea, but something advised by my daughter’s anxiety doc. She earn “tickets” for bravery and staying in her own bed all night. There is no negative feedback involved.

The next problem that I need to tackle with my 5 year old is the waking up at night and “seeing” dinosaurs. I’m starting to think that it is a form of hallucination. She’s not crazy, she is just half asleep, half awake and the images really appear to be in the room. There are no shadows to account for the images. I have experienced this myself and it is really strange. I use to see snakes in my bed. When I was little I use to yell for my mother and she would switch on the light and the images went away. When I was an older child, I would switch on my own lamp that was near the bed. I need to set something up for my daughter so that she can start to have some control like I did when I was young (access to lighting from the bed.) Occasionally, I still see images if I am over-tired and I wake up in the night, I just blink a few times and concentrate and they go away. I am not on any meds, it’s just a sleep disorder.

I have to agree with the doctor that you shouldn’t move your daughter’s room because of the anxieties. You should move her room if it is the best thing for her and the family for other reasons. I would seek an opinion from someone that specializes in anxiety even if the ADHD has something to do with it. I honestly never thought that the ADHD had anything to do with my daughter’s anxiety. The ADHD didn’t bother her in the least until first grade. It only drove the rest of us nuts. The anxiety has been present for as long as I recall.

Best of luck, Terry

I have 2 children who did not want to stay in their room at night. Some nights we would have both of them on the floor by our bed. I just think they needed that security. When I grew up, I shared my room with my 2 sisters. I wouldn’t like the dark, but my sisters were there and that made it alright. I at first thought that my kids should stay in their rooms and that was it. But after thinking of my past, I realized that I always had someone around at night until I was in high school. I feel my kids needed the same. It is a pretty big room by yourself when you are young. My kids knew when they could handle the room by themselves.

Just some food for thought.

Sorry. Forgot to mention my ad/hd daughter will be 7 in a couple of weeks. Her sister is 12 and most likely undiagnosed ad/hd but no anxiety. Just when I think we are making progress is when we slip. The girls did fine sharing a room until this past fall. At that time my anxious daughter decided she didn’t want to be in that room anymore because she is afraid of everything. She wants to be nearer to me. However, if I move her room closer to mine then she will be in a room by herself. Her sister made a comment about nightmares last night at bedtime and I gave her a look that probably gave her nightmares! Anyway, that’s all it took to set off the little one! Nobody else had patience for it so I walked her up and we had a long talk about nightmares, fears, and birthday parties. I have always played music for her at night. I put on a tape and it just shuts off when it’s done. I told her that I wanted her to think about what kind of birthday cake she wants and to tell me in the morning. She was still a little apprehensive but made it through the night and there was no screaming when I left the room. She also is reassured that her sister will be coming to bed with her a little later. Anyway, she did start asking about the room change again. I took into account some of the good advice I got here. I told her I needed her to be brave. I knew she could do it. Talked some more and some things at length but told her we were not going to talk about moving the room right now. She told me how her dreams are like a tv with the channel being switched to a scary station in the middle of the night. I told her to try to switch the channel back when she doesn’t like the dream.

There have been times when I do let my daughter sleep either in the next room or on the floor in a sleeping bag in my room. I’ve agreed that whenever her sister spends the night somewhere she can sleep nearer to me. The problem is that she wants to do it every night and will if I let her!

We have our next dr appointment next week so I am going to bring up some of this when we are there. Maybe we can get an opinion and maybe a recommendation on getting some help for the anxiety.

By the way, this is the same kid who when we are camping the whole summer has no trouble most nights sharing a tent with just her sister. You would think she’d have more trouble with that but she doesn’t. I guess you hear everybody around you in a tent.

