Anxious 6 year old

[RayofSunshine18]

My daughter is 6 years old. Her father and I have been separated since she was 2 years old. We both live with and have partners, she has a 18m old sibling on her fathers side. She is (and will be) my only child.

She is on a day to day basis, a very happy, chatty, confident child. She loves school and has friends there. At home she eats and sleeps well and is generally happy on a day to day basis.

Every so often, she goes through these phases of becoming intensely anxious that something is going to happen to me while she is at school or at her Dads and I am at work. Nothing changes in our day to day routine but she just has these bouts of anxiety that leave her crying at school for hours.

She goes to her Dad's house two nights a week, every week and every other weekend. She is mostly happy with this but does say she would rather stay with me, but once she is there she is fine. She will tell her Dad she misses me but nothing extreme that he has made me aware of.

She has seen the school's counsellor a few times which seems to help but we just seem to end up back at the start again.

I wonder if anyone else has had experience of this and if there was a way I could help her. I hate seeing her so worried about me and just want to be able to put her mind at ease.

I have tried talking to her but I think at that age its hard to get her to believe that I will be just fine.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

I’ve come across this a few times before. Sometimes it seems to come from nowhere but possibly has an unidentified trigger.
I know she would have been young but was she like this before her sibling was born?
At times it is triggered by the death of a relative or pet or even a film or story.

Do you work from home at all? Is it only when you are working or does she worry if you are at home and she is at her Dad’s?
Sounds like you are looking for triggers but it is worth recording when she is most anxious including day, time, behaviour and outcome e.g. if she gets distressed at school is it at random times or always the same time of day/ day of the week for e.g.Look for patterns and what happened when she got distressed.

Have you tried a Worry Monster, worry dolls, stories about anxiety etc? What have they worked on at school?
Hope she feels less anxious soon.

Thank you for responding.

She has been like this since reception, so yes before her sibling was born.

I work in an office, but only a 5 minute drive from her school and our home. She knows where I work and has been to my office on multiple occasions as it is in our local high street (half term / weekends etc).

She tells me that she tells her dad that she misses me when she's with him and cries in the night when she is in her bedroom. She tells me his response is usually 'dont worry you will see mummy soon'. Her dad isn't the most emotionally receptive and she says she feels she will get in trouble if she tells him too much.

Usually, and most frequently it is a Thursday which is the day her father picks her up but when its particularly bad, its every day and it is always in the morning after drop off.

I don't want to point the finger at her dad because once she is there, I do believe she is fine. The missing me is anywhere she is and especially if she knows she wont see me for a few days. I think its the idea of that, rather than her location - if that makes sense.

We have the Worrysaurus book which we read, she also has an 'emotion book' which is a notepad with a little padlock and key, which she has to write down how she feels and its her book only and no one else will read it. We did also have a mindful journal which was aimed at children which she did like so perhaps i need to get another one of those to help her process her feelings.

Oh the wee toot, must be hard to think of her distressed like this. A few thoughts:

It's a very normal stage of development for kids at this kind of age to begin to make sense of the concept of death and to ruminate a bit on what this could mean for themselves or family members. This is naturally distressing so in lots of ways it's a normal response to an upsetting reality. The fact that she's only focused on this sometimes makes you wonder why it comes up though. Have you had any conversations about death and the like? I try not to say 'don't worry nothing will ever happen to me', even though I want to reassure them but point out how I drive safely, I eat heathy food, I do lots of things to take care of myself.

It's good that she tells you how she feels, including 'I can't say how I feel too much with dad'. (Which itself is sad and not great but she has an outlet in you and hopefully you can help her think about what she can say and do when she feels bad at dads?)

Crying for hours though sounds unusual, what does the teacher say about when it happens and what support do they give?

The books you've used sound great, I'd recommend another one called 'the invisible string'. It's lovely about how we are always connected by an invisible string. My 6yr old believes she can mentally tug her strong and I send a hug along to her. A 'transitional object' could be worth a try too. A tiny teddy or maybe a heart shaped stone that she can keep in her pocket at school or at dads. You show her you hugging the object and putting all your love into it, then she can rub it in her pocket and get some of your love.

It sounds like you're a lovely mum and doing great. Sadly anxiety is part of life and you're not doing anything wrong because she feels this, in fact you letting her feel it and supporting her through it without squashing the feelings, is what will help her eventually manage the feelings on her own.

@Jollyjoy thank you so much for this lovely and thoughtful reply. We do have the invisible string as well so this is definitely one to re-visit too. We also have a plastic heart each that she made that she keeps in her coat pocket and I keep one in mine so that if she starts to feel sad, she can give it a squeeze and i can do the same.

When she was in reception I actually sewed little hearts into her cardigan sleeves for the same reason, so perhaps I can do that again too.

I also tell her she can tell me anything she likes, no matter how big or small it is. She said sometimes her mind has lots of thoughts in it and I said that I have the same thing sometimes and it makes my head feel 'fizzy', so sometimes its helpful to talk about them to get them out.

The teachers seem at a bit of a loss and have suggested the school counsellor again, which I am in favour of, if it helps.

I hadn't thought about her worrying about death, but you do raise a very good point there. We haven't had any loss in our lives recently, but that's not to say she hasn't heard of someone at school who has, or even seen / read something that has triggered this, so definitely food for thought.

You're welcome, and great idea with the wee hearts in the sleeves, so sweet!

I think they just work it out at some stage, initially they learn that things die and at some point they think 'what about me/mum/dad?'. My eldest was probably about 4 and my youngest it's been this year when she's 6. I've had her crying to me saying 'I don't want you to die' (harrowing) hence the sort of reassurance that I work hard on not dying that I mentioned above. She's also not given indication yet that she's thought much yet about the possibility that she could die - it's not unusual for kids to think at some point in the process that they can't die, only old people can.

I also remember my eldest telling DH 'it would be much funner if we could all die together'. Sweet if not morbid!