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How do you help your child deal with Anxiety?

KathWKathW
in Special Needs

My son is 4, has several diagnosis, and a Gtube, medically he has alot going on but the past year has been pretty good. Up until recently he seemed to be handling everything pretty well, didn't really let it get him down. 

I don't know if it is related to medical issues or not but the past few months he has become very anxious. Whenever we leave the house (no matter where we are going) he repeats over and over again he wants to go home. He usually does ok when we are somewhere, but anytime he is sitting or not doing something he repeats over and over he wants to go home.

It got bad this past week. We took a trip to North Carolina (about 600 miles) and he got physically sick. The trip down he was throwing up, and diarrhea and was miserable. We thought he caught a bug but was fine the next day, which is unusual, when he is sick it takes weeks to get over it.  Then the same thing happened on the way back, except he was sick the entire next day as well. 

We think he is so anxious when things are a little different that he got himself so worked up he gets sick. I don't know what to do for him, and we can't just stay home always, though we won't be taking any long drives anytime soon.  

Katherine Proud Mommy and Foster Mommy
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Re: How do you help your child deal with Anxiety?

  • Vanessa DoofenshmirtzVanessa Doofenshmirtz
    We have just started working with a psychologist for DS's anxiety. She just came to an IEP meeting and we're putting together a cognitive behavioral therapy plan to decrease unhealthy coping. It will involve rewards and gradual desensitization to anxiety triggers. In the moment, you can't do anything about the triggers themselves, but she suggests talking about a "worry bug" or "brain bully" with kiddo and explaining that the worry bug is trying to trick him, telling him things will be worse than they are. "You boss that worry bug, don't let him scare you..." We have not started this, so I don't know if it helps. But the CBT in particular sounds useful.
    ~formerly Bride2bMO~
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    Zeus and Bubba
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