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difficult child is facing the biggest challenge today!
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 170111" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Adrianne, I wonder if his "I feel weird" and the vomiting, is purely anxiety? It can be as bad as that. It sure was with difficult child 3, even though he had a hard time accepting this for himself.</p><p></p><p>We first realised this for sure, a few years ago when we were still struggling to keep him in mainstream education. He liked school, he wanted to go to school, but he would be so anxious there that he would feel sick and sometimes vomit. He missed about six months (spread over the whole school year) in Grade 5. At the beginning of the year, a few days before school was due to go back, he said out of the blue, "If kids at school are mean to me, I will just ignore them and walk away."</p><p>I congratulated him on planning ahead with good commonsense, but about ten minutes later he complained of feeling sick. Again a day or so later, someone asked him how he was looking forward to going back to school and he smiled and said yes, he wanted to get back to school; then within half an hour, more nausea.</p><p>Once he got to school (very excited to be back) it was only an hour before I got a phone call - he was vomiting again. He argued and didn't want to come home, but he would vomit before he even got back to class.</p><p></p><p>We pulled him out of mainstream school end enrolled him in correspondence. Magic - no more nausea, no more vomiting. Also he made sudden progress academically. </p><p></p><p>But last year when we were planning our holiday in New Zealand, difficult child 3 said he was afraid to go anywhere that there could be earthquakes or any volcanic activity. A problem - we were spending a week near Rotarua!</p><p>So we arranged to stay somewhere out of Rotarua, far enough away to not smell the sulphur, somewhere less volcanic. We chose Lake Taupo. OK, we didn't know at the time - but it's MORE volcanic than Rotarua (but no sulphur smell).</p><p></p><p>difficult child 3 had been complaining for days, we had been reassuring him. His science teacher had sent schoolwork specifically dealing with vulcanism and plate tectonics. difficult child 3 was handling it well, learning a lot. He was beginning to understand.</p><p>But we went to Rotarua for a day trip. By this stage we had shown difficult child 3 a number of geothermal power stations and explained that in North Island, the constant use of geothermal energy was life the pressure release valve on a steam engine - it was constantly releasing pressure before it built up to dangerous levels.</p><p></p><p>We were doing OK until we got to the geyser park, with the boiling mud, the sulphur deposits and the geysers. He felt sick. The further we walked, the more sick he felt. He looked dreadful - drawn, grey and listless. I told him it was his anxiety; he was convinced it was something more. "I'm very sick, Mum, he told me. "Something is very wrong and I think I'm dying."</p><p>I talked him through his breathing exercises but it didn't seem to be helping him much. We sat on the hot stones (mid-winter, raining - and the stones were dry from the heat) and still he felt sick. Only after we left to drive back to Taupo did he begin to feel a bit better.</p><p>He wouldn't believe me when I said it was just anxiety. "I feel too sick for it to be that," he said.</p><p>But it was.</p><p>Two days later we visited the Volcano Centre, a small educational museum near Taupo.</p><p>That's where we finally discovered that Lake Taupo is actually a giant volcanic caldera. Hmm, that explained the steam we could see rising form the lake edge from the bathroom window... but by then difficult child 3 was more understanding of how safe we really were.</p><p>A week later on South Island, we were in Milford Sound and were able to point out to him the actual plate margin - the band of crushed rock where the Australasian tectonic plate was sliding against the Pacific plate. He understood - and didn't feel sick.</p><p></p><p>Interestingly, a week after tat when we were snowed in, it was easy child who was nauseous and vomiting from HER anxiety at missing their plane home to Sydney. You don't have to be a difficult child to get severe anxiety.</p><p></p><p>When difficult child 3 gets really anxious, he does feel a strong sense of dread and says he's sure he's going to die from it. Vomiting does happen but it's rare these days because removing him from the classroom reduced his anxiety and stress levels a great deal. And as he's learned to cope in stressful situations, he's also learned better ways of responding to stress. Every success is another step toward better coping.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 170111, member: 1991"] Adrianne, I wonder if his "I feel weird" and the vomiting, is purely anxiety? It can be as bad as that. It sure was with difficult child 3, even though he had a hard time accepting this for himself. We first realised this for sure, a few years ago when we were still struggling to keep him in mainstream education. He liked school, he wanted to go to school, but he would be so anxious there that he would feel sick and sometimes vomit. He missed about six months (spread over the whole school year) in Grade 5. At the beginning of the year, a few days before school was due to go back, he said out of the blue, "If kids at school are mean to me, I will just ignore them and walk away." I congratulated him on planning ahead with good commonsense, but about ten minutes later he complained of feeling sick. Again a day or so later, someone asked him how he was looking forward to going back to school and he smiled and said yes, he wanted to get back to school; then within half an hour, more nausea. Once he got to school (very excited to be back) it was only an hour before I got a phone call - he was vomiting again. He argued and didn't want to come home, but he would vomit before he even got back to class. We pulled him out of mainstream school end enrolled him in correspondence. Magic - no more nausea, no more vomiting. Also he made sudden progress academically. But last year when we were planning our holiday in New Zealand, difficult child 3 said he was afraid to go anywhere that there could be earthquakes or any volcanic activity. A problem - we were spending a week near Rotarua! So we arranged to stay somewhere out of Rotarua, far enough away to not smell the sulphur, somewhere less volcanic. We chose Lake Taupo. OK, we didn't know at the time - but it's MORE volcanic than Rotarua (but no sulphur smell). difficult child 3 had been complaining for days, we had been reassuring him. His science teacher had sent schoolwork specifically dealing with vulcanism and plate tectonics. difficult child 3 was handling it well, learning a lot. He was beginning to understand. But we went to Rotarua for a day trip. By this stage we had shown difficult child 3 a number of geothermal power stations and explained that in North Island, the constant use of geothermal energy was life the pressure release valve on a steam engine - it was constantly releasing pressure before it built up to dangerous levels. We were doing OK until we got to the geyser park, with the boiling mud, the sulphur deposits and the geysers. He felt sick. The further we walked, the more sick he felt. He looked dreadful - drawn, grey and listless. I told him it was his anxiety; he was convinced it was something more. "I'm very sick, Mum, he told me. "Something is very wrong and I think I'm dying." I talked him through his breathing exercises but it didn't seem to be helping him much. We sat on the hot stones (mid-winter, raining - and the stones were dry from the heat) and still he felt sick. Only after we left to drive back to Taupo did he begin to feel a bit better. He wouldn't believe me when I said it was just anxiety. "I feel too sick for it to be that," he said. But it was. Two days later we visited the Volcano Centre, a small educational museum near Taupo. That's where we finally discovered that Lake Taupo is actually a giant volcanic caldera. Hmm, that explained the steam we could see rising form the lake edge from the bathroom window... but by then difficult child 3 was more understanding of how safe we really were. A week later on South Island, we were in Milford Sound and were able to point out to him the actual plate margin - the band of crushed rock where the Australasian tectonic plate was sliding against the Pacific plate. He understood - and didn't feel sick. Interestingly, a week after tat when we were snowed in, it was easy child who was nauseous and vomiting from HER anxiety at missing their plane home to Sydney. You don't have to be a difficult child to get severe anxiety. When difficult child 3 gets really anxious, he does feel a strong sense of dread and says he's sure he's going to die from it. Vomiting does happen but it's rare these days because removing him from the classroom reduced his anxiety and stress levels a great deal. And as he's learned to cope in stressful situations, he's also learned better ways of responding to stress. Every success is another step toward better coping. Marg [/QUOTE]
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