My dd feels things very deeply, cries at the drop of a hat, is very anxious, has low self-esteem, struggles at school, has borderline dyslexia, doesn't like being left alone, has nightmares, etc etc.
She is also a very caring, sensitive and lovely girl but I am at my wits' end with her. This morning she was in floods of tears about not wanting to do her recorder lesson this lunchtime because she has a playdate with a friend after school and basically wanted to spend lunchtime with her. The teacher says the recorder lessons help with her coordination and short-term memory problems associated with dyslexia so I want her to carry on with these, but tbh it's not about the recorder lessons, it's about how she spirals off into sobbing fits that are very hard to come back to normality from. We ended up being late for school because of it.
I have tried doing a reward chart about trying to stay calm and not immediately bursting into tears. It took a very long time to get those ticks, I can tell you, and you will enjoy the beautiful irony of this: when she finally completed the chart we went to the toy shop and she had the mother of all meltdowns about what to choose and was shaking and screaming and we had to leave. Oh joy. We talked through it and I explained that it wouldn't make sense to buy the reward if she was doing exactly what we were trying to stop. We returned the next day and bought a toy calmly, so a small achievement there.
But anyway... If anyone has any pearls of wisdom to help me I would be truly grateful. I know I was like this as a child and am still anxious to some extent but have managed to control it. So I think dd's huge emotional rollercoaster is touching a nerve with me and making me less patient and sympathetic than I should be. Do I need to just embrace her emotions rather than try and make her control/suppress them? Help help help!