moms of highly sensitive, easily overwhelmed kids

[SusanH]

Anyone want to share some coping strategies for our kids who have a hard time adapting to new situations, dealing with setbacks and generally adjusting to life?

Susy went to a birthday party today and had a hard time there. She cried five times in the first hour, then had to leave the movie because it was too loud for her even with her earplugs in. I'm feeling at a loss today for how to help her cope with life. She gets so overwhelmed, so easily upset and she's been having a bad few weeks of it. Today was just the final straw for me - I don't know what to do for her sometimes. I can calm her down, and I can try to avoid triggers, but she's getting older and I don't know how to teach her to get past things on her own without having me there to talk her back down. She was one of the oldest kids at this party, and several parents of much younger kids left during the party, clearly knowing that there was no reason they needed to stay. It just pointed out to me how different she is. There is no way I could leave her at a party yet and know that everything would be ok.

Just having a bad day, I guess. But I'd love to hear from others who have similar kids how they help them adjust to life in situations where life can not adjust to them.

[justrose]

How funny that you posted this - Tommy went to his first birthday party today and I was jealous of all the parents who just dropped their kids off and knew they'd be OK.

I can't imagine that I could give you any suggestions you haven't tried, as you have been doing this a lot longer than I have For Tommy what helps is a lot of foreshadowing beforehand. That makes a huge difference. I also try to curb my own anxiety about his freakouts, because if he senses at all that I am anxious about how he will react he behaves worse/has a harder time settling down.

Honestly, I am still at the point where I avoid a lot of places I know he will hate.

I suppose that there will come a day where HE will have to make the choice if he wants to try to cope or if he want to completely avoid things that make him uncomfortable even if it means missing out. Is Susy there yet, where you can ask her? I am SO looking forward to that day with Tommy.

I am sorry about the party. What were her feelings about it? Was she sad she had to leave or was she relieved?

[SusanH]

Susy is, thankfully, at the point where she can usually indentify her emotions, discuss them (when she's calm enough), recognize that a situation is too much for her to handle and request to leave. That's what happened at the party today - about 30 minutes into the movie she asked if we could go. We stayed for a few minutes while I made sure that was really what she wanted, then left. She was happy to go.

She had her first ever panic attack a few days ago. She's had tantrums and extreme crying fits before, but this time she hyperventilated and was completely panicked. It came on so suddenly, too. I'm hoping this isn't a new thing. Our other problem that we face is Sam mimicking her behavior. He's begun screaming over completely trivial things and yelling at people for no reason which I know he's picked up from her. It's really frustrating.

[islandmom]

Susan, do you our your husband suffer from anxiety? Or do you get anxious in different situations? Could it be a learned behavior that she has picked up from either of you, or do you think it is something biological? Or do you think it will be something she will just outgrow?

My boys are borderline anxious in certain situations. It think it is genetic, and learned. Now that I am aware of the 'learned behavior' I really make a point of not being anxious, and it has helped me conquer my fears, too. LOL. In the movie situation, I probably, would have gone out to the lobby, and walked around, and then gone back in to our seats, just to show him that there was nothing to be frightened of, that the movie was fun, and it was fun to be with our friends. To conquer our fear. We might of had to make a few trips to the lobby, and if he was really freaking, then I would left, but I would have tried (lol) to keep calm and reassured him that he was really brave and going to the show was a fun thing to do.

[SusanH]

No, dh and I aren't anxious people, so I don't think it could be learned. Besides, she's been this way pretty much since birth. In some ways she does remind me of my father (whom she rarely sees, so definitely not learned from him). He has the same sound sensitivities and smell aversions that she has, and he has always been a fairly high-strung person, easily upset (although he keeps his emotions to himself much more than she does).

For the movies, there wasn't really anything to show her not to be afraid of - it was simply that the sound level was too high and it's very painful to her to be around loud noises. She asked to go, saying that it was too loud and the movie was boring her (she'd seen it before in a theater that wasn't so loud). She is easily bored, so I'm sure that was a large part of her wanting to go.

After talking over the party with a friend I'm feeling a bit better about it. I can see more clearly why it was so hard for her to adjust to everything. She only knew one child there, there was a pinata (too stressful and competitive), she didn't like the drink offered and there was no way to easily change it for something she would like (she doesn't do well when she feels powerless to fix problems and is given no choice) and a few other factors that make more sense in hindsight.

But I appreciate the advice given so far and would love to hear from others dealing with these sort of situations.

