Worried about dd

[Restart10]

We have moved to the UK from another country and it has been such an adjustment for my dd 5yo. She is such an anxious little girl and has always been. She has also started roughly a months at a very academic prep school and is still crying every night as she should be settled in by now. Her teachers and the kids are so lovely, however we do stand out. She was assessed for entry, although in my home country we do start formal education much later. I think the work, and academic side is stressing her out alot. The kids do seem to be quite intelligent and have been there for years so are moulded to the schools level of teaching, and my dd I think feels very behind compared to the other kids. The school really is a very good school with an excellent reputation about being nurturing. Today she said that while doing her work was tearing and wiped her eyes before anyone saw. I feel so heartbroken.
This is the same pattern though, we were in nursery and another prep school in my home country and she was exactly the same. Alot of social anxiety and just overthinking absolutely everything.
Please don't be harsh, Im feeling very down. We have made this massive move for a fresh new start after a very traumatic loss of our baby, and feel like we have no support here and letting our darling girl down by not being able to help her. In our home country she has been for play therapy for many years dealing with this but it seems like it may be her personality. She is very negative and hard on herself. If she makes a mistake, she puts herself down alot. Im not sure where this has come from, dh and I are very hands on parents with all the time in the world for her. How can I help my child?

Is she summer born ? Is she in year 1? The UK curriculum is ludicrous for young children

If you are from a country where she was in kindergarten and she us in year 1 it will be a leap.

I honestly would look at other schools. I have an asd daughter who cries a lot she is a class of 32 st state school and they could not be more caring. I would be concerned about too much pressure in a prep.

On the other hand she has been through a lot of change and probably needs the chance to settle and make friends.

What about a Montessori or Steiner school?

Is there anything that she’s really good at or really enjoys doing?
Encouraging that could boost her confidence.

I would give her more time as the school sound nurturing and she has issues at the other schools too.....keeping moving may be worse.

Have you thought about a gentle dog as another poster suggested, a calm and friendly pet may have a very positive effect on her....My DS is very sensitive and had some struggles at one point, our animals, and the process of feeding and looking after them daily, really help to calm and ground him, plus the unconditional love from a friendly dog is great for anxiety.

You could have been describing my dd 12 years ago! She was (and still is) an anxious over thinker who is incredibly hard on herself. This is not your fault, it's nothing you have or haven't done, it's her unique personality and she will learn to cope with the world in her own way as she grows. It sounds like you have a great relationship with her, the fact she can express how she feels will help, but hard for you because you want to 'fix' it!

What helped us was to give a plan and a timescale, for example if you still really hate it by xxxx then we will look for a new school. We found that it just takes her longer to settle than other children also my daughter did not like the intensity of special help and attention, it made her feel more like she didn't fit in.

As others have said I would try to find things that she enjoys outside of school that could build her confidence and resilience, swimming, gymnastics, horse riding, whatever you think she'd like. Unfortunately we couldn't have a pet but I do think a suitable dog might have helped.
My dd is still highly sensitive and anxious but she is also smart, funny and loving, she is doing extremely well with her studies, drives a car, has a public facing part time job and a caring boyfriend.

She just needs a little extra help and support to negotiate life, half the battle is realising this so you're already ahead in helping your dd. In my opinion the uk school system is quite bad at catering for any kind of neuro diversity but it can be done, it sounds like you've already made a great start in helping them accommodate her needs. Good luck and don't be afraid to make a change if things really aren't working, I am all for resilience but sometimes when you've tried everything and it's still not right the best thing to do is cut your losses and move on. x

Thanks all for listening and the advice. We are so new to this country, and don't really have anyone to ask/talk to about these things. We currently don't have the space for a pet, but possibly in a years time. I think this is largely due to her personality, we have done play therapy for 2 years and it was helpful but just only so much. We watched another growth mindset video this morning and had a good discussion and she perked up a bit, then 10 minutes later we were back. She was at a Montessori for 2 years, then we moved her to another prep in our home country, and then to her current school. She gets an idea in her head and then it gets out of control with overthinking. Every school has been the same. I think we need to help her cope with the situations at hand instead of showing her that we leave everytime we don't like something. She absolutely adores Dh and today he had to go into the office. He called and spoke to her the entire way to school just to reassure her. I spoke to the teacher who had a very nice chat with her, and also did a group session about feelings and a mistake is not a big deal and we can always learn from it. That was really nice and they gave me good feedback. So in terms of school they are very nurturing. I think this weekend, we have decided on no schoolwork and something fun she would like to do and just talking and down time.

