Daughter scared of moving around own home

[Ilovechocolate87]

My DD is 6.She is scared of going into different rooms of our house and especially upstairs if we are downstairs/downstairs if we are upstairs.It has always been the case abit, but was made alot worse by the fact that in the summer the smoke alarm went off several times up there including during the night.

Now she literally doesn't want to go from one room to another sometimes without us coming aswell.Sometimes I do get irritated with it if I'm literally in the next room (it's a small house).She often wants me to sing a song which if I'm a couple of rooms away or if she is going upstairs I will sit on the stairs and do, and it seems to reassaure her, but I won't do it if say she is going to the toilet in the downstairs cloakroom, and I am in the lounge next door.But I wonder how long term she will move through this fear.

She is very sensitive to loud noises- hand dryers have always been an issue, and she has ear defenders for various situations at school and has used them for discos, underground trains, fireworks etc.

She is also awaiting an ADHD assessment.

We also have big problems with toilets with automatic flushes....have had to buy a she-wee and a radar key (disabled ones never seem to have them) as she can be literally be bursting but refuse to use them due to the fear.

Does she need some sort of therapy?

Do we need to do some sort of 'gradual exposure' thing?

Will she just grow out of it?

Feel like we are rescuing her too mcuh sometimes, but equally don't want to expose her/push her too hard and make the fear worse and more deep set.

But AIBU to think that most 6yos aren't scared of moving around their own home? :-/

I was exactly the same as a child and grew out of it. My daughter was like this too and she also grew out of it. Keep being patient and kind.

Mine has sensory needs and would never go upstairs alone. We just rolled with it and she started being ok with it. She's 15 now and happy to be on her own at home. I don't know when it became ok, it happened gradually.
Acknowledge her difficulty and accept it but don't enable it, don't say 'oh I know you won't do ...' just say 'i know it's hard for you to...'

I remember having the same fear at that age, my eldest (7) went through it and is fine now and my youngest (5) has just started. It could just be a phase, lots of reassurance helps. We also took flashlights into the bathroom and the whole family went in and turned the lights off to make shadows to take the fear out of the darkness. We talk about what’s the worst thing they think is going to happen if they are alone and reassure the safety measures in place to
prevent any of those fears. They learn about so much at this age like the war (Remembrance Day) stranger danger etc, so their imagination can get the better of them. But we found that identifying the fear and validating it helped a lot, rather than just say things like “there’s nothing to be scared of” etc

I shree with those saying that you should consider Asd too.
I have a neurodiverse family and all of my kids have had various degrees of issues going around the house. My youngest literally turns every light on as part of his journey! My youngest is add ,dcd, asd and also has auditory processing issues!.
Good luck with your journey

We seem to be stuck in this situation of needing a diagnosis or therapy fir fairly bogvstandard kid behaviour these days.

My almost 7 year old
boy is the same in that he doesn’t like being in diffferent parts of house alone. Although if he’s watching cartoons he wouldn’t notice or really engaged in play. 4 year old the same. I remember going upstairs to toilet as a child and having a plan for any monsters, like squirting toothpaste at them etc. my parents wouldn’t have entertained taking me to bathroom. I’m sure mine will grow out of it. It is annoying though!

My DD went through a period of not being able to go upstairs or downstairs alone. We realised she was devising ways to always have someone with her.

She is diagnosed ADHD and ASD.

At 15 she still doesn't like it but will rush up or down stairs as fast as possible while also putting (and leaving on as many lights as possible).

She struggles to sleep at night so lights go on at very random times as she gets up at night. I'm forever turning off lights in the middle of the night to try and prevent an astronomical electricity bill.

@Ilovechocolate87 does she say the loud sounds hurt her/cause her pain? or is it that they scare her?

also do you have any kind of burglar alarm that she is worried she might trigger when she moves around the house and goes into a new room?

When out and about carry post-it notes. They can be used to cover the automatic flush sensor so it's not accidentally triggered.

My son has similar issues loud noises & is 8.5 (still struggles with hand dryers, alarms, thunder, etc.) sometimes wants us to be near him when he uses toilet. We just support him & are understanding & calming where we can be. He has autism & adhd.

Just popped back to this thread to say thank you so much for this book recommendation. I got it for my daughter and we've done chapter 1 and 2 and she really likes it. It's exceptionally well written for this sort of thing!