to be angry with DH

[yellowDahlia]

For background: DD1 (10) has had some difficulties at school drop-off since about the middle of last term - she won't walk over and line up with the class, always hangs back with me in the playground and has to be passed on to a teacher who walks her in. This compromise was reached after several incidents of her being really upset and almost hysterical (me too in many cases!) about leaving me and going into school. It's worth saying that when she's in, she's fine, and is fairly stable in all other aspects of life, bar the odd hormonal outburst.

However I discussed with DH last night the possibility of working on this with her again, as we've accepted this as the new 'normal' but really I want her to be able to line up and walk into school with her friends, as she has done for the previous five years of school so far. I suggested offering what would be basically a massive bribe - we will buy her a fitbit/ipad/gadget she wants IF she will work with us to overcome this.

This conversation was somewhat brief and not concluded (or so I thought) - fast forward to this morning when I go upstairs to find DD1 crying as her dad had told her that she wasn't getting to practice cello with her best friend after school (which he'd previously agreed to arrange), unless she does better at walking into school this morning.

I'm not often angry at DH but I was raging - this is the complete opposite of what I thought we'd agreed last night, and he hadn't even told me he'd said it to her - he was on his way out when I discovered this conversation had been held, leaving me to talk down a distressed DD1 and then try to get her successfully into school. I can't believe he doesn't understand the pressure that sort of request puts on her - effectively punishing her for not doing something she finds extremely difficult at the moment, and tying it in with her and her friend's performance with their musical instrument. I find this even more baffling because he's a music teacher!!

AIBU to be so mad? I know he was trying to help - he'd clearly registered from last night's (half-baked) conversation that there was a problem and so decided to try and fix it. But this was NOT what we agreed. I really wanted to do this in a positive way, take time to discuss with with DD1 and use a simple incentive, not issue random punishments an hour before school connected to her friends and her music, which is detrimental to both of them and we now have to enforce because, clearly, I had to walk her into school today as per usual!

Yes, punishing anxiety is more often than not counterproductive as then you have the additional anxiety of being punished for being anxious. And yes I think there can often be an anxiety of being anxious, you fear the physical feelings of being nervous, sick, crying, fear being embarrassed. But I'm also a fan of gentle desensitization, rather than avoidance which makes anxiety worse. Little by little get her back into the routine of a normal school drop off, ask her what step she can take to improve and let her try it. Take a positive approach, and ignore any hysterics (I'm an anxious person, sometimes you have to feel some discomfort and still move on).

As a maybe crazy suggestion, does she like bananas? People taking their driving test are always advised to have a banana beforehand as it is a natural beta blocker. Perhaps one with breakfast may help to calm her.

And do thoroughly investigate bullying, victims of bullying are often really really resistant to telling someone even after extensive interrogation. I also wouldn't necessarily believe the teacher saying she is ok, she may just be a good actress at being 'ok'. Hope she improves soon

You can't make anxiety go away by punishing the person.
Since it's not a major problem and you have found a way that works for the both of you, I would just wait for her to grow out of it. No pressure usually eases off anxiety (or anything that can transform the anxiety into a more positive feeling like eating a piece of chocolate or thinking she will be able to play on the ipad or whatever in the evening).

It sounds as though she has anxiety issues which has set of this OCD behaviour. As everyone knows OCD is complete irrational but nevertheless very powerful once it has a grip.

I would try a tablet as a bribe. It may be sufficient incentive to break the OCD but I doubt it. She may need referral to camhs for some CBT but if you can afford private I would go that way as the waiting lists are awful.

And DHs reaction was so bloody counterproductive, no wonder you are angry. Instinctively you know how to manage a difficult situation

You can't bribe someone out of OCD or Anxiety.

Actually, I think this is already quite a big thing, so going to a GP or a counsellor specialising in working with children is the way forward.

She can't enjoy feeling the way she does - it's humiliating her in front of her peers.

And forcing her to do something she is struggling with is not the answer, so forcing or punishing will only make her more anxious. Get her proper professional help.

Oh dear, it's hard isn't it? Thing is, she seems stuck at the moment. The extra reassurance she's getting from you hanging around and not having line up with the others isn't actually making her any more reassured and confident, is it? In fact, it's probably just bolstering her sense of herself as fragile, and her emotions as mysterious strong forces she can't control or understand. I don't know how to approach this except to bring about the conditions that enable her to see she can line up and go into school or be left by her mother at a friend's house perfectly well, and nothing bad happens. She just needs to do it and build confidence by doing it. It's like learning to speak a foreign language - you can only do it by doing it. Can you teach her breathing exercises to control anxiety? Count 5 inhale, hold 5, count 5 exhale?

This assumes there isn't a vile teacher or horrible bully in the picture, of course. Although the longer it goes on, the more likely she is to become a target for the mean girls type of thing...

Good luck. I can't blame your husband for being abrupt, annoying though it is not to be united in your approach. But that's not really the biggie here though is it?

Instead of trying to bribe her and punish her I think you and your DH need to work with your DD to get to the bottom of what's causing her so much upset and distress.

I am one parent who has dealt with major anxiety/school refusal etc, and while I think your dh is totally out of line, I am not sure the iPad is a brilliant idea either.

For one thing, what will you do if she manages to pull herself together for a while, you buy the iPad and she then has another blip? Take the iPad away from her (in which case, we are very close to your dh's way of dealing with things) or think of another expensive incentive?

I think both your dh's and your own approach are similar in that they see your dd's anxiety primarily as a behavioural issue: do this and I will reward you/don't do this and I will punish you- it's really the same way of looking at things.

