DD 6 terrified of everything

[Corsacan]

DD 6 has always been an anxious child with a very active imagination but over the last year she’s started getting scared of monsters & scary things she can’t explain. She started off not wanting to go to the toilet alone but has gradually got to the point now where she won’t be alone in a room, I have to physically be in the bathroom with her standing in the doorway isn’t enough.
She won’t go to sleep unless I’m sat on her bedroom floor & if she wakes up in the night & im not there she literally screams the house down until someone stays with her.
In the hope of getting some sleep we put a mattress in our bedroom so she didn’t sleep alone but she’s now decided that’s not enough because she can’t physically see me & she wants to sleep in my bed.
School are aware of her problems at home but as they go everywhere in school as a class bubble they haven’t seen anything to concern them with her behaviour.
Help, any suggestions on how to help her get through this or get help to refer her to someone who can?
She’s stopped playing with toys or going out to play in the garden because she won’t be left alone.

Hi op, my 6 year old is behaving the same way. Due to our current circumstances we have no choice but to share a bed, but she won't go to sleep unless I'm in the bed with her and is hysterical if she wakes and I'm not there. She runs after me if I leave a room and she won't be left alone at all. It's tiring and frustrating and I don't like my dd being so scared. I'm recently separated from her father so had put the behaviour down to anxiety around that, but perhaps there is an age related factor to it as well. I am doing my best to remain patient, to reassure her and to stay calm. It's hard work and means if I want time to myself I end up staying up really late.

I don't have the answers but we well as reassuring her one thing I've found helps is to not take her worries too seriously. I don't mean I dismiss them, I reassure her that she doesn't need to be scared or will explain eg how the shadow she can see isn't a monster it's just the lamp etc, but don't make a huge thing out of it and try to move her mind on to something else, something to make her smile and laugh. I've found if her fears get taken too seriously, then she starts to take it more seriously and believe she has something to be really scared of, whereas if I can make things a bit more light hearted then it's easier for her to put the fear out of her head - I hope I'm explaining that well.

Lockdown has a lot to answer for.

There are some resources if you google for helping kids that are anxious about a return to normal.

I get what you mean @BaggoMcoys
Hopefully it’s just another phase they go through & we’ll get an evening of peace soon.

Thanks @idontlikealdi I don’t think she’s scared of life going back to normal, she seems more scared of another lock down but some of the resources have helped before so we’ll keep trying.

My eldest has been like this since lockdown started. It also did not help that we suffered a bereavement in the family either.

I don't really have the answers. We just reassure him as much as possible, while encouraging him to do as much as he can possibly do alone. Things have got better since he went back to school.