Ah now the *child* is having anxiety. Cool, cool….
December 1, 2024 3:43 PM Subscribe
My partner is prone to occasional bouts of anxious despair in which everything is terrible and nothing works and he’s a failure and everyone hates him etc. I can deal with this, kind of. He’s an adult and I mostly just wait it out and his anxiety eventually goes away. Yes, he could see a doctor about it, but he won’t and that’s his decision. All fine. But now the kid is doing it too and I need a different strategy. How can I handle a third grader having an anxiety attack?
The kid is good at school, has friends, seems generally ok. But sometimes has meltdowns about some innocuous comment that his dad made that he doesn’t like, or he says he can’t stop thinking about how mean his teacher is, or he is obsessed with the various unfairnesses of daily 3rd grade life, and he will start crying about it. It breaks my heart to watch this little boy’s brain turn against him and I want to help him resist this. What resources exist for this? What do I say to him when he is spending his Sunday afternoon upset at something that was said to him three days ago?
The kid is good at school, has friends, seems generally ok. But sometimes has meltdowns about some innocuous comment that his dad made that he doesn’t like, or he says he can’t stop thinking about how mean his teacher is, or he is obsessed with the various unfairnesses of daily 3rd grade life, and he will start crying about it. It breaks my heart to watch this little boy’s brain turn against him and I want to help him resist this. What resources exist for this? What do I say to him when he is spending his Sunday afternoon upset at something that was said to him three days ago?
This sounds like a difficult task. I will say that your partner displaying this behavior and making it seem like a normal way to act (even if it's occasional, it happens and it doesn't sound like there's any pushback on it) is probably inadvertently teaching your kid that this is an appropriate and acceptable way to deal with issues. If he's been watching this happen his whole life (this person sometimes spiraling into talk of self-hated, defeatism, etc) then he's going to soak all that in as he learns to navigate the world. So I think your partner's refusal to see his behavior as a problem goes past "he's an adult/it's his decision" and could maybe pivot towards "he's a parent and needs to understand more about how his behavior affects the people around him".
In any case, the resources that Lyn Never provided above sound like excellent places to start. Lastly, my kid saw a therapist for anxiety-related stuff starting around 8-9 years old – I can attest that a good therapist can do *wonders*.
posted by Molasses808 at 5:22 PM on December 1 [8 favorites]
In any case, the resources that Lyn Never provided above sound like excellent places to start. Lastly, my kid saw a therapist for anxiety-related stuff starting around 8-9 years old – I can attest that a good therapist can do *wonders*.
posted by Molasses808 at 5:22 PM on December 1 [8 favorites]
Good advice above.
One additional thing you can do is to provide an example to counter his father's cavalier attitude. Specifically your everyday life contains lots of stressors that you've adapted to. Let your son see you frustrated and how you deal with things. (Not when he is upset of course, but in the course of your daily life)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:44 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
One additional thing you can do is to provide an example to counter his father's cavalier attitude. Specifically your everyday life contains lots of stressors that you've adapted to. Let your son see you frustrated and how you deal with things. (Not when he is upset of course, but in the course of your daily life)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:44 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
When my 8yo daughter was having obsessive rumination, talking with a skilled therapist was really helpful.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:41 PM on December 1 [2 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:41 PM on December 1 [2 favorites]
Absolutely recommend a child therapist. Anxiety in children is very bad and treating it early will help them out now and throughout their life.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:30 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:30 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
There is therapy specifially for parents of anxious kids ("SPACE" therapy). It is solely for parents and caregivers and seems to be pretty effective. You can do a lot, as parents, to affect your child's anxiety.
That said, this sounds like emotional dysregulation might be a more descriptive term than anxiety. Some of this is genetic--some people are just more prone to big emotions than others. The reaction to it is learned to some extent.
Having an extremely dysregulated parent is often really scary for kids. They rely on parents to help them regulate their emotions so it's not great to have a parent who doesn't have those skills yet.
The good news is that we actually have good tools for addressing emotional dysregulation. For adults, DBT can help an enormous amount. It also exists in adapted form for adolescents. The skills are pretty easy to learn and teach, and many people see a huge benefit from just learning about the skills and practicing them even outside of therapy. Adults can and do improve, so even if your child continues to be dysregulated and this isn't fixed right away, they can learn skills and improve significantly even long into adulthood. This does not have to be a permanent issue. Many people, even with severe childhood trauma or serious, life-wrecking issues can improve emotional dysregulation significantly in a fairly short period of time. In other words, it's worth being hopeful that generally okay (but not perfect) parenting--and perhaps a bit of a bad dice roll when it comes to genetics--will not permanently doom your kid to a lifetime of having these kinds of issues.
