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    Joined: Aug 2010
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    DD's second-grade teacher has referred to DD as "high-anxiety" and "very anxious" more than once. We have wondered off and on about a possibly anxiety issue, but have never felt it quite fit. I am wondering what this diagnosis looks like in your gifted child.

    DD is high on "approach" and likes new places, people, activities, and things. Though she has been afraid of thunderstorms, tornadoes and other disasters off and on, she does not have any other fears. She enjoys performing and being in front of people and makes friends easily. However, she is also very controlling and highly emotional. She also seems deeply disturbed by inaccuracy and always has to know what is "going on"--she really hates to be low on information or to not understand a situation fully (I think this may be what her teacher is seeing). School performance is important to her, though I would not call her a perfectionist.

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    Well, you have described my dd pretty closely. She is amazingly social and loves new places, people, activities and things just as you described above. She was never a fearful kid - always willing to jump off a diving board, ride a roller coaster, speak or perform in front of (very) large crowds, etc. She did become a bit more fearful, though, as the anxiety developed and was afraid of thunderstorms this past summer. Your description of needing to know what is going on and being frustrated by lacking information also hits the nail on the head.

    Her anxiety developed last year while in a terrible school situation. Not only did her teacher penalize her for being unable to do tasks which a documented disability prevented her from completing, she also had other kids in the school making hurtful comments and physically hurting her. (The injuries were not the result of bullying - there were a number of kids in the class with behavior issues and the teachers were totally incapable of maintaining any sort of appropriate classroom environment.) She begged for me to change her school and I worked relentlessly to try to improve her situation. As she felt more and more vulnerable the anxiety moved in. She eventually became very clingy and would beg me to stay with her and not leave the classroom in the morning. She began having almost daily stomachaches and I was picking her up from the nurse's office several times a week by the end of the school year. She felt so vulnerable that an accidental bump in the hallway resulted in her crying in a heap on the floor as if she had been hit by a baseball bat.

    She was constantly afraid that she would disappoint her teachers or get in trouble for something that she didn't do. Her teacher assigned a student each day to be the "color changer" so she never knew when or if her color would be changed off of green, so she developed a paralyzing fear of the stupid color charts. As she got more and more anxious she began with repetative thoughts. i.e. as we were driving for her visit at a private school we planned to transfer her to she kept saying over and over "Do they have a color chart there?" "If they don't have a color chart I definitely want to go to school there." "I really hope they don't use color charts there."...

    The good news is that once school ended the anxiety abated. Now that she is in a positive learning environment there have been no signs of anxiety. Her IEP has her meeting with the school social worker each week to develop coping mechanisms but there has been very little need for it in the new environment.

    Hope this helps answer your question.

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    I have two children with anxiety, one who has been described as the "total teflon personality - everything slides off"! My oldest has been officially diagnosed with anxiety disorder, my youngest has no diagnosis but clearly is a highly anxious child. FWIW, both my ds who has the diagnosis and my teflon-child developed fairly severe anxiety in 2nd grade, and with *both* children it was due to having an undiagnosed challenge that no one was aware of give them a challenge that was too large for them to continue compensating for at school as the work and expectations at school ramped up - yet the challenges didn't manifest in a way that we (parents and teachers) easily recognized what was up, and neither did my kids. My ds has a fine motor disability and expressive language disability, and my dd has vision challenges - it wasn't until their anxiety ramped up sky-high and we went through neurospych evals that we realized what was really going on. Both kids' anxiety levels went *way* down after we understood what was at the root of their anxiety - ds is still clearly a child who reacts to stress with anxiety, but once we understood his disability, implemented acccommodations at school and made a teacher switch, his anxiety went way way down and even in tough times since then has never ramped up again. After a few months of vision therapy the teflon child's ability to read suddenly took off, and as far as I can tell she hasn't had an ounce of anxiety invade her teflon world since then.

    One thing about ds - he's our exceptionally gifted child - he does feel things in an extremely sensitive way, much deeper than I think most kids. He also appeared to be a perfectionist, which many gifted kids are, and which all of us thought was part of the issue (parents and teachers) - turns out we were mistaking clues about his fine motor struggles as perfectionism.

    My youngest dd, who also has extreme anxiety, has a high need to control everything, which is (I think) her way of dealing with stress. We suspect she's at least highly gifted based on her achievement and ideas, but she hasn't been tested at this point. She's in 2nd grade this year, soaring in math/science, but having some challenges with other school work for the first time and that's really ramped up her tantrums and need to control things.

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    Originally Posted by ultramarina
    DD is high on "approach" and likes new places, people, activities, and things. Though she has been afraid of thunderstorms, tornadoes and other disasters off and on, she does not have any other fears. She enjoys performing and being in front of people and makes friends easily. However, she is also very controlling and highly emotional. She also seems deeply disturbed by inaccuracy and always has to know what is "going on"--she really hates to be low on information or to not understand a situation fully (I think this may be what her teacher is seeing). School performance is important to her, though I would not call her a perfectionist.