Jen,
My little one’s psychologist said that if I continued to sit in her room until she fell asleep that I was sending the message that, #1 there truely was something to be afraid of and/or #2 I didn’t have confidence in my child to be able to deal with this. So, sometimes you think that you are doing the right thing by being compassionate but you just might be reinforcing the problem in a child that has anxiety issues. I always acknowledge my daughter’s fears but I give her the tools to deal with it and reassure her that she CAN DEAL with it. Naturally, I would not expect her to be more brave than her age-matched peers. Actually we have a lower standard than that but we are making significant steady progress.
Terry

Thanks Terry. What your daughter’s psychologist said makes a lot of sense. That’s how I try to approach it—like if I react too much then I am adding merit to those things that scare her. It’s just so difficult at times when you know how afraid they are!

I don’t wish some of these things on anybody but am thankful that I have found other people here who understand what I’m talking about. People who haven’t been through this will often say to me things like, “Oh yeah, I had anxiety issues like…when I was a kid….I used to…all kids have that” or “my kid was…. and it’s normal….” They often just don’t get it when I say that this goes beyond the scope of average child anxiety! Most of the time I just don’t bother to try to explain it too much. So, it is a comfort to know we are not the only ones dealing with this and there is light at the end of the tunnel! Thank you again.

JenM,

Seems your daughter is suffering from childhood, a disorder that affects all children who are exposed to an environment condusive to it’s appearance.

One child of mine is frightened of dogs, falling when walking down a muddy hill and raised adult voices.

The other is frightened of the dark, new situations and the thought of parents’ dying.

Which do you suppose is the one with the “ADHD” diagnosis?

Hint: They are both children.

The cure: Humour them until it gets age-group inappropriate then tell them to stop it. Of course, you’ll need to have their respect if you’re to expect results.

Hi Jen,
I don’t bother to tell people generally about the anxiety. I don’t want my daughter to be discriminated against by ignorant people and like you say they haven’t got a clue unless they haven’t been involved with kids like this. By the way, we just gave my youngest daughter a CD alarm clock with a 3-way night light on it so that she can turn it on the brightest setting if she needs to check out the “safety” of her room in the middle of the night. She was sooooo excited to be “big” enough to have one.
Terry

My 8 yr old son has ADD, LD, and general anixety disorder. His is very anixous of anything NEW or any type of change. That is very hard to plan for! He freaks if there is a sub in the classroom, or a different bus driver. He gets upset if the school schedule changes during the day. He even gets upset if I say he’ll have a babysitter and then don’t. NO CHANGE AT ALL.

I tried real hard to anticpate all changes and would even go out of my way so he wouldn’t have to change. I thought I was being a good mom, until the psych told me that I was feeding into his anixous behavior. I was dumbfounded…. me adding to his anixety? I tried so hard to keep his life calm. She said that I needed to teach him how to deal with his anixety and not try to make it all go away. I had to teach him he was brave and could do it.

I read “Keys to parenting your anixous child”. We worked on some self talk, some visualization, and some “ok - what is the worst that could happen.” Last week he had a one time meeting at our church to attend. We worked toward that goal, and he acutally went. He walked out of church, into a social hall, with all the other 2nd graders. Not one tear :D I’m still amazed.

Kelly

PS - he was on concerta for ADD, but it really made his anixety 100 times worse. He is on Strattera now, and it hasn’t made his anixety worse. :-)

thanks Kelly. I didn’t even realize I was anticipating the anxiety or even really thought about my daughter having unusual anxiety issues! She does take Concerta so I have kept that in mind. However, believe it or not her anxiety issues seem to be better. So maybe some of it is caused by the ad/hd but the dr now believes it is probably comorbid. I do know that we have made progress. The night before last my older daughter stayed over a friend’s house and I fully expected the younger (anxious one) to not want to go up to her room and sleep alone. She never mentioned it so I didn’t. She went to bed the same as any other night without incident! Very nice improvement! So, we are making progress. Sometimes in little steps and sometimes in leaps! The other night was a biggie!

Kelly, You really hit on something my DH (husband) and I have been discussing. When my ds (nwow 10) was a toddler we took a lot of grief from our families for accomodating his need for consistency and structure. Now we accomodate his inattentiveness by repeating instructions many times and allowing for him to take a long time to get to the door in the morning. But the real world wont’ make these allowances so we are trying to hit the right balance of giving him what he needs and teaching him real life skills. Its a tough call sometimes.