Anxiety 7 year old girl. Advice please

[Reginaldperrin]

I'm posting here for traffic rather than in parenting in the hope that someone can offer some help.

My daughter started suffering really bad anxiety (seemingly out of the blue) last Christmas. She was 6 years old at the time and suddenly started refusing to go to school and wanting to go on playdates. This continued for a few months and got really quite bad at one point. Around the time she started getting anxious, we had some stuff going on in the extended family (my husbands gran was dying, my dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I was having some health problems) however, we didn't tell our kids about any of this stuff that was going on.

We worked closely with the school who helped support her. She seemed to start improving and began to go on playdates again / sleepovers with her cousins etc. Everything was calm for a few months.

Just before the summer things started ramping up again, again not wanting to go on playdates. / having panic attacks if we left her. She's absoloutely fine and happy if we are with her, but as soon as we suggest leaving her (either at a club, or a friends, or even with family) she starts to get really worried and refuses to be left.

Now school has started again, and we're back to her being really anxious and crying before school and not wanting to go in. We have obviously to get to the bottom of what is and the best we can establish is that she is worried she'll be sick or something bad will happen when were not there.

Weve bought the book 'What to do when you worry too much' but she says it doesn't help.

I know people will automatically say ASD / ADHD. Im not disregarding that, however Im really not sure that is the case here. I just had a few questions....

Is it possible to 'just' have anxiety without it being related to another diagnosis?

Has anyone had experience of this kind of thing, and what helped?

Obviously it's easy to catastrophise and I'm worrying about things getting worse. We have an appointment with CAHMS tomorrow and the school councillor is going to be getting in touch with us.

We have a very stable home, nothing has changed, and we're trying to keep things as light as possible. But it's tough. Any advice would be really appreciated.

She may have picked up on you and your DH's anxiety about the health problems in the family when all that was going on-it can be scary for children when they sense that parents are sad/worried but it's not being discussed. 'Overcoming your child's fears and worries' is a good book- the best books&therapies will work with parents to help them learn how to react when the child is anxious (as opposed to targeting the child directly if that makes sense). You sound like a lovely caring& supportive mum so I'm sure she will conquer this with your help

No advice but in the same boat only older (11 next month). DS was fine until last November when we had a month out of school and withdrawal due to anxiety. Jan-June back at school happy with friends going out to houses, walking home. June minor setback got better in the summer. Last week total breakdown and off school again. Just trying to take it slowly to get him back

Thank you so much for replying @NnarcissaMalfoy We're definitely trying really hard, it's tough skirting the line between being understanding and empathetic, and trying to encourage her to do things beyond her comfort zone.

Off to buy that book now.

@Quartz2208 Quartz2208 I'm really sorry you're experiencing the same thing. Have you sought any external help?

Anxiety can happen out of the blue and doesn’t necessarily need a trigger. I’m a long term sufferer, ever since I was early teens. CBT therapy helped a lot and I manage my symptoms a lot better now.

My best advice is not to push; trying to convince an anxious person to do something can make them feel even more anxious; like they’re being a pain in the arse for simply not wanting to do something which can worsen the anxiety.

I feel for you, 7 is really young to feel that way and it must be so upsetting to see her that way. I hope it doesn’t last long x

Thank you @WedTheBed We are trying to not to push (apart from going to school) and are trying to do everything we can to support. So agreeing to go on playdates with her, staying at clubs with her etc, but its not always possible (in which case she wont go).

My worry is that she will then just end up doing nothing and become socially isolated.

Her school is lovely and supportive. I just feel like this is all my fault, somewhow ive caused her to feel like this. I know I cant indulge that feeling, but im feeling a bit emotionally fragile about it all so just letting it out here. I do a pretty good job of keeping everything light and breezy at home.

We are in exactly the same position only my dd is 13.
Like yours our dd is OK when we are around but will not do anything without us as she is scared she will be sick.
Our dd sees a psychologist with camhs now and does cbt. To be honest not working really at the moment as she is currently still refusing to go to school. Although her school are not supportive and currently not replying to calls/emails.
During her first appointment with camhs they suggested asd - school had never suggested it and I had never thought it but as we now know girls often fly under the radar when younger.
In my experience camhs have been amazing and are the only people to acknowledge that my dd desperately needs help. It's good you have an appointment with them. They really took their time to get to know my dd so they could match her with the best help they offer.

Thank you @Angelbunny Does your daughter have an asd diagnosis now? I really hope you start to see some improvement in her anxiety soon. Good luck.

We are waiting for therapy appointments via our LA CAMHS. I think he is just aware of too much like flying is an issue, he has also started puberty at 10 and is v tall.

it is just v hard