The bad news (sorry!) is that you can't force your spouse to get help, even though it would be useful to his overall functioning and very useful to improving his ability to parent and be a healthy role model.
However, you can learn many of the skills yourself and practice them to keep yourself on an even keel, and as noted above, talk about how you are feeling frustrated so you're going to do X skill. Then talk about how much better you feel and how you feel proud of your ability to stay calm.
Another general tip is to learn how to validate your child's reaction without endorsing their level of distress or their maladaptive behavior. Being invalidated can make it harder to regulate emotions, but it's also easy to inadvertently encourage a child's distress. This can be tough and a bit of a tightrope if you have a particularly sensitive child, and is worth getting professional help with.
posted by knobknosher at 11:37 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
That said, this sounds like emotional dysregulation might be a more descriptive term than anxiety. Some of this is genetic--some people are just more prone to big emotions than others. The reaction to it is learned to some extent.
Having an extremely dysregulated parent is often really scary for kids. They rely on parents to help them regulate their emotions so it's not great to have a parent who doesn't have those skills yet.
The good news is that we actually have good tools for addressing emotional dysregulation. For adults, DBT can help an enormous amount. It also exists in adapted form for adolescents. The skills are pretty easy to learn and teach, and many people see a huge benefit from just learning about the skills and practicing them even outside of therapy. Adults can and do improve, so even if your child continues to be dysregulated and this isn't fixed right away, they can learn skills and improve significantly even long into adulthood. This does not have to be a permanent issue. Many people, even with severe childhood trauma or serious, life-wrecking issues can improve emotional dysregulation significantly in a fairly short period of time. In other words, it's worth being hopeful that generally okay (but not perfect) parenting--and perhaps a bit of a bad dice roll when it comes to genetics--will not permanently doom your kid to a lifetime of having these kinds of issues.
The bad news (sorry!) is that you can't force your spouse to get help, even though it would be useful to his overall functioning and very useful to improving his ability to parent and be a healthy role model.
However, you can learn many of the skills yourself and practice them to keep yourself on an even keel, and as noted above, talk about how you are feeling frustrated so you're going to do X skill. Then talk about how much better you feel and how you feel proud of your ability to stay calm.
Another general tip is to learn how to validate your child's reaction without endorsing their level of distress or their maladaptive behavior. Being invalidated can make it harder to regulate emotions, but it's also easy to inadvertently encourage a child's distress. This can be tough and a bit of a tightrope if you have a particularly sensitive child, and is worth getting professional help with.
posted by knobknosher at 11:37 PM on December 1 [3 favorites]
Whoops, hit post before I completed my thought. Meant to include more detailed description of parenting tactics:
However, you can learn many of the skills yourself and practice them to keep yourself on an even keel, and as noted above, talk about how you are feeling frustrated, sad, overwhelmed, etc. so you're going to do X. Then talk about how much better you feel and how you feel proud of your ability to stay calm. You can talk about feeling emotions and reacting in a healthy way without being overwhelmed with them. ("I'm feeling sad, I think I'm going to put on a movie I like"). You can talk in a value-neutral, non-shaming way about how much easier it is to get upset when you're not taking care of physical needs, like rest, food, water, exercise.
posted by knobknosher at 11:43 PM on December 1
However, you can learn many of the skills yourself and practice them to keep yourself on an even keel, and as noted above, talk about how you are feeling frustrated, sad, overwhelmed, etc. so you're going to do X. Then talk about how much better you feel and how you feel proud of your ability to stay calm. You can talk about feeling emotions and reacting in a healthy way without being overwhelmed with them. ("I'm feeling sad, I think I'm going to put on a movie I like"). You can talk in a value-neutral, non-shaming way about how much easier it is to get upset when you're not taking care of physical needs, like rest, food, water, exercise.
posted by knobknosher at 11:43 PM on December 1
Also, apologies if you already do this (it sounds like you do based on your description of how you react to your spouse), but I would make sure you're paying positive, sustained attention when your child is calm. Unfortunately, because modern parenting is so hard, it can sometimes be easier to pay much more attention when a child gets really out of control--there are only so many hours of the day and they seem needier at those times. However, it can inadvertently teach them that getting out of control is a really good way to get care and attention if they feel like they need it.
posted by knobknosher at 11:48 PM on December 1
posted by knobknosher at 11:48 PM on December 1
One thing that is very worth while is checking for physiological triggers for your kid's anxiety. The standard assumption is that the anxiety is situation based, or the result of trauma or a malfunctioning brain. But very frequently there are physiological triggers, such as the child being extremely hungry, and then remembering that thing Dad said, and the combination of feeling like crap and the memory triggers the anxiety attack.