I couldn't read and run.

First of all, I'm so sorry for your loss @Restart10. Losing a baby must have been extremely traumatic for the whole family, even the youngest toddlers pick up on these sort of things. Are you getting support e.g. counselling for yourself if this might be helpful?

A few things stand out. I won't tip toe but say it outright, it reads to me like you are absolutely feeding your dd's anxieties. By letting her dad speak to her on his way to work, you are pandering to her, she needs to learn that sometimes things feel sad and that she overcome this. However, talking to her dad in this way fosters a dependent attachment and is not good for her or the overall family dynamic.

Look at your own anxieties and your relationship with your dh, you dc will copy and absorb so much based on this. Sometimes tough love is required too, at the moment you are reinforcing the image of your dd as anxious, helpless and fragile. But unless she has additional needs, she is not that, she's probably a tough cookie, if you give her the chance.

I'd try and build her up using CBT techniques (there are lots of books on Amazon) and the best thing that could happen to her is to make lovely friends. Let her try out new activities, Rainbows, a team sport, art club. What are her interests?

I'd avoid changing school again, let her find her way, she is still very young and will most likely grow out of this.

Try to reassure her when she has worrying thoughts "most people feel like this sometime, it's ok and normal." or when she sees a problem "let's see if there is a solution" turn it into a game "tell me 3-5 solutions to this problem, they can be crazy, fun, ridiculous or serious" it might help her shift from focusing on the problem to helping herself. "Why do you want to do this perfectly dd? Humans can never be prefect, if we were perfect we'd be robots and we wouldn't want that would we?" "Every problem has a solution dd, what do you think you could do to make this (x,y,z problem, worry) better?"

Schedule time for worry but don't let her tell you her worries all day long, it will zap the happiness out of you! Tell her she has 15 minutes each day to talk about what worries her, then complete this by thinking of 3 things she is grateful for any why. Let her say these things out loud, slowly help her shift her mindset from feeling helpless to feeling in control (or reassuring that sometime we are completely not in control and that's ok). I wouldn't bother with worry beads, dolls etc in mind they all just reinforce that something is wrong and anchor that sort of self belief.

Your dd is at an age where is still very receptive to this sort of guidance from her parents.

Play therapy for years at such a young age sounds a bit excessive, my concern with this sort of thing is that it might reinforce her image of herself as someone who needs help to cope, she gets attention for feeling anxious. Unless she has Autism or special needs this should help her move forward. If you try this and nothing helps, try and have her assessed. Stop focusing on her fragilities and start building her up, let her conquer things and do things for herself.

@BambooTea

I couldn't read and run.

First of all, I'm so sorry for your loss @Restart10. Losing a baby must have been extremely traumatic for the whole family, even the youngest toddlers pick up on these sort of things. Are you getting support e.g. counselling for yourself if this might be helpful?

A few things stand out. I won't tip toe but say it outright, it reads to me like you are absolutely feeding your dd's anxieties. By letting her dad speak to her on his way to work, you are pandering to her, she needs to learn that sometimes things feel sad and that she overcome this. However, talking to her dad in this way fosters a dependent attachment and is not good for her or the overall family dynamic.

Look at your own anxieties and your relationship with your dh, you dc will copy and absorb so much based on this. Sometimes tough love is required too, at the moment you are reinforcing the image of your dd as anxious, helpless and fragile. But unless she has additional needs, she is not that, she's probably a tough cookie, if you give her the chance.

I'd try and build her up using CBT techniques (there are lots of books on Amazon) and the best thing that could happen to her is to make lovely friends. Let her try out new activities, Rainbows, a team sport, art club. What are her interests?

I'd avoid changing school again, let her find her way, she is still very young and will most likely grow out of this.

Try to reassure her when she has worrying thoughts "most people feel like this sometime, it's ok and normal." or when she sees a problem "let's see if there is a solution" turn it into a game "tell me 3-5 solutions to this problem, they can be crazy, fun, ridiculous or serious" it might help her shift from focusing on the problem to helping herself. "Why do you want to do this perfectly dd? Humans can never be prefect, if we were perfect we'd be robots and we wouldn't want that would we?" "Every problem has a solution dd, what do you think you could do to make this (x,y,z problem, worry) better?"

Schedule time for worry but don't let her tell you her worries all day long, it will zap the happiness out of you! Tell her she has 15 minutes each day to talk about what worries her, then complete this by thinking of 3 things she is grateful for any why. Let her say these things out loud, slowly help her shift her mindset from feeling helpless to feeling in control (or reassuring that sometime we are completely not in control and that's ok). I wouldn't bother with worry beads, dolls etc in mind they all just reinforce that something is wrong and anchor that sort of self belief.

