Anxious Moments

We had an incident last night and I thought I wonder how other people deal with this? So my middle daughter needed to take a pill last night and although she has taken this pill before without issues, there was anxiety about it because it had been a few months since the last time she took it.

 

So here’s the situation. I call her upstairs and as soon as she realizes that I’ve asked her to come upstairs because she needed to take a pill she started to get upset and cry. Now originally when she started these pills we had similar issues and spent a few days struggling with her to take them. Eventually she overcame her anxiety and learned that it wasn’t so bad. Well that was a while ago and it made yesterday like starting from scratch. She was so anxious about taking her pill that she worked herself into complete panic mode. I tried everything that I could think of to help her. I tried being logical, explaining that she had done it before therefore it wouldn’t be hard. It didn’t help. I tried reassuring her by talking to her calmly and that didn’t help. I tried asking her why she was so nervous about this, and although she answered me it didn’t help her take the pill. I tried building her up by telling her I knew she could do it and tried to get her to tell herself that she could do it. She did that, between sobs of tears. I tried counting down from five, saying that on one she would take the pill, she didn’t. I tried getting tough with her and telling her to just do it already!  I even tried bribing her. But nothing seemed to work. She was so upset and scared and she actually made herself dizzy. At this point she hadn’t even got to the point of putting the pill in her mouth for fear of failing.

Now although I seemed fairly calm from any observers point of view I was going crazy inside. Because how could she be upset over something so simple, especially something we had concurred before. But since I know anxiety isn't something rational I did my best to keep my thoughts inside! 

After what seemed to be far too long, she did put the pill in her mouth and swallowed it on the first try, therefor proving my point that it wasn’t going to be a big deal and she therefore could do it.

So in conclusion, do you have children who battle anxiety over particular tasks? What have you found has helped them overcome their fears?

God met me more than halfway, he freed me from my anxious fears! Psalm 34:4