Any state of significant discomfort or pain can trigger anxiety attacks -being short of sleep, being short of breath, a blood sugar crash, too much noise, too much light, back pain... Anxiety can be hard to pull out of, because we are supposed to remain vigilant when there is a threat. But this means it can easily turn into rumination. I am not at all saying you should minimize the things he is worried about, but you should try to set up times when there are too many other good and interesting things going on for him to easily slide back into that anxiety state.
Exercise is one of the number one ways to treat anxiety, and most children are not getting anywhere remotely near the amount of exercise they need - a very simple thing that might alleviate your kids anxiety is just to tell him that you are concerned that he is going through a hard time, and would like to spend more time with him as a result, and then for the quality parenting time take him for a brisk walk, with a few spurts of running every day. Don't try to psychoanalyze him, or encourage him to core dump, or even make helpful suggestions. Make it a time when he doesn't think about his anxieties, and you talk about squirrels or his favourite video games, and whatever casual unimportant amusing stuff takes both your fancy.
Everybody is in a deep vibrating state of anxiety right now, and he could easily be picking up on it from everyone around him. You can also try significantly limiting his exposure to environmental anxiety triggers - the news, adults talking about the news, money worries, talk about school shootings, talk about Covid. The kid is nine. There is not a darn thing he can do about school shootings and the environment and the pending dissolution of the US democracy, so beyond hearing that the adults are concerned and working on these things, he really doesn't need to hear about them on a weekly basis, let alone a daily one.
Yet well meaning people may be getting him to recycle with the threat that the world will end if he doesn't put his papers in the right recycling receptacles every day at the end of class, or warning him to watch his peers at school for signs of violent ideation, or recurrently warning him of stranger danger, now that he is getting old enough to have more opportunities to wander away from supervised situations. He may be hearing the things you say because you are worrying out loud. His anxiety may be coming from the fact that everyone is now acting like the world is an inherently dangerous and threatening place, and that we are on a tight time line to save it. If your kid develops hyper vigilance, it should be that he might miss seeing a squirrel during your walks in the park. "There's one! There's another!" not that if he doesn't watch the class bully really closely, said bully might bring a gun to school.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:54 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
Any state of significant discomfort or pain can trigger anxiety attacks -being short of sleep, being short of breath, a blood sugar crash, too much noise, too much light, back pain... Anxiety can be hard to pull out of, because we are supposed to remain vigilant when there is a threat. But this means it can easily turn into rumination. I am not at all saying you should minimize the things he is worried about, but you should try to set up times when there are too many other good and interesting things going on for him to easily slide back into that anxiety state.
Exercise is one of the number one ways to treat anxiety, and most children are not getting anywhere remotely near the amount of exercise they need - a very simple thing that might alleviate your kids anxiety is just to tell him that you are concerned that he is going through a hard time, and would like to spend more time with him as a result, and then for the quality parenting time take him for a brisk walk, with a few spurts of running every day. Don't try to psychoanalyze him, or encourage him to core dump, or even make helpful suggestions. Make it a time when he doesn't think about his anxieties, and you talk about squirrels or his favourite video games, and whatever casual unimportant amusing stuff takes both your fancy.
Everybody is in a deep vibrating state of anxiety right now, and he could easily be picking up on it from everyone around him. You can also try significantly limiting his exposure to environmental anxiety triggers - the news, adults talking about the news, money worries, talk about school shootings, talk about Covid. The kid is nine. There is not a darn thing he can do about school shootings and the environment and the pending dissolution of the US democracy, so beyond hearing that the adults are concerned and working on these things, he really doesn't need to hear about them on a weekly basis, let alone a daily one.
Yet well meaning people may be getting him to recycle with the threat that the world will end if he doesn't put his papers in the right recycling receptacles every day at the end of class, or warning him to watch his peers at school for signs of violent ideation, or recurrently warning him of stranger danger, now that he is getting old enough to have more opportunities to wander away from supervised situations. He may be hearing the things you say because you are worrying out loud. His anxiety may be coming from the fact that everyone is now acting like the world is an inherently dangerous and threatening place, and that we are on a tight time line to save it. If your kid develops hyper vigilance, it should be that he might miss seeing a squirrel during your walks in the park. "There's one! There's another!" not that if he doesn't watch the class bully really closely, said bully might bring a gun to school.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:54 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
Solidarity from another parent of an anxious kid. I got mine into therapy in fourth grade after a sustained spike in symptoms that was definitely affecting their quality of life. It's a bit of a tricky age for therapy and there aren't any magic bullets but I think it's worth it for both kid and parent(s). You can't stop his mind from turning on itself, but you can give him little things to hold onto to help him take the edge off, and you can help him get some understanding and perspective about what's happening and what makes it better or worse for him.
