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New here - 8yo son's anxiety exhausting
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 234599" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>I'm late getting to this one.</p><p></p><p>Welcome to the site. Help is here. At some stage it would help to do a sig for yourself, like mine at the end. That way you don't have to keep reminding us how old he is, what the diagnosis is, etc.</p><p></p><p>We've been there done that with the anxiety, the hyperactivity, the ODD and the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). For ous kids, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in various forms (primarily autism) turned out to be the underlying cause. And that isn't necessarily bad new - there are a lot of really positive qualities that these kids have; once you find better ways to work with these kids, they do better.</p><p></p><p>Has your son been evaluated for ADHD or ODD? Sometimes the asnwer can be very simple.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime I suggested te following:</p><p></p><p>1) In getting ready in the morning, have a chart with the written list of tasks. It can be a whiteboard, or it can be a made-up poster with velcro dots and 'reward' badges to velcro on when the task is done. All he has to do is check his list to see what he has done. If you can put a "completed by..." time next to it, that can help. It depends on what he is capable of. Frankly, some kids just can't do it (no matter how smart they afre( until a lot older than you would think. Therefore yelling at them accomplishes nothing except to push the anxiety higher.</p><p></p><p>When we yell at a kid to hurry up, we're trying to use panic constructively. For "normal" kids (PCs) this might work, but for an anxiety-plagued difficult child (Gift From God) this can be disastrous and freeze them into immobility.</p><p></p><p>Getting as much done the night before can also help. For example, having lunches made and bags packed the night before. Clothes already laid out. A routine of putting dirty clothes in the laundry, putting clean clothes away in the cupboard.</p><p></p><p>Ideally, you want the child to keep tabs on the time and move himself towards being ready to go. In practice, this just isn't happening nor is it likely to. Therefore, YOU need to be his 'brain' in this and say to him, "Where are you up to on your chart? What do you have to do next?" and help him along. Try to avoid letting panic creep in or you will slow him further (very frustrating!) </p><p></p><p>The more he associates panic and anxiety with leaving for school, the more oppositional he will be over it. He needs to be ready much earlier, maybe break the routine and leave much earlier one day to go to McDonalds for breakfast instead. Or go for a walk in the park before school, or something, anything, that breaks the current pattern.</p><p></p><p>YOu need to go through his day and identify the sources of anxiety. The mornings can't be the only problem areas. But they are under YOUR control much more. </p><p></p><p>We finally got to a point where difficult child 3 works from home. It's much better for him in so many ways, including socially (which is a surprise for a lot of people who keep trotting out the old argument, "But how can he learn social interaction when he's not at school?" to which I answer, "He was never going to learn to mix, purely by osmosis. All school taught him socially was how to be a victim.").</p><p></p><p>There are other wayas to reduce his anxiety at school. I suspect he needs an evaluation to try to find where it's all coming from, so it's easier to find answers for him that deal with the underlying problems.</p><p></p><p>But for now, this should help. Keep us posted on how he's going.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 234599, member: 1991"] I'm late getting to this one. Welcome to the site. Help is here. At some stage it would help to do a sig for yourself, like mine at the end. That way you don't have to keep reminding us how old he is, what the diagnosis is, etc. We've been there done that with the anxiety, the hyperactivity, the ODD and the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). For ous kids, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in various forms (primarily autism) turned out to be the underlying cause. And that isn't necessarily bad new - there are a lot of really positive qualities that these kids have; once you find better ways to work with these kids, they do better. Has your son been evaluated for ADHD or ODD? Sometimes the asnwer can be very simple. In the meantime I suggested te following: 1) In getting ready in the morning, have a chart with the written list of tasks. It can be a whiteboard, or it can be a made-up poster with velcro dots and 'reward' badges to velcro on when the task is done. All he has to do is check his list to see what he has done. If you can put a "completed by..." time next to it, that can help. It depends on what he is capable of. Frankly, some kids just can't do it (no matter how smart they afre( until a lot older than you would think. Therefore yelling at them accomplishes nothing except to push the anxiety higher. When we yell at a kid to hurry up, we're trying to use panic constructively. For "normal" kids (PCs) this might work, but for an anxiety-plagued difficult child (Gift From God) this can be disastrous and freeze them into immobility. Getting as much done the night before can also help. For example, having lunches made and bags packed the night before. Clothes already laid out. A routine of putting dirty clothes in the laundry, putting clean clothes away in the cupboard. Ideally, you want the child to keep tabs on the time and move himself towards being ready to go. In practice, this just isn't happening nor is it likely to. Therefore, YOU need to be his 'brain' in this and say to him, "Where are you up to on your chart? What do you have to do next?" and help him along. Try to avoid letting panic creep in or you will slow him further (very frustrating!) The more he associates panic and anxiety with leaving for school, the more oppositional he will be over it. He needs to be ready much earlier, maybe break the routine and leave much earlier one day to go to McDonalds for breakfast instead. Or go for a walk in the park before school, or something, anything, that breaks the current pattern. YOu need to go through his day and identify the sources of anxiety. The mornings can't be the only problem areas. But they are under YOUR control much more. We finally got to a point where difficult child 3 works from home. It's much better for him in so many ways, including socially (which is a surprise for a lot of people who keep trotting out the old argument, "But how can he learn social interaction when he's not at school?" to which I answer, "He was never going to learn to mix, purely by osmosis. All school taught him socially was how to be a victim."). There are other wayas to reduce his anxiety at school. I suspect he needs an evaluation to try to find where it's all coming from, so it's easier to find answers for him that deal with the underlying problems. But for now, this should help. Keep us posted on how he's going. Marg [/QUOTE]
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