I think the biggest difference for me is that I find I have to be very honest and very detailed when I talk to dd. It isn't enough to simply dismiss her worries with a 'you don't need to worry about that, it's very unlikely to happen' or "just do x and I think you'll find that works'. She needs to know why we have responded the way we have. For example dd is very sensitive and was worried about fire at one point. It wasn't enough to say we're very safe and have fire alarms so no need to worry about it (which was what we went with first). Instead we had to admit there is always a possibility there might be a fire, look up the major causes of fire, speak honestly about whether or not we were at risk etc, etc. Then she was ok.
Similarly she was being picked on by a little girl and so we had to have discussions about whether or not this little girls opinion mattered to her, do we have to like everyone/does everyone has to like us, what might be causing the girl to behave the way she is, why different responses might or might not be effective etc. Once we'd been through all of this, dd adjusted her thinking and response to this girl and never had another issue with her. None of which I was expecting to have to go in to such detail about with a then 4yo (and I certainly would not have expected her to understand to the level she evidently did).