Are you actually okay with your spouse's anxiety, beyond the I-have-no-control-here acceptance/resignation? I've had highly anxious partners in the past and at while I wasn't willing to admit it at the time because I believed it to be incompatible with being a good person, I can say at this point that other people's anxiety can be really activating for me in a way that's highly unpleasant. I deal with it internally but the reality is that for my own nervous system it is distressing and makes me feel bad and I just really dislike being around it. And when it's your kid, that's not really optional, obviously, and the sanity-saving division of responsibility concepts don't apply in the same way.
I say all of that just to say: if any of this resonates with you at all, I think, especially because you have an anxious partner who you might not want to honestly vent to and might not be able to fully depend on when your kid is spiked, I would recommend making sure your support system is there. I (single parent) was able to manage a lot of the time, but having friends I could text with the 'omgf i'm dying here' stuff and feeling supported by my kid's therapist, who had the clearest window into what was going on, made a huge difference and I would've struggled a lot more without those things. (I was in individual therapy during some of this time but not for/about this- a therapist could be a good support person too, though.)
(Offering as well that two years on my kid is in a much better place. I leave room for that changing in the future and every person is different, but sharing in case it helps to think that it's possible for this to not be the beginning of a lifetime of intense anxiety, which is what I think I was gearing up for at the outset.)
posted by wormtales at 8:03 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
Are you actually okay with your spouse's anxiety, beyond the I-have-no-control-here acceptance/resignation? I've had highly anxious partners in the past and at while I wasn't willing to admit it at the time because I believed it to be incompatible with being a good person, I can say at this point that other people's anxiety can be really activating for me in a way that's highly unpleasant. I deal with it internally but the reality is that for my own nervous system it is distressing and makes me feel bad and I just really dislike being around it. And when it's your kid, that's not really optional, obviously, and the sanity-saving division of responsibility concepts don't apply in the same way.
I say all of that just to say: if any of this resonates with you at all, I think, especially because you have an anxious partner who you might not want to honestly vent to and might not be able to fully depend on when your kid is spiked, I would recommend making sure your support system is there. I (single parent) was able to manage a lot of the time, but having friends I could text with the 'omgf i'm dying here' stuff and feeling supported by my kid's therapist, who had the clearest window into what was going on, made a huge difference and I would've struggled a lot more without those things. (I was in individual therapy during some of this time but not for/about this- a therapist could be a good support person too, though.)
(Offering as well that two years on my kid is in a much better place. I leave room for that changing in the future and every person is different, but sharing in case it helps to think that it's possible for this to not be the beginning of a lifetime of intense anxiety, which is what I think I was gearing up for at the outset.)
posted by wormtales at 8:03 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
I was this kid and whoa boy, you need to get them help sooner rather than later. (Spoiler alert - I didn't get help until I was in law school and I still have chronic anxiety.) I would recommend both kid and dad get therapy individually to address this because it will not get better.
I can't say what my third grade self would have done if I had had therapy, but I am almost positive that my current 48 year old self would have really appreciated it.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 8:13 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
I can't say what my third grade self would have done if I had had therapy, but I am almost positive that my current 48 year old self would have really appreciated it.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 8:13 AM on December 2 [1 favorite]
Highly recommend Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD: A Scientifically Proven Program for Parents. Concise, very practical advice, and you will pick up some tips (or at least language) that may help with your partner.
posted by caek at 12:21 PM on December 2
posted by caek at 12:21 PM on December 2
My son in fourth grade has an anxiety disorder. He sees a therapist at school, and also has an occupational therapist outside of school who helps work on techniques to identify and manage emotions. (People don't always know that OT can help with anxiety in kids, but they can)! But he also has ADHD so his emotions tend to zoom past on a runaway train before he can grab them. In therapy and OT, we hit a wall with him being able to say all the right things and practice positive thoughts, calming techniques, etc. when he was calm, but when he actually needed those techniques and was anxiously spiraling? Completely out of the question, he became even more upset if we suggested it. He started an SSRI for anxiety early this year and it's made a significant positive difference, so don't be hesitant to try that if therapy isn't enough. Sometimes it's necessary to get the haywire brain chemicals into better balance before kids can actually apply those techniques they learned.