Your dd is at an age where is still very receptive to this sort of guidance from her parents.

Play therapy for years at such a young age sounds a bit excessive, my concern with this sort of thing is that it might reinforce her image of herself as someone who needs help to cope, she gets attention for feeling anxious. Unless she has Autism or special needs this should help her move forward. If you try this and nothing helps, try and have her assessed. Stop focusing on her fragilities and start building her up, let her conquer things and do things for herself.

This is exactly the type of stuff we learnt with our cbt course and it has transformed our son. I can’t praise it enough

This is exactly the type of stuff we learnt with our cbt course and it has transformed our son. I can’t praise it enough was this an online course? I did above based on instinct, trial and error, but wound't mind learning more about CBT for children.

@BambooTea

This is exactly the type of stuff we learnt with our cbt course and it has transformed our son. I can’t praise it enough was this an online course? I did above based on instinct, trial and error, but wound't mind learning more about CBT for children.

It was a course with a child psychologist. But really just about making targets for them to meet with little rewards, not reassuring and helping them figure out answers to problems themselves. Very simple actually but worked so fast and so well.

It is challenging parenting an anxious over thinking child, my Dd is a bit like this and i honestly have no idea where its come from. I say it's now my lives work to support her to grow into a happy adult. I've read a couple of books that have been mixed levels of use... See photo. She has a weighted blanket and a worry monster that she loves.

Practice positive affirmations with her every morning as you comb her hair / get her ready. Make her tell herself she is beautiful, intelligent, friendly, good at English etc etc and let her add a few things on too. It will really help with her confidence. We only started doing this recently with the preschool class at my nursery and it has already made a positive difference.

Oh also just to say my Dd is almost 7 now and she's been much less anxious in the last year, I found 4-5 quite tough. So she will find her way a bit as she matures imo. I agree with not pandering to it too much. I definitely would not change schools. Great advice on this thread thank you to the pp's.

My youngest struggled hugely with settling in to school. To me it sounds like your school is excellent so I wouldn't be inclined to move her. I know it is hard, but a month isn't that long so I woukd stick with it for longer. Keep in close contact with the teacher, and ensure the emphasis is on her emotional wellbeing rather than academics at the moment (she is very young and has ages to catch up). Take things very easy outside school, with loads of comfort and reassurance.

I taught my dd some breathing exercises, which helped a bit when she has anxious (you can Google breathing exercises for children). We also used to roleplay things she was worried about using a dolls house and toys (asking to go to the toilet was one of her big worries, also not understanding what work she was meant to be doing and not having someone to play with at playtime).

Another thing that helped my dd was building up some nice friendships - she found it easier to make friends on a 1:1 basis so I tried to invite some kids to play outside school (we did weekends as she was tired after school). I put in a bit of work with these in providing an activity (cake decorating, slime making etc) to get them started with something to focus on. It did work, and the friendships carried on at school.

It took most of her first two years at school, but my dd is now 8 and goes happily into school every day, and seems to be doing well.

She sounds much older than 5 years old. They are still only just starting to read and write. What is the work that she's finding difficult?
I think its just her personality. She's a worrier and over thinks things my son had always been like this. We went down the therapy route. It didn't help. In fact I think it encouraged the behaviours as he got special treatment in and out of school. He's older now and has got better as he's matured

My DD is also an anxious overthinker but after CBT aged 8 and a recent refresher she's doing well.
It's also useful as a parent to remind yourself that your child does not necessarily understand things in the same way as you - especially if you have a child capable of sophisticated communication. I assumed way too much understanding with my DD and there was so much she didn't really understand.
Perfectionism is a classic indicator of anxiety, plus she's already catastrophically thinking about death and loss. You probably need to learn a bit more about this yourself so you can help her better.
DD had to learn that everyone worries, but too much worry is a bad thing and she needed to learn to accept measured risk in life. Reassuring your anxious child is not always helpful for them long term.

Is there a home school link worker at your school? They may be able to help.
So sorry your daughter is struggling x

not reassuring and helping them figure out answers to problems themselves. @Newuser82, that's interesting, I do tend to reassure in a light and confident tone. Is reassuring generally not recommended in CBT?

I think its just her personality. She's a worrier and over thinks things my son had always been like this.

