I am after some advice on how to help my dd4 think about scary situations without feeling completely overwhelmed by the thought of them. This week I tried to introduce the idea of a scale to help her determine just how significant (if at all) a set back or error might be as she has a tendency to become completely overwhelmed by even very small things. As we started to (gently) talk about what would be something truly terrible dd got suddenly very agitated and started sobbing uncontrollably and asked if we could please, please stop talking about it. It started a conversation about a couple of other topics she asks not to talk about, such as stranger danger or what to do if she gets lost. Her reaction to these conversations has never been to get upset, rather she has just seemed bored by them and stops listening. She said talking about anything like that really scared her, even though she knows they're unlikely to happen. I've explained that knowing how to deal with a situation would make it less scary if it ever did happen because she'd know what to do.
We're quite matter of fact in our approach to talking to dd about these issues, we haven't spoken about any dramatic scenarios or anything like that - really just if x happens, a good strategy is to do y and a conversation about just how small the likelihood is of anything happening any way.
We can get by without a scale to deal with her extreme reactions to set backs by investigating the reality of the situation in other ways, but I do feel I need to be able to talk at least a little about what to do if she's approached by a stranger and/or if she gets lost. She's not big on talking about how she's feeling/anything personal at the best of times (and perhaps that's a separate issue? Though I think they are related) and I've tried talking about these things while we play, in the car etc but it doesn't make a difference. We usually eventually get to the source of an issue by me going through a series of guesses and testing them out on her until I get it right - or like in this case, through a similar reaction to a different issue that sets off a light bulb for me. I suspect this is in part due to her not having the vocabulary for how she's feeling. We talk about feelings a lot, but I think some of what she feels is so immense that 'normal' descriptions don't really cut it.
I'm across overexcitabilities etc, but I'm just not quite sure how to tackle this particular one!
