To be fed up of constant anxiety about dead people

[StarDolphins]

My nearly 7 yo seems full of anxiety at the minute. The latest thing is because a clip showed up in suggested vids on YouTube & it was so f Adalia Rose. Before that it was about our lovely family elderly friend that died (Bill). Bill might come to the window, what if Adalia Rose comes in the house etc. It’s Adalia Roses face that’s caused the issue, even though I’ve sat for literally hours explaining she just looks different & wass still a lovely little girl the same as her.

For the past couple of months my DD follows me EVRYWHERE & it’s so draining. Waiting for her to put her shoes on so I can nip to the bin 1m away outside! To the loo, to get my charger, absolutely everywhere. She will not stay sat in lounge for 10 seconds.

Shes scared that Adalia Rose will come in & either bite her, fight with her, ‘make her dead’ or take our dog. The panic on her face.

I have said many times ‘I I understand you’re worried etc & it must be hard but what do you think she will do if she comes in the house’ then she repeats the above & I do t know what to say as we go round in circles. I’ve tried reassuring her that as a grown up I know people cant come back from the dead, whilst recognising she’s obviously genuinely worried.

Shes totally fine if she’s with me but it’s so incredibly tiring & the reason for my post now is that I’ve just got so frustrated with her, I got cross & said ‘goodness me, I’ve told you so many times I know it won’t happen ot just won’t happen’. Rushing to get ready for Rainbows, the dogs barking at the door, I knocked a cup over, nipped upstairs to get a towel, she’s following me hysterically dropping crisps on the stairs saying “Adalia rose might come”😢

And now I’ve dropped her off & I feel awful & sad. I know I have not dealt with it right today AT ALL.

Thank you, it’s such a shame , she really was the sweetest little girl & I want my DD to be accepting of other no matter what they look like. She’s just scary as she’s not seen this irl. I’m not going to mention Adalia Rose in conversations anymore.

My 6 year old has a fear of being in rooms on her own during the day or night. Very similar to your DD OP but without any particular incident or character or image driving it. I’ve come up with a list of things I’m going to try. Most of this is trying to help her get the feeling of fear out in a safe environment and trying to lighten the situation for her with laughter. Drawing herself in a room on her own (then I’ll sympathise with her feelings and try to reassure her she’s safe and that the feeling of fear will pass if she lets herself feel it. I might even draw her a guardian Angel keeping her safe too). Role play where she is the mum and I’m the kid who’s scared (I’ll let her direct the game and ideally it’ll be very light hearted with lots of giggling). Practising nipping into the other room for increasing amount of time with lots of praise and over excitement when she does it and maybe I do it too and daddy too (it’s all about sympathising and keeping it light hearted and encouraging). Reading Books about it - If you see any good ones on overcoming fear for kids let me know.

i don’t know if any of that is any use but these play based ideas tend to work for my kids where logic has always failed! Good Luck!

My daughter has just gone through similar, but about zombies. She's 5. It's taken 4 months of constant reassurance to get her to be able to leave the room without one of us. She's okay now. But it was an awful 4 months.

Thank you, that’s a great idea about the role play, we do a lot of this so I shall incorporate me being a child that’s scared into it! Really helpful, thank you!

I’m sorry you’ve been through this too, you have my sympathy. It’s so stressful, upsetting & just not nice to see.

I’m glad you’ve made progress & this has given me hope! I just need to do the same. Constant reassurance & hope with every bit of me that it works!

I performed spells all over the entry point of the house, doors, Windows air vents etc so no bad thing could enter

When it turned in to th e house going on fire, we had we tested the smoke alarms, created an escape plan, talked about where to muster and what to say on the phone to 999

when morphed into being lost, we learnt the address and mobile numbers. We made a plan of all the different. Houses\ business as who kne e us

We read the shit out of hey warrior and the big bag of worries

Fingers cross we haven't had a panicked tantrum in about a year

Were you mentioning Adalia when your DD hadn't?

does your DD mention your friend? I appreciate it must be impossible to avoid talking about a departed friend. We used euphemisms about going to a better place for grandad, just felt DC were too little to contemplate the possibility of literally gone.

No I never bring Adalia up, only speak about her in response to my DD bringing her up but I’m not going to use her in my responses niw.

Yes she occasionally mentions Bill & other people she knows that have died(her friends grandparents) but not in a scared way, just a passing way “Bill was a chatterbox” type thing.

Have a look at Eli Lebowitz work on SPACE for dealing with anxiety in children.

He distinguishes between supporting the child and accommodating the anxiety. I found it really helpful.

Great ideas & well done, it’s seemed to have worked! Will look at those books & try your suggestions, thank you.

I had a similar thing when I was about 7. There was no YouTube then but I saw a zombie on the cover of a paperback in WHSmith's of all places! Looking back it wasn't even particularly scary but it terrified me and I had nightmares about it for months. I think it was anxiety and if I hadn't latched onto that it would have been something else.

My DD at the same age had a real fear of burglars, even though no-one we know had been burgled.

