Hi there,
I desperately need some advice please. I have a 7 year old (8 early next year) she's always been a very happy fairly confident little girl. When she started school she had a bit of a meltdown, had to be pulled off me and dragged into the classroom. But she got over it and now loves school.
I'm a single parent, but we have a lovely comfortable life with lots of friends and I've always done lots of fun things with her from kayaking to kids discos, camping etc. We have a full and happy life.
But recently she's been suffering terribly with anxiety. It's come out of nowhere about three weeks ago.
Things have been quite stressful recently as I've been planning for an extension on our house and building works have started this week. I've always involved my daughter in the plans, explaining what will happen. I got the impression she was very excited by it all.
Three weeks ago I went to the beach with my parents. On the way home me and my mum had a disagreement about the route she took home, not a full blown argument at all but a heated discussion. Then a car went into a bollard in front of us. I didn't realise what was happening to my daughter at the time but she kept drinking her water and then panicked that she had none left. She then started shaking really badly and threw up. I initially thought she had car sickness so thought nothing of it.
So we went home and I tried to give her some dinner and she went upstairs and was sick again.
I didn't think anything about it and everything was fine that week. She went to school quite happily.
But last weekend we went to an impromptu community event with friends. She was fine until we started walking to the venue and then the shakes started happening again. I just carried on as normal and she eventually got over it and played with her friends.
Again the week was fine, she went to school happily. But yesterday we went my parents and went to the opticians as she wears glasses. The whole morning she kept complaining of a stomach ache and was nearly sick in the car from fear. I asked her why she was worried and she said it was because she was worried we wouldn't find any glasses. This is something she has never had an issue with. We tried having lunch and she started gagging in the restaurant, shaking uncontrollably and genuinely looked in pain from fear. We all sat normally and ate our food trying to be as normal as possible. We eventually went home and she was exhausted from the ordeal.
I have given her anxiety a name, her butterflies which we talk about openly. We've given each butterfly a name and spoken about what they look like. I've told her she can always talk about how she is feeling and that it's normal to sometimes feel anxious about things. I'm trying to continue life like normal. I don't want the anxiety to take over her life.
I'm going to talk to her teacher next week and make an appointment with the doctor. Her father has really bad issues with anxiety, I thought we'd escaped it. But possibly she may have inherited his issues.
I'm hopeful this is just a phase and she is just overwhelmed by all the changes going on around her, new school year and her beloved house changing.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm worried about my daughters future 😔