My anxious son

[Mummyof2dc]

I was wondering if anyone could share some advice.
My son is 7 years old, a month ago he started being sick at school and at first we thought it was a bug. But then it kept happening again and again... only at school! So I rang the doctors and they suggested getting help from the school.

So he now has someone working with him at school. He won’t speak to me about why he is feeling anxious when he’s there. I don’t think he knows himself. I kind of feel guilty as I think he shares my gene and although I never suffered that young, I have since high school. I always feel like my anxiety shows more physically than mentally so I’m wondering if that’s what’s happening to him and he doesn’t realise it.

He’s a happy boy at home and very boisterous and himself. I have noticed recently he doesn’t want to come anywhere with me wether it’s just to the shops. Unless we go somewhere he enjoys he will be happy too.

The sickness at school is still going on, although he wasn’t sick yesterday as I’m guessing he was was looking forward to fireworks when he got home.

Is there anything I can do to help him recover quicker from this I feel so sorry for him that it’s happening at such a young age. Or what advice do you know that would the next step be if it’s not settling? Thanks 😊

Just to bump this up... anyone?

I am sending him in a packed lunch tomorrow,what he would normally eat at home just to rule out any possible food allergy’s . If that shows no difference it’s got to be anxiety right?😫

I’m mainly bumping for you.

I’ve got an anxious one. It’s hard really hard, you don’t know when to push the school when a bad day is just a bad day.

How are the school supporting him?

Are you getting much feedback from the person who is talking to him?

My dd is a bugger for saying enough to just get that person to leave her alone. Meanwhile crumbling inside.

We had some issues like this. Any questions about whether anything was bothering him didn’t give any answers. I actually ended up going to the school at playtime and lunchtime to watch him playing. We are able to see them from a distance because of the layout of the streets. I knew something was bothering him about the playground specifically, of course this may not be the problem for your ds. I quite quickly worked out the issue as another child was dragging him around and telling him what to do. He was too polite to tell them to stop it. I spoke to a child mental health expert who told me something is obviously bothering him but he can’t communicate what it is. So I set about trying to work it out. I would recommend delving in to his school life to try and understand what his day is like and see if you can get to the bottom of any particular issues. Have some one to one time playing Lego or whatever and see if anything comes out. Ask who he sat with at lunchtime etc. Although obviously try and not sound like you are interrogating him.

I know that’s not particularly helpful and you have probably done these things already

Hi yes he has a support at the moment with the school , she rings me every now and then to say how he’s getting on and what she has been able to get out of him. He’s told her he doesn’t like being around too many people. I don’t think the issue is with friends as he’s happy enough playing with his friends outside the gates before it opens but who knows. He won’t really talk to me I’m hoping if something was bothering he would tell me. Or at the least the support worker at school. So I’m thinking it may be happening to him but he doesn’t understand why. Could be since all the lockdown I suppose you don’t know what goes on inside a child’s mind x

Thank you for all your comments, I will mention to his teacher about the possibility of other kids bothering him but I’m certain that’s not the case. we will see x

DD is 10 and in year 6. I am sad because she has spent her entire primary school years dealing with anxiety. She is currently back into 'being sick' at school/fine at home. for any parents dealing with this. It is really difficult and trying to talk to teachers (even in non-covid times) has been like sitting at the base of Mount Everest and playing Chinese Whispers with someone at the summit. We've gotten nowhere over the years.
But my understanding of DD's roots of her anxiety are much clearer at this age than when she was 7.
So, I would talk about your son's friendship circle. He may have a wonderful friendship circle, but a few strong characters can be tough for a sensitive child.
How is his academic performance?
If he's performing poorly or has struggled in the past, his confidence will be knocked and also, kids say things. DD's best friend gave her a Rubik's cube with a note in her bag which read, "I know your IQ isn't very high, so I am giving you my Rubik's cube to help since I don't need it." You can imagine how it felt reading this (her friend is a complete and utter brainbox but still... ). It is really hard to progress and transcend periods of academic struggle when you feel consistently 'less than'. And the majority of children get caught in that web and do not grow. And teachers, wonderful as they are, seem to have no time to really tap into the individual struggles of their pupils.

I've worked in a school and to be honest, school can be a bit of a sad and lonely experience for many children. If you have a sensitive child, the shouting teacher, the bossy dinner lady, the grumpy receptionist, the covert bully (there are a lot of them!), basically that one sour person in a sea of kind people, can really, really kill a child's spirit. It's sad but true. Or it could be academic struggle.
Something very simple is usually the root cause of something that runs deep and becomes quite traumatic for the child.

