Help with anxiety in child

[Calizzy]

My 8yo dd has tons of anxiety. At the root of it, I think, is a crippling fear of being separated from the family. She is afraid of being away from me, she is afraid that if she gets lost we wont care to look for her, she is afraid that she will be too bad and we will give her away. I think related to that is self doubt- she doesn't think she can "do life" on her own. This looks like her having tantrums/meltdowns multiple times per day. She can't pick out shoes to leave the house so she lays down in the hallway and cries. Going to bed is awful because she wants "1 more hug, 1 more kiss" but not in a normal kid way- in a panicked desperate way. Also, she is extremely controlling of little things. When she is reading to me it must be perfect. If she messes up a word she will start the paragraph over. This will happen over and over in one setting. 

 

I try to reassure her that we love her and she belongs in the family. I also try to go out of my way and point out any instances when she is brave or strong. But I am also sometimes exhausted and just can't deal with one more meltdown. We just started counseling this week. 

 

Anyways, my question is this. She has always been somewhat anxious, but it has skyrocketed since the start of school this year. She had a great summer. She was on swim team, went to summer camp, played at friend's houses. She was like a different kid. I don't know what changed. Obviously, we now have structure and not just play all day. The other thing I think is that we were outside for several hours every day. I'm at the point where I just want to quit all school and just take her hiking everyday. Our family is seriously struggling with her behavior. Would it be crazy to just throw it all out and spend all day outside? 13 yo dd can manage her school on her own. But I also have an 11yo ds who would have to come hiking with us instead of doing school. Should I take a week off? a month? We have our fall break coming up, but not for another 2.5 weeks (we have reservations that we can't change). Help.

[scholastica]

First, take her to the doctor. Have physical causes like PANDAS ruled out. See who/what they recommend. Your child needs professional attention for this level of anxiety. If you want a resource you can get your hands on right away to understand the problem and start some intervention, then start with Freeing Your Child from Anxiety. You and your spouse will have to be very involved in helping her retrain her brain. This isn’t something that will just go away on its own. Prayers for you and your family as you figure this out.

[KSera]

38 minutes ago, scholastica said:

First, take her to the doctor. Have physical causes like PANDAS ruled out.

I agree with this, and adding that if she had any kind of virus right before the sudden increase in this at the start of the school year, sudden onset, often extreme, anxiety is one of the manifestations of long Covid in kids (in adults to for that matter). Treatment would be different if it was from a strep infection like pandas or from a Covid infection.
 

[Calizzy]

Oh wow, she was very sick at the end of August. She has a 104 fever that we had trouble getting down. She was really sick for 1 day, and then average sick for a week. I took her to the dr at that time and she tested negative for Covid. I think they also tested for strep. 

[Bambam]

If PANDAS and other physical causes are ruled out, I'd suggest going to a doctor/psychiatrist to get a script to help. 

IMHO, when the person is unable to regularly do normal things that someone their age should be able to do, it is time to seek medical help. Especially if this is causing issues for all the other members of the family - if it is just for a week, fine, but if it is ongoing and not changing, it is time to seek professional help.  Try all the natural remedies you want first, but make that appointment (usually they take 6+ weeks here to get into a child psychiatrist) first  -  you can cancel it if she gets relief sooner.  Someone else will be delighted to take over that cancelled appointment if you end up having to cancel it. 

[Terabith]

Seconding meds.  We started right around her fifth birthday.  Best parenting decision we made.  Wish we’d made it about two years earlier.  Pre pubertal kids often respond to ssri’s way faster than teens or adults, sometimes within a day or two.  

[mindinggaps]

17 hours ago, Calizzy said:

My 8yo dd has tons of anxiety. At the root of it, I think, is a crippling fear of being separated from the family. She is afraid of being away from me, she is afraid that if she gets lost we wont care to look for her, she is afraid that she will be too bad and we will give her away. I think related to that is self doubt- she doesn't think she can "do life" on her own. This looks like her having tantrums/meltdowns multiple times per day. She can't pick out shoes to leave the house so she lays down in the hallway and cries. Going to bed is awful because she wants "1 more hug, 1 more kiss" but not in a normal kid way- in a panicked desperate way. Also, she is extremely controlling of little things. When she is reading to me it must be perfect. If she messes up a word she will start the paragraph over. This will happen over and over in one setting. 

 

I try to reassure her that we love her and she belongs in the family. I also try to go out of my way and point out any instances when she is brave or strong. But I am also sometimes exhausted and just can't deal with one more meltdown. We just started counseling this week. 

 

Anyways, my question is this. She has always been somewhat anxious, but it has skyrocketed since the start of school this year. She had a great summer. She was on swim team, went to summer camp, played at friend's houses. She was like a different kid. I don't know what changed. Obviously, we now have structure and not just play all day. The other thing I think is that we were outside for several hours every day. I'm at the point where I just want to quit all school and just take her hiking everyday. Our family is seriously struggling with her behavior. Would it be crazy to just throw it all out and spend all day outside? 13 yo dd can manage her school on her own. But I also have an 11yo ds who would have to come hiking with us instead of doing school. Should I take a week off? a month? We have our fall break coming up, but not for another 2.5 weeks (we have reservations that we can't change). Help.

I quite recently lived through very similar struggles with my child and most importantly, want to offer my support and best wishes. I know how extremely difficult and painful it is to manage these issues and watch your child suffer. In many ways it sounds like you are on the right track. I hesitant to give advice here, since you know your situation best, but my thoughts are the following:

• To answer your immediate question of whether it is reasonable to take some time off, I think this could be a good idea, especially since you plan to spend time in nature which is known to help with mental health. I personally wouldn't want to take off more than a week off, but spending some time connecting with her, trying to understand how she is feeling and gauging if there's anything that's changed on her side which could be leading to this exacerbation with anxiety is worthwhile in my opinion. For example, is there bully at school?
   
• Therapy is a must. Please keep doing this. It's amazing that you are taking this step!
   
• Speak to a doctor and start with a complete physical evaluation. Is there anything that could be leading to these symptoms that has a physical cause? You really want to rule this out as a first step on the medical side.
   
• If there is nothing physical and the issues are either severe enough to interfere with her life or are getting worse, get a referral to a psychiatrist who is experienced with children. Get a complete examination/testing to determine what is going on. It is hard to find this care, but proper expertise are pretty important here.

In our case, we ultimately ended up needed to see a psychiatrist and got a diagnosis of GAD along with OCD. After much consternation, we ended up starting medication which was something I really did not want to do, but it did help tremendously. There's no right or wrong here and it's a tough journey, but hopefully you find a pathway to improvement!