I am convinced that even someone with a tendency to worry or overthink can learn not be be a worrier. It's just a different way of processing information and experiences. With the right tools and guidance from OP and her husband, their dd can well become much less anxious. I mentioned upthread, there are lots of kids' gratitude or worry journals and such like on Amazon, just make sure that when you use these you keep things light and explorative so that it doesn't become another marker or proof that she is an anxious child who needs lots of special help.

We went down the therapy route. It didn't help. In fact I think it encouraged the behaviours as he got special treatment in and out of school.

I have declined such help from school as such an intervention would have had the reverse effect on our dc. At our school, all that the support worker does is watch videos with the child and give them lots of 1-2-1 attention. Perfect way to encourage a child to think they are different (taken out of the class for a special intervention) and identify as a worrier while enjoying the special attention from the support worker (who, in most cases has not got a degree in psychology). If you have a quiet child, it become a bit of a cop out as this sort of thing helps them avoid the hassle of the classroom. It creates dependency and perpetuates anxiety in my view.

The hardest things is when we as mums develop anxious feelings as a result of our dc behaving in a very sensitive or anxious way. It can quickly become a weird cycle and the best thing is for mum and or dad to do a bit of CBT or something else to help them unpick their feelings and feel supported so they can help foster a positive attitude in their dc.

@BambooTea

not reassuring and helping them figure out answers to problems themselves. *@Newuser82*, that's interesting, I do tend to reassure in a light and confident tone. Is reassuring generally not recommended in CBT?

I think its just her personality. She's a worrier and over thinks things my son had always been like this.

I am convinced that even someone with a tendency to worry or overthink can learn not be be a worrier. It's just a different way of processing information and experiences. With the right tools and guidance from OP and her husband, their dd can well become much less anxious. I mentioned upthread, there are lots of kids' gratitude or worry journals and such like on Amazon, just make sure that when you use these you keep things light and explorative so that it doesn't become another marker or proof that she is an anxious child who needs lots of special help.

We went down the therapy route. It didn't help. In fact I think it encouraged the behaviours as he got special treatment in and out of school.

I have declined such help from school as such an intervention would have had the reverse effect on our dc. At our school, all that the support worker does is watch videos with the child and give them lots of 1-2-1 attention. Perfect way to encourage a child to think they are different (taken out of the class for a special intervention) and identify as a worrier while enjoying the special attention from the support worker (who, in most cases has not got a degree in psychology). If you have a quiet child, it become a bit of a cop out as this sort of thing helps them avoid the hassle of the classroom. It creates dependency and perpetuates anxiety in my view.

The hardest things is when we as mums develop anxious feelings as a result of our dc behaving in a very sensitive or anxious way. It can quickly become a weird cycle and the best thing is for mum and or dad to do a bit of CBT or something else to help them unpick their feelings and feel supported so they can help foster a positive attitude in their dc.

So not reassuring as in not saying everything will be ok and telling them what to do but more as in, I can see you are worried about that, if I were you I’d feel worried too. What can you think of to try to sort that out? Then discuss any ideas. That kind of thing. Hope that makes sense 🙈

So not reassuring as in not saying everything will be ok and telling them what to do but more as in, I can see you are worried about that, if I were you I’d feel worried too. What can you think of to try to sort that out? Then discuss any ideas. That kind of thing. Hope that makes sense
Yes, perfect sense, thank you!

@BambooTea

So not reassuring as in not saying everything will be ok and telling them what to do but more as in, I can see you are worried about that, if I were you I’d feel worried too. What can you think of to try to sort that out? Then discuss any ideas. That kind of thing. Hope that makes sense Yes, perfect sense, thank you!

Great. And if there are specific fears (in our case being left without us) we had a list of steps to work towards with a reward at each stage such as an extra story or make some cakes then moved onto the next step. Was very interesting and something id be interested in learning in more detail. Transformed our son in 12 weeks

@BambooTea Absolutely fantastic post. This is exactly what I always tell my daughter!

I also agree that therapy at such a young age just makes your child think there is something wrong with them

A gym trainer who was all about "positive mindset" techniques also once asked me to make a list of 100 things I like/am proud of about myself. It's a bit weird but it really helps make you look at yourself in a positive way. I made the same type of list with my daughter when she was overly (and completely unjustifiably) hard on herself. I told her to make a list of 100 things that are good about her and she feels proud of. They can be as tiny ot ad big as she wants them to be

Ask the school to recommend an educational psychologist, they will know one they trust. Then ask for a full assessment to find out what she is struggling with. We did this when we moved our son to a uk prep aged 6. For us the Ed psych recommended an ASD assessment. He had been having OT in the country we came from but they had not recognised his autism as he had no speech delay or learning difficulties. Wishing you the best OP.