We haven't been able to transform our DD into a confident, thriving, lover of school, sadly. And I feel like a failure as a parent. But I do understand her now and this helps a great deal. It helps to get her over the periodic humps. It helps me to understand how to approach her areas of struggle. I understand how to get her to talk about her anxiety. Though in all honesty, I really wish with all of my heart that I could resolve it.
Mostly, being packed into a small classroom with 30 children and less breaks than before covid is really impacting DD. This could be the case for your son. They're not getting the breaks they used to, the movement and fresh air. This has a negative impact on our kids. The sooner we get out of this covid cloud, the better!

It’s very difficult for them sometimes to really be able to understand what is bothering them. With my ds the other child was telling him that if he didn’t play with him he would tell the teacher on him. And my ds thought he would get in to trouble as during circle time they are told you should always include other children and it’s not nice to leave children out etc. So he translated this in his mind that he couldn’t say no. Even if he wanted to go do something else. But I think he didn’t tell me as he didn’t think anything was actually “wrong” but was something he had to deal with. It should hopefully get easier as he gets older and understands things better

And to be honest the school were pretty useless as when they had a chat with him they came back to me to tell me that he seems happy and has a really nice close friendship with this other child.

I’m sorry to hear that! I hope he’s coping better now. The teacher who is working with my son has said she definitely thinks he has some worry issues which needs working on. I feel the school are looking after him so I can only hope things calm down soon if it is anxiety we are dealing with. It’s horrible for anyone have to go through it especially a child

One thing we did try was a worry box. We used an old tissue box and drew a monster face on top with teeth. So it looks like a monster mouth. He writes his worries in and posts them in the box. I must say this didn’t actually help for us. He didn’t really take to it. But it could possibly work for you. It’s supposed to help ease their worries and also give you insight to his worries

@TheVanguardSix sorry I completely missed your post! He has struggled in the past with his work, he has had to have extra support in reception and year 1. I believe he’s up to where he has to be now as the support has stopped since year 1. That could be the case maybe worrying about his work.

I hope he would tell me if anything was going on so I definitely think he doesn’t know why or if he might be anxious. But like you said it could be the smallest thing that has set it off. And he definitely is more sensitive than other kids but has a boisterous side to him also.

@Chickenandrice thank you for the idea I will definitely try it. Sounds good,sad to hear it didn’t help for you but it’s worth trying xx

Do you have private medical health cover that you could use to get a private referral to a child psychologist?

My DD, slightly younger than yours, has anxiety about bathroom issues. We have finally figured out is nothing physical but the first session with the psychologist has so far been transformational, and we can see that some of the basic things we were doing were making things worse.

If not, can you get a referral via your GP? My experience is that psychological issues which have physical outcomes are taken more seriously (although we have had to jump through hoops to establish that it's not got a physical root).

I would also really encourage you to take action and get support quickly. We learnt that muddling through and thinking we were making progress actually meant that the learnt behaviour and anxiety became more embedded. Interventions, even by well meaning generalists who are not specialists can also be the wrong thing. The up side is that when you get the right intervention it is very quickly transformative, even if there is a long road ahead.

The worry box is good.
Maybe get a book and read up on understanding anxiety in children and ways to help - my DD started at a similar age with anxiety and intrusive thoughts. I had to understand it better in order to help her. There are some great books aimed at kids - big bag of worries rings shell.
The trigger for my DD was her granny getting ill with cancer and then dying and it made her very aware of mortality. Her anxiety is quite focused around health and germs. Covid has been a challenge.
What was amazingly helpful for her was to understand that not everyone felt the way she did, but what she felt was a real thing, but could be managed. She's very articulate, but even she struggled to be able to explain her feelings.

@lofthlouse I think I will be able to get that through the GP although not thinking that far ahead yet. It’s hard because it doesn’t seem like he even knows what the root is, I know he is only 7 so maybe he’s confused. And me as his mother has no idea what the reason could be as when I try to talk to him he doesn’t know.

The doctor I have spoken too isn’t concerned it’s anything physical with how iv explained it’s only at school and he’s not been sick at home once since this started. I thought right ok if he is fine through the half term and he goes back school and the sickness comes back it’s kind of verified the anxiety problem. Although the other possibility is something he is eating/drinking that he’s not having it home that isn’t agreeing with him. Iv sent him with his own packed lunch today so it’s just the only other thing I can get ruled out. Thats what the doctor had suggested me to do first.

@Beamur yes It’s brilliant idea I will let you know how I get on with it.

I know being physically sick is a severe reaction to anxiety so if nothing is helping then I will definitely be taking it further