S-O-S Best of the Best, Edition 6: Anxiety and Stress

[fbshare]Welcome to S-O-S Best of the Best (BoB), Edition 6. The topic is anxiety and stress as it relates to invisible special needs. A total of 24 bloggers submitted posts this month. Bloggers have shared many different experiences, viewpoints, and options for reducing stress.

Help for Children

Danette Schott presents Decrease Your Child’s Stress and Increase Her Academic Success posted at Help! S-O-S for Parents. Danette describes Attribution Theory and how understanding it can aid you in keeping your child’s stress level down. She states, “Research tends to indicate that academic achievement is increased when students attribute their success to things such as their effort and hard work.“
Darlene Wierski-Devoe presents What if celebrations weren’t so fun posted at The Raising Socially Anxious Children Blog. Darlene discusses how activities that most of us think are fun, can be stressful for the child with anxiety. She walks us through how she helps her daughter handle potentially stressful situations and mentions level 3 of their anxiety scale. Darlene states, “I acknowledged and reaffirmed that having feelings is a good thing.“
Gavin Bollard presents Stress and Anxiety in Cub Scouting (Some Things We’d Like to Tell Parents) posted at Life with Aspergers. Gavin talks about being a cub scout leader and dealing with the anxiety of some of the children. He received some ideas from the person in special needs and reports, “I’m charged and I’m rising to the challenge.” Read Gavin’s entire post to see his list of tips to help scouts with anxiety.
Jean Myles presents They Never Cut the Umbilical Cord posted at Mommy to Two Boys. Jean talks about the anxiety her son felt when she was sick for a period of 48 hours. When she was feeling better, she started altering her schedule to avoid being away from her son, until she attended a seminar on anxiety. She came to realize that “Rearranging my life to help Jaylen through this time was not helping him, but hurting him.“
Kay Marner presents Skin Picking: What Causes It? How Can We Prevent It? posted at ADDitude: ADHD Parenting Blog. Kay shares that her daughter’s skin picking could be brought on by any one of her three diagnosis: ADHD. anxiety, or Sensory Processing Disorder. Kay discusses a few things that worked for her daughter for awhile. But this is a tough problem to solve and she concludes, “I stocked up on bandages, antibiotic cream, and OxiClean to wash the blood from her clothes, and I’ll listen to any advice you other ADD/ADHD parents have to give me!“
Kim Wombles presents Comfort Zones: Ever Widening Them posted at Countering…. Kim provides an insightful look at helping children widen their comfort zones. She states, “In their element, where they are sure of all the important variables and comfortable expressing themselves, they make better eye contact, engage more willingly in communication, show attachment, and function at their best. Remove them from their comfort zones and we have vastly different children.” But despite the anxiety, Kim vows “to make the entire damn world not only my comfort zone, but my kids’ comfort zones, as well.“
Michele Borba presents Calming Kid Jitters About Scary News posted at Reality Check. Michele explains that a lot of recent news, “Tsunamis. Radiation leaks. Earthquakes. Nuclear meltdowns. Air strikes.“, can cause anxiety in children. She provides a myriad of ways to help children deal with anxiety-producing news. Michele concludes, “The good news is that by offering the right support parents can reduce kid jitters, help them learn ways to rebound and instill optimism about their future.“
Spectrummy Mummy presents Anxiety at Spectrummy Mummy. This mother shares how she was feeling an increased level of stress and so was her child. She realized that her daughter “…absorbs and then reflects all the emotions around her. It makes her anxious. Seeing her struggle makes me more stressed, and round and round, and down and down we go.” Find out what Spectrummy Mummy decides to do!
Tim Tucker presents How We Finally Got Through a Trip to the Store posted at Both Hands and a Flashlight. Tim shares insight into his son’s increasing anxiety over public outings. With the help of a developmental therapy (DT) case manager, a set of goals were established. Tim expresses, “It made us happy to do ‘normal’ family activities, just the basics of life like getting groceries.” At the end of his post, Tim provides a number of tips that may be helpful to try if your child experiences a similar anxiety.

Help for Parents/Caregivers

Mark Bertin presents ADHD and Family: Chaos to Calm through Mindfulness posted at Psychology Today: The Family ADHD Solution. Mark acknowledges that our day-to-day family life is based on uncertainty, as plans may change at a moments notice. He goes onto explain mindfulness and reveal it’s effectiveness and benefits. As Mark states, “Every time we stop ourselves for a moment and reflect, we have the opportunity to choose where to place our next step.” At the end of the post Mark shows us how to slowly bring mindfulness into our lives.
Tiffani Lawton presents A Mother’s Day Gift: A Collection of Resources to Take the Best Care of YOU! posted at OUR Journey THRU Autism. Tiffani discusses Caregiver Stress Syndrome (CSS) and how it is often overlooked for the caregivers of children with special needs. She provides many options for caregivers to take care of themselves and recommends, “Be gentle with yourself and take time to discover what feels right for you.“