    This all sounds a lot like my daughter. In addition, she is a hypochondriac and worries constantly about getting sick. It has reached the extreme at times where she will actually throw-up. She had a total panic attack and threw up twice during a hurricane recently. In the past she has also had issues with fear of bugs and ghosts.
    Her teachers have said in the past that she seem anxious and is running to them a lot to "check" to make sure she is doing things correctly. She has made herself physically ill before when she had to give a presentation.
    She has to have everything done her way and at times struggles to complete tasks which she doesn't feel are done correctly. She melts down when we try to get her to move on.
    She also has body issues. She thinks she is fat (which she is not) and dresses very modestly to try to camouflage her imperfections(no tight clothing etc).
    I could go on..but hopefully this will give you some incite. We have taken her to psychologists in the past and she just recently started seeing one again last week. In a word living with her can be exhausting.

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    Really appreciate the posts so far. My DD also does have issues with being fearful about sickness, especially vomiting. I would also say she asks again and again about things that concern her, like Pemberley mentions with the color chart.

    She does have also some slight ASD-looking , also some things that look a little ADHD, but no dx ever seems like it's quite "right." Although she seems to be doing fine at school (she goes to a gifted magnet), struggles at home continue. We are at the point where we think an outside consult might be of use, but are not sure of first steps.

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    Ultramarina, a couple of thoughts coming from where I am (DS9 has AS).

    I really trust cognitive behavior therapy for working on anxiety. It is great for smart, verbal people-- they learn how to reason their way out of their anxiety in a way that is meaningful for them.

    My preference is also to have as much information as possible-- anxiety that comes from Asperger's (because you can't quite figure out other people) is different from the kind that comes from ADHD (because you can't quite trust yourself to do the right thing). If you can get to a neuropsych (it'd have to be just the right one, with particular expertise) they may be able to confirm a source for the anxiety, and with that give you a path forward on how to treat it.

    Best,
    DeeDee

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    Originally Posted by DeeDee
    Ultramarina, a couple of thoughts coming from where I am (DS9 has AS).

    I really trust cognitive behavior therapy for working on anxiety. It is great for smart, verbal people-- they learn how to reason their way out of their anxiety in a way that is meaningful for them.

    My preference is also to have as much information as possible-- anxiety that comes from Asperger's (because you can't quite figure out other people) is different from the kind that comes from ADHD (because you can't quite trust yourself to do the right thing). If you can get to a neuropsych (it'd have to be just the right one, with particular expertise) they may be able to confirm a source for the anxiety, and with that give you a path forward on how to treat it.

    Best,
    DeeDee

    I second all of this. Except that my DS with AS is 14.

    Last edited by aculady; 11/14/11 05:44 PM.
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    How do I find a good neuropsych and what do I look for? Is this sort of thing usually covered by insurance? I guess it's probably time. *sigh* We have worried off and on about her since she was a small toddler. The thing is, I am just not sure if she is diagnosable with anything. She may just be HARD. Up to this point we seemed to be the only ones who felt there was a problem, so the comments from her teacher are making me take notice. She is functioning perfectly well in school despite this.

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    Hi, Ultra--

    We found our neuropsych through a children's hospital. By then we suspected autism, so we chose one who'd seen lots and lots of autistic kids. We were not fussy about whether they'd seen gifted kids; we felt then and still feel that the disability was driving the major issues we saw rather than the giftedness. In your case, I'd want to make sure they've seen lots of girls with ADHD and/or AS and are able to recognize those even in gifted girls--because girls are under-diagnosed.

    We went through the hospital's autism diagnostic program, but they were fully equipped to come out with some other diagnosis too. I'd definitely choose a neuropsych rather than a regular psych; they are more finely tuned. Ours happened to work with a developmental pediatrician as a team, screening for lots of physical and developmental things all at once, which worked fine for us. Insurance covered the evaluation, which was long (6+ hours).

    If you can, start keeping a journal of behaviors that seem unusual or troubling. That gives you evidence, and keeps your mind from going blank at a key moment in the evaluation process.

    On the therapy side: it can be hard to find a cognitive-behavior therapist who works with kids. Here's a "finder" as a place to start: http://nacbt.org/searchfortherapists.asp

    DeeDee

    p.s. about insurance: ask the neuropsych's office how people usually fund evaluations. There may be options other than your private health insurance available in your area, especially since you suspect there could be a developmental issue.

    Last edited by DeeDee; 11/14/11 08:21 PM. Reason: added p.s.
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    Hi,

    Our child has had anxiety issues that sound fairly similar to those you have described. Our child gets very worried about doing well at school and feels she will never do well or progress. Her teacher has said that in one or two subjects she could do a bit better (but is still good) but for the most part she is at the top of her class (especially in Maths and Science).

    She also worries about adverse weather conditions and the recent Tsunami in Japan seemed to make matters worse for a while. I was told by a friend that maybe she worries about things she doesn't feel she can control, I have tried to keep an eye out for this and he may be right. Is this common?

    Her teacher recommended a book called The Anxiety Free Child Program as she was told by a colleague that it successfully helped a child in the year below my daughter. After reading the reviews on http://honest-health-product-reviews.com/reviews/the-anxiety-free-child-program-review we decided to buy the book. I haven't had a chance to read through it yet but from what I have read so far it looks pretty helpful.


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