Posted by mair on December 19, 2001, at 11:44:10
In reply to 9 year old still has seperation anxiety..... HELP!, posted by bonnie_ann on December 19, 2001, at 7:20:27
Bonnie - I thought I had posted a message this morning that didn't seem to make it through. I hope this one isn't a duplicate.
My son went through a real period of anxiety when he was 9. Sometimes it manifested itself in public places where he seemed afraid to let us out of his sight, but mostly it was a problem for him at school or at the afterschool program he sometimes attended. He'd get very anxious thinking that we weren't going to pick him up on time. Every morning as we were letting him off at school we'd go through these exhausting series of "what if" questions, for which our answers were never sufficient. He'd also describe having something akin to an anxiety attack every afternoon about 30 or 40 minutes before the end of school, and on some days he'd end up in the nurse's office complaining about stomach aches. After awhile it was pretty evident that we couldn't reason with him on this and that he couldn't control his anxiety. We took him to see a psychologist who worked with him for 3 or 4 months. I think she was using CBT techniques, none of which involved bribery. It was very successful. He's 16 now. While he is by tempermant a "worrier" I haven't felt since then that he couldn't handle things.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:15782
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011216/msgs/15795.html