Stress in Children

Beth Rubin-Gabor presents Goodnight Moon posted at A Little Bloomer. Beth shares her daughter’s anxiety as her evening unfolds. If you have an anxious child, her anxiety may center around a different theme, but you’ll probably relate to this story. “When we reassure LB or tell her ‘you are fine’ it doesn’t change the persistent and constant thoughts in her head. Those are the words she listens to and nothing else.“
Floortime Lite Mama presents Stress, Anxiety and Autism posted at Floortime Lite Mama. Floortime Lite Mama believes that fear is at the core of the child with autism’s behavior, and this fear can lead to anxiety and stress. As she states, “With all the ways in which their self esteem gets attacked, no wonder anxiety is a constant companion.” You’ll want to read this beautiful post where a mother’s love for her son shines through. Inspiring!
Lorna d’Entremont presents Over-Scheduling Our Children May Cause Stress posted at Kid Companions. Lorna talks about what life was like for her generation of kids as compared to kids of today. She shares that when she was a child there were “No play dates, no planned activities all just spur of the moment activities that the majority wanted to do.” Lorna questions, “Are we over-scheduling our youths and causing them stress in our rush and zeal to give our children what we think they need and want?”
Patty presents Signs Your Kid Might be Stressed posted at Pancakes Gone Awry. With tongue-in-cheek, Patty shares signs that your kid might be stressed. Read her humorous list and then respond in her comment area to “Tell me your kids do some of these things too…. Please!“
Pia presents a three part sequel: And Off We Go…, Everyone Pays the Piper, and Meltdown Man posted at The Crack and the Light. Pia’s story starts out with such hope and joy as she prepares to take her first weekend trip away without her son since he was born over four years ago. Since her return home, Pia has been greeted by her son and four meltdowns in less than 24 hours. Pia explains, “…I think that J-man was holding it together while we were gone, but now that we are home he now can have the complete breakdown he needs to have.“
Yuji Fukunaga presents Coping With Anxiety Not as Easy as 1, 2, 3 posted at Hanabi Boy. Yuji talks about his son’s anxiety and his unique way of dealing with his stress. Yuji reveals, “His psychotherapist was the first to point out how Kai uses numbers to cope with his anxiety.” This post may help you determine what coping mechanism your child has naturally put in place to deal with her stress.

Stress in Parents/Caregivers/Siblings

Adrienne Bashista presents #Parenting_Failed posted at Easy to Love But Hard to Raise. Adrienne shares the stress and chaos she experienced as she prepared her household for her son’s play date. Many moms will relate to her story as she reveals, “Now, if I were a Good Mom, instead of worrying about the cleanliness of our house I’d have focused in on the real issue: Little J and his new-people anxiety.“
Alysia Butler presents Never be Ready posted at Try Defying Gravity. Alysia ponders, “My son may be ready for kindergarten. But is kindergarten ready for him?” She thinks about preschool and how things are handled and is concerned that kindergarten will not go as smoothly. I remember those days and many of you will be able to relate to Alysia’s apprehension.
Caroline McGraw presents The One Where I Smashed the Guitar: Owning Your Anger, Part 1 posted at A wish come clear. Caroline addresses her feelings of anger, past and present, and how it has helped her get in touch with other feelings. After working through her feelings, she states, “Turns out that the way to get past it was to go through it…not to deny it or avoid it. As I spoke, a weight lifted from my chest.“
Chi Yon Barbosa presents Stress, What Stress? posted at Parenting a Child with Aspergers Syndrome. Chi shares that her stress was expressed recently by yelling at her kids. She is trying to “Keep my mouth shut when I’m angry, lower my expectations, and laugh about it.“
Lisa Quinones-Fontanez presents Kids Will Be Kids and Then There’s Autism posted at Autism Wonderland. Lisa might not come right out and say she is feeling stressed, but she talks about some recent behaviors of her son’s. “These are behaviors that have increased since the disruption in home-bases services.” The biggest difficulty seems to be in determining “Where is the line between behaviors associated with autism and age appropriate behavior?“
Patty presents Signs You May be Stressed posted at Pancakes Gone Awry. Patty says you may be stressed if “You forget your friend’s birthday and actually feel irritated at HER.” Read her humorous list and then “reassure [her] that you understand where [she is] coming from.“
Sharon Fuentes presents Should I Stay or Should I Go? posted at Mama’s Turn Now. Sharon shares, “As Jay [her son with Asperger's] gets older and tries desperately to express his independence, my anxiety gets worse.” She ponders how much freedom to give him so that he can continue to grow and develop. This is weighed against his unique needs as a child with special needs.
Tammy Murphy presents For ADHD Moms, Ignorance Isn’t Always Bliss posted at Tammy Time. Tammy shares, “Being a parent in itself is overwhelming at times, but the experience of parenting ADHD is something that can’t be fully communicated to someone who hasn’t lived it.” She talks about a study currently being conducted by a a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park “…to better understand the experiences of mothers of children with ADHD.” Please read this post and see if you can participate.

I hope that everyone finds something useful in this list of posts on anxiety and stress. Thank you to all the participating bloggers for making this a possibility!

Previous BoB Posts

Autism and Treatment Options

Book Reviews (and a few other products)

Family Life

School Issues

Social and Play Skills

Disclaimer: Please note, the opinions expressed in each referenced post in S-O-S Best of the Best are entirely that of its author and the inclusion of these posts does not constitute an endorsement by S-O-S Research.