[hedra]

She might benefit from some of the ideas in Your Anxious Child, and Helping Your Anxious Child - not worth buying, but worth picking up at the library (yay interlibrary loan... ). Sensitive kids often have great imaginations (at least mine do!), and there are some ideas for helping them use their imaginations to prepare for events, handle various opportunities during events, and so forth. There are also some parenting ideas in both that helped with Gabe, and others that obviously weren't applicable.

Have you been working with an OT at all? When Gabe and Bren were assessed, they both came out borderline - some definite issues, but not enough to qualify for free OT at that point. What they did was give us some home sensory diet ideas, which really have helped. Many of them involve stimulating the system that is hypersensitive, regularly, so they get more gradations of sensory process for the sensitive system, instead of 'WAY TOO LOUD' (for 90% of the range) and 'okay' for the other 10%. We haven't done many of the auditory ones with Brendan, other than listening to more classical music (slow and sudden changes in tone/volume), but working on the other issues seems to have helped calm the auditory one, as well.

We do the same thing you do with parties and so forth - if it is too loud, we move to another space where it is quieter, and do something else until that activity is done. If he wants to go, we go. If it is overwhelming, we do what we can to reduce the overwhelm, and if it doesn't work, we say goodbye and leave. Brendan can now go to fireworks without losing consciousness (he 'went to sleep' - but looked dazed as he was falling asleep - the first time he heard fireworks! ), but we bring adult-professional-quality hearing protection, and he sits in my lap, and we warn him about what's coming, and he knows that while it won't be easy or fun for the rest of us to leave, we'll do it if he needs us to.

Does the book 'raising a sensory smart child' have any ideas? I've got that on my to-buy list, but haven't got it yet. Meriel and Rowan both look like they've got issues with senory stuff as well - Rowan gets overwhelmed by noise and too much visual stuff going on (too many people moving around, etc.), and Meriel gets overwhelmed by people standing over her, and is hyposensitive for physical stuff (stomps on lego like her brother Brendan, 'seeks activities without regard to safety' like him, too). I've started some of the sensory diet with meriel, but her super-sensitive skin prevents some of the massage type stuff. Sigh.

[hedra]

Oh, might help to mention some of the 'diet' huh?

- heavy lifting - picking up, pushing, or moving heavy objects, dragging a sibling on a blanket on the floor.
- heavy squeezing - either squeezing another object (like a stress ball), or being squeezed (like being sandwiched between two pillows and having someone lean on the top pillow)
- joint compression/extension - massage with a gentle pull outward on the joints, then a gentle push inward back.
- texture massage - playing in ball pits, climbing into a mesh bag of ball-pit balls, rub-downs with inside-out tube socks.
- balance/proprioception - being dragged on a blanket on the floor.

Those are the ones we can do without extra equipment (the ball pit balls excluded - we have to go somewhere for that, never found a good bag to do the pit ball bag thing with...). Doing any of those before a stressful event REALLY helps, and doing any of them in the middle of a stressful event also helps. At school, when he's overwhelmed, they send him to the large motor room, so he can do some heavy lifting/pushing.

[acorn]

This isn't from dealing with my own child but from watching a good friend's family deal with a similar situation. In their case, the husband has had enough problems with anxiety that he has needed to take medication to function. They were dealing with this before discovering that their daughter has similar issues. With their daughter they haven't yet used any medication (though she says that she won't be at all surprised if her daughter does need medication at some point). They did, however, have her see a counselor in 2nd grade when things were particularly bad (I guess it goes up and down). Her comment was that she wasn't sure that the counselor made much difference short term, but that her daughter loved going and that she felt it set a good stage for being able to seek help later in her life. They also talk about it with her regular doctor.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of the things that they have done: figuring out how she responds, teaching her skills to cope, helping her be able to tell you when she needs help.

[ink-stained mom]

Susan,

Michael has real sensitivity issues, and one of the good things about him getting older is that we can spend some time preparing for events I think could be stressful. We talk about what's likely to happen (I try not to bring up every eventuality, since it might just cause him to obsess about stuff unnecessarily), along with discussing coping strategies he can use if there's a problem (taking a walk with me outside, moving to a part of the building where the music isn't as loud -- noise is a HUGE issue for him).

I still wouldn't be comfortable leaving him somewhere like a party without me being there. I know it's hard to watch your child struggle while everybody around her copes better. I also sometimes feel the need to run interference for him too much, steer him away from people whose manner I know will set him off (including my FIL, so you can imagine how awkward THAT gets). I think preschool has made things somewhat better, but the Parents as Teachers school district person here has been looking into hooking me up with OT for him (she's trying to find a way for us to get it for free).

Hedra's ideas sound really great, so I'm printing this thread out.