Anxious kids

[sarasansh]

Anyone else have an anxious kid? MH and I are realizing that Robin seems to be more anxious compared to other kids and we're not sure where it came from.

This all stemmed from a meeting with his preschool teacher to go over his pre-K application, and she mentioned that he's just starting to talk in school. This was really surprising to us because he talks basically from the moment he wakes up until he goes to sleep at home, so it never occurred to us it would be different at school. That kind of set us on a snowball of realizations--mostly that through a myriad of circumstances, Robin's never really been pushed out of his comfort zone in any way and as a result his comfort zone has gotten smaller and smaller when it really should be getting bigger and bigger.

One of the areas we realize now we need to push him on a little bit is food and getting him to try new foods. But even today when I asked him to try some hummus, he said "It's not scary?" about 10 times before he actually tried it. 

I guess this is mostly just to write out everything we've been thinking about the past few days, but if you also have an anxious kid and have any suggestions or things that have worked for you, let me know!

[lainikins]

I have an anxious kid, but no real suggestions. His fear of fire is really becoming an issue now that there are starting to be fires in fireplaces again everywhere.

[somethingcleverer]

Sometimes Shane is really nervous about things, but I think a lot of his anxiety is more a fear of making a mistake. So I just try to reinforce that we learn from mistakes, everyone makes mistakes etc. He told me his teacher said that everyone makes mistakes so that helps that she reinforces the ideas. He's not a shy kid and so it's not a social anxiety with him, in fact I wish he would talk less lol.

[jennmm]

My oldest has always been an anxious kid. He's just a worrier. I try to discuss things with him before they arise to help him. It can make me anxious even when I'm not.

[bliz1712]

I think V is very anxious. She wants to know all the details of anything before she'll be ok or happy about something. And she will not on her own do things if she doesn't know someone there. We had to basically force her to start traveling BBall because she was worried she wouldn't know anyone. Her 1 close friend wasn't going to do it. Anytime we go anywhere she wants all the details, especially food.

This is one area I'm probably a bitch to her about because I have little patience for it in regards to food. I don't need to be attacked the minute I come through the door to know what's for Dinner. So sometimes I'll just answer food. And then if I name something that she doesn't recognize, I get 20 questions. Almost as if she is going to determine from them if she will like it or not. It gets exhausting. I'm trying real hard to get Hanna on a better attitude in regards to food and trying it. And she surprisingly will try some stuff with a little bribery.

I guess I'm of the camp of sort of pushing them into it, which might be frowned upon. But with V it's worked out fine. And she is actually more outgoing in academic areas.

[heatherbee]

I wouldn't call my son anxious, but he his perfectionist personality is starting to show and it's coming out as him not wanting to try anything he thinks might be hard or that he might not be good at. It's taken a lot of encouraging and reminding him it's ok to make mistakes. Also a lot of modeling and my Dh and I pretending to be in situations where we need to model how to react. It's helped some.

Idk if this would help or not, but this is what I have been doing at dinner for DS. He gets 3 small bites of every part of dinner, regardless of of its something he likes or hates. We ask him to eat what is on his plate and then ask for more of whatever he likes. If he doesn't like something, he doesn't need to have more. It's been working pretty well and I think seeing a small amount on the plate makes the anxiety about trying something new a lot less. When we gave him a bigger portion and asked him to try even just one bite he would refuse forever before trying.

[mommymadness]

I'm not sure if Benjamin is an anxious kid but he is definitely not a risk taker! He doesn't try new things no matter what try and say/ encourage him with. He has to do them in his own time. Like playing at the park. It took him multiple times of going before he would even slide down the small slide. He isn't in nursery school yet. I've either been on mat leave, we get a year, or my mom has watched him. I'm concerned about how that will go. I have no advice yet so I guess I'm just here saying, we're in a similar boat!

[xanthepants]

Cosette is pretty darn shy. I'm not sure that I would necessarily always call it anxious per se thought. We got together with her daycare teachers and voiced our concerns (Not playing with others, avoiding boys, etc) And we've worked hard on speaking with strangers in comfortable ways (ordering food at restaurants, cashiers etc). We also do a rewards system of stickers and she picks a prize which works for us. Over the past year it is exponentially better, but it's taking a village, not just mom, working on it.
She is a perfectionist and afraid of failing or doing something wrong. We have a lot of conversations about "practicing" makes you better and show her how that is actually true in ways she sees evidence of. From cutting circles to walking on a balance beam. She knows she has gotten better so we remind her of that and that it took practice. So some of that Anxiety is lessoning by reminding her of her success too.