But assuming that she really is this anxious, then more than anything else it's about a problem she has, a problem that affects her life, a problem it is in her interests to learn to manage. I would completely forget about rewards and punishments and sit down and discuss it with her on those terms: "I know this is making your life difficult, there are techniques you can use to make it better, would you like us to look into those techniques?"

My ds, 9, developed ocd anxiety around food. He was helped by camhs who told me the following:

Don't try and force him to overcome his anxiety. Stay calm and upbeat as much as possible

Actively help him find ways around his anxiety so you become someone he trusts and so he will accept support.

You can't make an anxiety 'grow' by talking about it.

For two years I had to watch him never eat meat or cheese or drink milk.He was totally vegan. But I stopped feeling angry and desperate for him and just concentrated on accepting him as he was. Eventually, the anxiety started to subside and he's back to eating a range of foods.

Your dd should be helped to do the school drop off in anyway which helps her feel less anxious imo. Just accept that's what she needs at the moment and don't make anything of it. Let her know that she can trust you to help her by listening to her needs. She may then be able to tell you what her fear is.

Being dropped off like that isn't such a big deal really.

Thanks for all you input so far on this - it's been a useful reality check, sounding board, reassurance and source of information!

I will look into the link on anxiety which a pp has posted - thank you.

It seems like our options are:

• hard line 'you're going to school, end of story'
• punish 'if you don't, you won't have x'
• reward 'if you do this you'll get x'
• lots of talking, reassurance, confidence building
• going to the GP
• do nothing, wait it out, hope she'll grow out of it

...or some combination of these. So no definitive way to solve the problem, but it's really reassuring to know others have dealt with (and survived!) similar issues. I really want to help her with this, and try to give her the strategies now to deal with anxieties, because she has a tendency to worry and this would stand her in good stead.

Coincidentally I just bumped into her teacher on my lunch break, the one who's been really helpful and has just gone off on maternity leave! Apart from showing off her new, teeny tiny DS she was again lovely about DD1 and reassuring too. She was certainly prepared to continue to support DD1 in getting into school as she's fine once she's in...and in some ways that's the main thing I suppose - if this was to escalate and start to affect her school day I would be even more worried..

MrsBobDylan that all sounds sensible, and kind of matches my general way of thinking.

Also thanks to the pp who said you have an instinct about how to deal with these sorts of things...a reminder that I need to listen to mine and follow it.

I feel a key thing is that she was fine for 5 years and then suddenly wasn't. To me, that says that something changed, which, even if it was an insignificant thing at the time, has sown the seeds for some large-scale anxiety. If I think of myself at that age, I would have been mortified that my friends were seeing me crying and clinging to my mum every morning, so I think that whatever has caused this is important on some level and it would pay dividends to try and get at what it is. That might involve talking to DD, although I can see that in between rewards, threats and general handwringing, endless talking about 'what's causing all this' might feel like the last straw to her. If it were my child, I think I would spend some time pondering what else has been going on, either at school or in the family, that might have been overlooked. Even if it's not something that has a solution, you might all feel better if the cause of her anxiety were clearer. Though not bad advice in itself, I think you might find a trip to the GP fruitless, as the CAMHS service is totally drowning and you would wait ages for input that would likely be totally inadequate.

Not the same, but one of my DCs became very anxious at school around Y4 because of a combination of bullying, boredom and not really finding his niche. We tried liaising with school (who were useless), widening his circle of friends, resilience techniques, etc, all the usual stuff, but nothing really worked, although some days were better than others. In the end, it just came down to getting through it, being brisk about stomach aches, sympathetic when there were tears and, as you say, trying to be intuitive about solutions. He changed school at 11 and was like a new child from week 1 - all his aches and pains and allergies cleared up, he was cheerful and got on with things, and has really blossomed into the confident, easygoing child he was as a toddler. You feel bad after these things resolve that you didn't deal with them better, but - not to gainsay my own advice - sometimes there is no real solution and time just needs to pass. To that extent, the solutions you have in place at present seem to be better than the alternatives, and won't necessarily persist as bad habits.

Oh, and no, YANBU to be angry with your DH. Parenting is best practised as a team sport imo, and he dropped the ball bigtime.

I totally understand that feeling of just wanting your child to be OK and how worried I sometimes felt that he would never eat these foods again. My clincher was seeing my son unable to eat any party food because he worried it had been touched by the host (it was a fear of contamination, dirt etc) and I suddenly understood that if his fear was so huge that he couldn't eat cake at a party, then no amount of bribing, cajoling or telling was going to work.

Your dd went into school fine for 5 years. It's not as though you forgot to tell her that's the way it's done or didn't expect she would be able to do it. She did it automatically until one day she associated it with anxiety and she is now trapped by it. You've done well to negotiate a way around her fear, now try to win her trust (which unfortunately he dad will have shaken) and build it from there. Definitely go with your instinct!

Yes I agree that one of the reasons why we've let things go as they are for a while is because there was too much to-ing and fro-ing, rewards, punishments, talking around it so much without getting anywhere...and now we've found a way which 'works', although not ideal, she's not usually upset in the mornings and goes in without crying. I think that's one of the reasons I was so angry with DH - I wanted to approach this again simply and without mixing and muddling lots of different strategies. And I think you're right MrsBob we might have to let it lie again until we've built up a bit more confidence and trust.

Honestly, it would have been easier not to have mentioned the issue at all to DH. I'm trying to talk to him more about things in general as I tend to keep a lot of stuff in my head...but this one hasn't exactly worked out as I hoped