My almost 13 yr old ds has been showing signs of anxiety for a while now. I've just ignored it mostly and reassured him when I can. I'm not sure though what the best way to deal with it is, I don't want it to spiral out of control.
Recently I've noticed a few things.
We were talking about what we might do in the easter holidays. We have family in Italy and had talked about maybe seeing them, or maybe seeing family in Exeter. Both equally fun options.
We have sent off a passport application for younger ds and have decided not to book anything till it comes back. If it comes back we will go to italy, if not we will go to Exeter. Ds got very anxious about how we would manage in Italy with none of us being fluent italian speakers. He has never worried about this before in any of the countries we have visited. He worried that there would not be enough seats on the plane (fine, we'll not go) then asked if we would go even if we didn't all get seats together. I said no to this. Was this the right thing? Do I say what he wants to hear to make him calm? Or is effectively lying to him making things worse? We might well still go even if we don't all sit together. There are 5 of us so probably we won't get 5 seats in a block.
Then today I made scrambled eggs. He picked at them for ages because they looked a bit different to usual. I bought the eggs direct from a local farm and the yolks were much yellower than the usual shop bought eggs. Also the potato scones were a slightly different shape so he wouldn't eat them either. He had a pot noodle instead, because they always look the same.
Should I just give him things that look exactly the same so he doesn't get anxious or do I just carry on regardless? I'm not giving him blue eggs or anything, you know?
I don't know how best to deal with this. Any advice? Where's the best website for advice on how to deal with this? There are so many conflicting sources of information out there. I really don't want this to become a big thing.
Sorry, this post was written in a bit of a rush just because it's on my mind right now. Probably the next few days nothing will be different enough to upset him and I will go back to thinking I'm making a fuss about nothing.
Any advice or pointing in a direction would be much appreciated