So I don't think it's Adalia Rose specifically - that's just the concept she happened to latch onto. I don't think you can do much except keep reassuring/distracting. And see if there's anything else that's causing her anxiety, though there may not be. Good luck x

That's essentially stoicism isn't it?

This is what I do myself and do with one of my teens, but you do need the capacity not to catastrophise (i.e. to distinguish between the worst thing that might realistically happen in a specific situation as opposed to going down a rabbit hole of the absolute worst catalogue of unlikely horrific flights of imagination).

My teens do find it useful to think through and mentally deal with the worst realistic outcome of prosaic worries (if I do freeze up in my final exam, what's the worst that will happen? I'll fail the exam. What will happen then? I'll have to take another 6 months/ year and retake instead of moving to the next stage of my life. Would that be frustrating and upsetting? Of course. Could I cope with the setback? Yes of course, if I had to...).

It's a really useful strategy for things which could actually happen I agree but needs careful frame-working around irrational and existential fears to avoid obsessing over a "worst case" a child or teen simply can't deal with, which makes the fear overwhelming.

OP it sounds as though your daughter's already started to find a way to help herself by identifying that playing with her friend at break time made her feel better. You could encourage her to take credit for that.

i think k like this, worst case but actually how realistic is it that this is going to happen. This brings me to not very likely & i also think ‘well, not much I can do about xyz, I can’t control it so if I die, I die’

Her DDad is ‘what if the worst happens & immobilises himself. Preempts bad things happening.

However, my little girl is not of this thinking! Currently, she certainly focuses of worst case. But she’s still extremely young for this I feel.

Thank you, yes I gave lots of praise for this & will continue to.

Thanks very much, will certainly take a look. I want as much info
as I can to help her.

Yes I think you’re right, looking back, there have been various things she’s latched on to but they’ve been brief (fire, burglars, monsters) so I think going down the general anxiety helping route is the way to go. I want her to eventually have the right thoughts to help herself.

I am treating the symptom by always being by her side currently, whereas as she’s gets older, I want her to be able to soothe & settle herself.

You're doing well OP

Parenting is one big learning curve - especially this sort of stuff.
It's a minefield! All our minds are different and the best intentions can make no difference or make it worse.

I was a fearful kid. I had so many peculiar fears as i child i can't even list them. Half of them i would keep to myself because i felt there wasn't much my parents could do or say to help. They wouldn't understand. They didn't 'know'. Even from the age of 3/4. I mean i'm talking really abstract stuff like The Holly Bears. I didn't like the idea of bears lurking about in the woods for some reason. I can remember worrying about bears coming out from behind trees for some reason. Then i started getting tearful saying i didn't like the 'Holly Bears'. For ages my parents tried to work out what the heck the holly bears were. But i would just keep saying i didn't like the holly bears. It was around xmas. Turns out it was the carol 'The Holly Bares the Berry'' ....

Re: scared of the dark. I clearly remember my dear dad cheerily announcing: ''There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the daylight'', which you would think would be an entirely logical and helpful thing to say ... but my goodness for some reason i found that so very sinister! Not him sinister - i knew he was trying to help - but that sentence, like the strap line for a horror film! Made it worse!

There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the daylight!
# Dun Dun Duuuuuuuu!!

🙄

Despite all this i grew out of it and am perfectly ok.
(apart from writing over long rambling posts online 😂)

I can’t tell you how helpful that was, thank you! 😊 it’s possible to grow out of it!

I think I’m like your Dad! I don’t understand anxiety & I need to. This thread has helped.

I didn’t have a good childhood but I don’t ever remember being anxious about anything.

I hope she grows out of it like you & I will do all I possibly can to help.

My theory is that this is now an attention thing and she's looking for reassurance. She was scared at first but enjoyed the attention and reassurance you gave her and keeps coming back. It's normal for kids to do this. I could be wrong though and I'm not sure of what to do other than not give it as much attention.

Thank you, it might be a bit of this. I do think mostly she’s genuinely scared but she does like our chats & she definitely likes reassurance from me!

I think with my new approach of acknowledging, sympathy, reassurance then distract with something fun, this might make improve as it won’t be as drawn out.

When she had a ‘worry box’ & an allocated 10 mins to talk about worries, then put them in the box until the next day….I had to stop it because it got the point that she was just thinking up random ones & giggling!

She definitely get a lot from my reassurance which I will of course continue but in the future, I also want her to be able to reassure herself if that makes sense.

Thinking more about this, she gets 99% of my attention but say if I go on schools app on my phone & I’m distracted, she will often then say ‘can we have a chat’

I had a similar thing at that age. I saw someone on TV who had been in a horrible accident and was badly burned. It was really my first experience of seeing someone who was physically different in that way and I was terrified. I think it’s a stage we all go through.

You sound like you’re doing well. It’s great that she is expressing herself to you. I didn’t tell anyone and just kept the anxiety in. I think just being able to speak about her fears will eventually help her get through them.

Thank you! This is what’s happened I think, she’s seen something she’s not seen before & it’s scared her & now she seems to have turned it into a threat.

Do you mind me asking if it’s had any lasting problem for you or you just look back & see it as a scary phase?