Mayhem Management: Dealing with childhood anxiety
2012
I recently wrote about my almost 5 year-old dealing with anxiety at school. One of the hardest things I have experienced as a parent is when I am faced with something I don’t know how to deal with. I feel helpless and incapable at times. Miss O is an amazing little person and it is so hard to watch when she struggles.
One of her struggles is knowing what time it is and what comes next in our day. For a while, I was concerned that she was obsessed with food because she would ask all day if it was meal time. Often she would ask within minutes of eating how long it was until the next meal. But it finally occurred to me that it was her way to tell time. I also discovered that when I told her something was a long time off, she would begin to stress out and tense up. She would say, “But that’s long.”
Anything she perceives as “long” really stresses her out. So after much consideration, I determined that I needed to create a clock of sorts for my girl. We sat down one day and talked about all the things we usually do in a day.
“What do we do after breakfast?” I asked.
“Eat lunch.”
“OK, before lunch.”
“Ummm, get dressed.”
And so it went. We eventually came up with a list that I wrote down of our usual schedule. My original plan was to draw pictures, but after my daughter collapsed into fits of laughter at my drawings, I came up with a better idea.
We pulled out some old magazines and cut out pictures that represented each item on our list.
I glued the pictures to some heavy cardstock and drew arrows from each event to the next.
Then I laminated the whole thing and we hung it on the fridge with a magnet she could move throughout the day.
I wrote times on the two things that we do at the same time almost every day. She likes to look at the clock and I thought that would give her some practice. So I wrote down lunch at 11:30 (the kids think they’ll starve to death if we don’t eat before noon) and snacks at 3.
Our little clock seems to be working well. She still asks all day if it is time for the next thing on our chart, but breaking the day down into smaller chunks and into something she can visualize has really helped. She still stresses when she perceives something is a long time off or if she doesn’t feel like she knows what to do. I am working on trying to figure out how to deal with that. Her stress stimulus is to rub her feet together and I am also trying to find ways to help her calm down. This parenting gig is tough sometimes.
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Great post. My kids are older; the anxious one seems to do better with a visible schedule. She has a cell phone but the good old fashioned calendar and dry erase board works best. I also hang schedules all over the house, like inside the medicine cabinet. When she knows what’s coming up it helps. When she needs to remind me of things I ask her to text me so I have it in “writing” and we have a record (she gets upset if I forget something or get something wrong). I also write my schedule on the board/calendar so that she knows ahead of time when I’m not available and when I am. I love all the digital technology but I believe people need visual cues and tactile connections.
Roxanne´s last [type] ..Confessions of a Skinny B*tch
Technology is awesome, but there is definitely something about the tactile connections that I think is especially important. My other daughter is dyslexic and I have started using a very visual tactile way to teach her her spelling words. It’s working so much better than any app I have found.
Totally awesome Stacey!!! This is the one area that Trin struggles in as well and one of the reasons I made a schedule again.Even the slightest change TOTALLY throws her off. I will be sitting down here soon in the next couple weeks to do our summer schedule(actually probably sooner) as well as an alternate sheet that says if we’re not doing these things what else can we be doing?You constantly have to tell her what to do even if it’s just to go enjoy having freetime. I also have my spiral calendar and then the white board so everyone can see where we all have to be on certain days. It has helped some what but there are many other issues we’re dealing with as well. I so WISH I could blog about it.
Twisted Domestic Goddess´s last [type] ..At Least She Hasn’t Lost Her Funny Bone
That’s interesting that she is still that way. I can see having my calendar available to her as she gets older. I wish you could blog about it too!!
It is wonderful how inspired you are regarding your children–that was a brilliant idea!
Yes there are a lot of other issues on top of just trying to blend the family but out of respect I haven’t ventured into any of them yet. Every day though is a struggle here especially when it comes to the scheduling.
Twisted Domestic Goddess´s last [type] ..At Least She Hasn’t Lost Her Funny Bone