As for what you say to him, I wish I had a solid anwer but to be honest most days it feels like throwing darts at a wall while blindfolded. But I try to validate that he seems worried and upset without mirroring his fear, we find something pleasant and distracting for him to do, and we avoid giving in to repeated reassurance-seeking, i.e. him asking the same question about the same worry over and over. ("but mom, are you TOTALLY TOTALLY SURE I'm not getting a shot tomorrow?" "I already answered that this morning. You can ask me again at 5 PM tonight if you are still worried about it then.")
posted by castlebravo at 12:33 PM on December 2
As for what you say to him, I wish I had a solid anwer but to be honest most days it feels like throwing darts at a wall while blindfolded. But I try to validate that he seems worried and upset without mirroring his fear, we find something pleasant and distracting for him to do, and we avoid giving in to repeated reassurance-seeking, i.e. him asking the same question about the same worry over and over. ("but mom, are you TOTALLY TOTALLY SURE I'm not getting a shot tomorrow?" "I already answered that this morning. You can ask me again at 5 PM tonight if you are still worried about it then.")
posted by castlebravo at 12:33 PM on December 2
Are you sure it’s anxiety, though? Could it be (Metafilter favorite) ADHD? I ask because rejection sensitivity disorder (RSD) and hyper focus on fairness can be components of it, which would explain kiddo melting down from one tough comment and the bit with the teacher.
I’d see if your pediatrician will do screening for learning and behavior stuff and go from there.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:18 PM on December 2 [2 favorites]
I’d see if your pediatrician will do screening for learning and behavior stuff and go from there.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:18 PM on December 2 [2 favorites]
Not a doctor or therapist, just an anxious adult who was once an anxious kid. "Anxiety in kids is bad", whew, when I was a kid we believed in sucking it up and getting over it! Boy, did that fuck me up. The most important thing to do here is to acknowledge your kid's feelings are valid even if his beliefs are not. "Sometimes emotions can be big and overwhelming." and "Wow, yes, school can be stressful!" and "Let's take some deep breaths together." and "Dad gets stressed and scared too. Yes, it even happens to grownups." That kinda thing. The word 'overreacting' is formally banished from your family's vocabulary, as is the word 'dramatic'.
I was, and am, also a big planner who likes to be in control. It helped me sometimes to run through worst-case scenarios. OK, let's say the bad thing you're worried about happens. What will you do next? Will that be so tough? And don't worry about me, I'll be proud of you always, kiddo.
But this all assumes this is anxiety. I'd +1 bluedaisy's suggestion to getting kid a psych workup and finding out if this is in fact neurodivergence. Because meltdowns, a strong sense of fairness, and difficulty interpreting tone behind comments sound more like autism to me. Again, not a doctor or therapist, just also an autistic adult who was once an autistic kid. I thought I had "panic attacks" for years: they were not panic attacks but meltdowns! Not the same thing, and tactics are a little different.
posted by capricorn at 9:46 AM on December 4
I was, and am, also a big planner who likes to be in control. It helped me sometimes to run through worst-case scenarios. OK, let's say the bad thing you're worried about happens. What will you do next? Will that be so tough? And don't worry about me, I'll be proud of you always, kiddo.
But this all assumes this is anxiety. I'd +1 bluedaisy's suggestion to getting kid a psych workup and finding out if this is in fact neurodivergence. Because meltdowns, a strong sense of fairness, and difficulty interpreting tone behind comments sound more like autism to me. Again, not a doctor or therapist, just also an autistic adult who was once an autistic kid. I thought I had "panic attacks" for years: they were not panic attacks but meltdowns! Not the same thing, and tactics are a little different.
posted by capricorn at 9:46 AM on December 4
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Your partner also should be consuming the same material and needs to not just be an 'adult' but a parent now, which may include getting help for their anxiety so they can help their child because this isn't just your job. Surely they have insight, as a person with higher anxiety, on what an anxious kid needs to hear and feel supported.
For the adults:
- Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents: 7 Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle and Raise Courageous and Independent Children
- Freeing Your Child from Anxiety, Revised and Updated Edition: Practical Strategies to Overcome Fears, Worries, and Phobias and Be Prepared for Life--from Toddlers to Teens
- Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids
- The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind
- Therapy in a Nutshell has a series on anxiety in children
For the kiddo:
- Sometimes I'm Anxious: A Child's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety (this whole series is good)
- Me and My Feelings: A Kids' Guide to Understanding and Expressing Themselves
- I Can Do Hard Things: Mindful Affirmations for Kids
Your school system may work with a specific set of books and exercises for socio-emotional development, so it's worth asking if they offer any resources related to that material.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:06 PM on December 1 [22 favorites]