difficult child faced a HUGE anxiety hurdle and conquered it tonight.
To back track a little, he faced one on Tuesday that was also huge for him. His friend A's mom invited him to come over to play for a few hours before the boy's baseball game. I told her that I would drop him off and husband would pick him up at the game. When I told him of the plan, he went into a mini panic mode, "Mom, I have felt weird all day and now the "angel thing" is happening." Well, I could have taken the easy way out and called the mom back to say difficult child needed to rest before the game but I recognized the panic and decided we both needed to work on this. I gave difficult child a Xanax and a few minutes later as it started to work asked him to go through with this. He knows the family but has never been to their home for more than a few minutes to pick up/drop off A. The Xanax helped calm him down and he willingly went to play. He had a good time!
That may have helped him with today's success. husband was running late getting home, difficult child had to be at the park at 5:00 for a ball game and I wanted to be at church by 5:00 for VBS. difficult child had the choice of going to A's house again but decided that he wanted me to drop him off. When we got to the park about 5:00, the coach was not there but a few kids on his team were. He does not know these kids yet! I decided to leave him there. He looked a tad nervous and told me he was somewhat nervous but did jump out of the car and ran over to his team members as I drove off. I called A's mom and asked that she check for difficult child when they got to the park and call me if he wasn't there (see, I am part of this separation problem but am working on setting up hidden safety nets to ease my mind without him knowing I am still connected). difficult child did very well - did not even need a Xanax to get through this one! (didn't have time to consider that an option - he was not panicking so I didn't give him one - just had to hold my breath that he didn't panic after I left!)
I need to continue to provide these types of situations so that he will be ready to face his new school in the fall. I just have to make sure I don't push too much too fast. I can feel those cords that bind being cut away and though I miss my little difficult child, I know this will only strengthen him.
(His voice has not changed so I still get to hear that beautiful little boy voice when I call home during the morning - funny how their phone voice is so much younger than in person.)
To back track a little, he faced one on Tuesday that was also huge for him. His friend A's mom invited him to come over to play for a few hours before the boy's baseball game. I told her that I would drop him off and husband would pick him up at the game. When I told him of the plan, he went into a mini panic mode, "Mom, I have felt weird all day and now the "angel thing" is happening." Well, I could have taken the easy way out and called the mom back to say difficult child needed to rest before the game but I recognized the panic and decided we both needed to work on this. I gave difficult child a Xanax and a few minutes later as it started to work asked him to go through with this. He knows the family but has never been to their home for more than a few minutes to pick up/drop off A. The Xanax helped calm him down and he willingly went to play. He had a good time!
That may have helped him with today's success. husband was running late getting home, difficult child had to be at the park at 5:00 for a ball game and I wanted to be at church by 5:00 for VBS. difficult child had the choice of going to A's house again but decided that he wanted me to drop him off. When we got to the park about 5:00, the coach was not there but a few kids on his team were. He does not know these kids yet! I decided to leave him there. He looked a tad nervous and told me he was somewhat nervous but did jump out of the car and ran over to his team members as I drove off. I called A's mom and asked that she check for difficult child when they got to the park and call me if he wasn't there (see, I am part of this separation problem but am working on setting up hidden safety nets to ease my mind without him knowing I am still connected). difficult child did very well - did not even need a Xanax to get through this one! (didn't have time to consider that an option - he was not panicking so I didn't give him one - just had to hold my breath that he didn't panic after I left!)
I need to continue to provide these types of situations so that he will be ready to face his new school in the fall. I just have to make sure I don't push too much too fast. I can feel those cords that bind being cut away and though I miss my little difficult child, I know this will only strengthen him.
(His voice has not changed so I still get to hear that beautiful little boy voice when I call home during the morning - funny how their phone voice is so much younger than in person.)
