Anxious 11 year old. What has helped?

[parrotonmyshoulder]

DS was an anxious baby, toddler, child. We always thought that just being kind, thoughtful, listening, would be enough. But it isn’t. He’s now an anxious 11 year old (Y7), now expressing worrying feelings of sadness, maybe verging on depression. Says he doesn’t care about anything.
He isn’t much of a talker and has always hated and resisted attempts to help him talk about his feelings.
Has anyone has success with any particular sort of therapy for generalised anxiety at this age?

How are you all getting on now @parrotonmyshoulder?

Sorry to hear this @parrotonmyshoulder. What do school say? Do they have someone he can talk to? At my son's school there's a specific teacher who also takes kids who need it out for "nurture" sessions, to chat through anything bothering them. How is he friendships-wise?

DS displayed a few different anxious behaviours throughout childhood which came to a bit of a head in year 8/9. School were great and had access to an in-school initiative with local CAMHS aimed at targeting mild / moderate anxiety. He attended 1:1 sessions with a MH practitioner in school (CBT focussed therapy) which seems to have totally sorted the specific issues he was having at the time but had also armed him with skills to manage general anxiety. I'm so grateful to school for making this service available and the head of year has been very supportive.
IME it's definitely worth contacting head of year / pastoral support team to see what they can offer.
Good luck

Thanks for advice. I found him a counsellor who he’s happy with, but it’s very child led and holistic rather than CBT. We’ll stick with it though as he’s enjoying the relationship and building trust.
School see him as quiet and reserved, but not concerning. However, they have listened to my description of how he is at home (very different!) and seem to understand. Some bullying has come up, so they’re trying to deal with that at the minute.
I’ve got an appointment with GP with him this week, to talk about anxiety. Ironically, I’m really anxious about it and losing sleep! I don’t know how to tell him about the appointment and he’s going to hate being ‘talked about’ or ‘talked to’ so much. I think he’ll deny any anxiety.