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Anxious child, any advice?

5 replies

bilboquet · 19/10/2010 21:30

Help please if you are familiar with the following: I have an 8 years old boy who has a tendency to be anxious. Not really at school. Whenever there's something that bothers him enough (only a couple of occurence so far), he'll start waking up in the night, finds it nearly impossible to go to bed on his own and will follow us everywhere in the house, as if we could disappear in a puff of smoke. He can't help himself he says... what could I do to help him? we are taking it in turn to go to bed with him until he falls asleep, otherwise he'll be up until 11pm... If you have any advice that would be great. Thank you

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
AmelieMay · 19/10/2010 22:56

will he talk about his worries? xx

bilboquet · 19/10/2010 23:03

His behaviour changes over a couple of weeks, so it is not immediately obvious and it will take him a long time before he opens up a little. In those moments, he feels like we won't be there when he wakes up. He knows it is not rational but can't help himself. I add that there is no reason why he should feel like that (never been left on his own or had a scary experience when young)

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Thingumy · 19/10/2010 23:09

I own one of those.

Can a recommend a book? This one

If it continues I would seek out some guidance from your GP-our ds (age 7) had some 'fears' which manifested into OCD tendencies and our GP referred us to CAMHS.It helped alot.

DS is fine now,we have blips of OCD but understand he's a sensitive child and work it through.

rabbitstew · 20/10/2010 11:05

We have an anxious child, too - not bad about going to bed (or even sleeping), but checks to make sure we'll still be there when he wakes up and won't have run away!!!! Definitely has strong OCD tendencies (and tics...), but not severe enough to really interfere with his life (yet...). Not sure re advice, except to help make him feel secure and loved as you already do, and if it really starts to interfere with his daily life and happiness, then take him to the GP - cognitive behavioural therapy can help.

bilboquet · 20/10/2010 12:31

Thank you very much for your replies - yes, I should have mentioned his OCDs/tics tendencies as well! I'm glad to hear he's not the only one like that. I was wondering if I'd done something wrong ;-)
Thanks for the book recommendations, will buy it right away!

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