Edited 17/02/2021
Looking at Therapeutic Support
edin2014
April 23, 2018 10:36
Hi, Just looking for a wee bit of advise. LO has been with us since November 2016, previously had shown signs of anxiety when with FC, but since being with us there has been no visual anxiety. More recently LO has started to show signs of Anxiety (we think), and this has started to show itself in being sick. So for example this morning LO is going back to nursery after easter and a weeks holiday. Breakfast was all good (Minus the normal slow eater and the encouragement to eat). Went to the toilet as usual everything seemed fine. After toilet trip number 2 LO looked at us and we saw the face of puke. The only common thing we can see is that its when something big is about to happen, LO's nerves get the better, and we think butterfly's are being experienced, and causing the sickness. Before we went on Holiday a week ago we could see signs of nerves/anxious, and we managed to do a little therapy session (using feeling cards) which helped bring out the usual happy excited child. (After this LO kept saying lets try going on Holiday tomorrow, so we secretly packed the car and said we were gong to the shops) We always prepare him before hand for doing anything, but more recently it has back fired and caused what seems to be anxiety. So we have had to stop telling any information until it is imminent, and that way there is no time to stress/worry over it and be sick. Would we benefit from some therapeutic support or does anyone have any advice? Thanks
Flosskirk
April 25, 2018 12:04
Hi It sounds like anxiety and also not being able to share how he is feeling. My younger daughter was like this - by contrast her elder sister would tell us exactly how she was feeling by tantrumming (which was useful information but delivered in the wrong way). But younger daughter wouldn't give us any clues and in fact I never actually knew if she even knew that she was anxious or if she was completely disassociating from it. I think you are right to want to start to explore this one. Feelings cards are good, but you might have to work on this for a long time to start getting anywhere. You could talk about how you are feeling so that your child gets the message that everyone has feelings and it's okay to discuss this. Look out for picture books and games which talk about feelings and get a glove puppet to talk to him rather than it just being you - often children will open up to puppets apparently when they won't to their parents. It might be better to tell him things in advance and then use this opportunity to help him through the difficult stage, regardless of what his behaviour is. Otherwise he isn't getting to practise using different strategies and he may end up not being able to settle as he is always anxious that you are going to go somewhere. I never did surprises for my children as they couldn't cope with it - they needed to always know what was happening and I just helped them deal with their upset. Thing is, he might be being sick right now but this could change - he could start wetting himself or something else. It can become a real problem if you have entrenched behaviour like that so I would suggest that you pay little attention to the sick but just talk quite nicely to him about having "too big" feelings when he has an incident and just focus on the underlying feelings. There is a good book called 'Bag of Worries' which he might be too young for just now, but I am sure there are other age appropriate books. Good luck
Edited 17/02/2021
Archived
This topic is archived. New posts are not allowed.
