Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school panic attacks at 2?

Little man is 2y 10mo and has developed some pretty intense situational anxiety lately. He has what I can only describe as full-blown anxiety attacks. So far they have been triggered by hair cuts, the hair dryer, insects, ride-on toys and trampolines. He is so afraid in these situations that it breaks my heart. I can feel his heart pounding, he sweats and he is screaming and clutching at me. All he can say is "I'm scairt!" over and over.

I can help him avoid hair dryers and ride-on toys and trampolines for the time being, but I am powerless against the insects, LOL. Last night a moth flew by him in the driveway and he hit the ground like he was being dive-bombed by a man-eating dragon. I can see him assessing all new situations, almost like he is looking for what can hurt him. My sister works with kids with anxiety and she was with me today when he had the trampoline attack (we were only looking at it!). She suggested that I try to calm him down before I take him back into the house so he sees that I do not agree that the situation is too dangerous for him. Very hard to reason with a kid in that state, though!

Any suggestions? He is only two, so I don't think he needs therapy yet (but not ruling it out in the future!).

This sounds sort of similar to ds (now 12) ten years ago. The things he was afraid of fell pretty neatly into four categories: loud noises (thunder, fireworks, movies in a theater, etc.), motion (rapid motion of night-sky projection during a planetarium show, riding in a boat in calm water), certain physical sensations (bare feet on grass, falling down in snow, having his ears examined by a doctor), and people in some sort of disguise (Chuck E. Cheese, mall Santas).

(I later heard about sense-seeking and sense-avoiding kids, and decided ds was probably among the latter, albeit not an extreme case.)

Our first reaction was to stop exposing him to the things that upset him the most, since he was unreachable by reason during the worst episodes. Then over a period of years we gradually exposed him to mild, then stronger versions of each trigger. By the time he was 6 his fears were on the wane; to be on the safe side his pediatrician recommended he be evaluated by a psychiatrist for possible anxiety disorder, but her verdict was, 'He's perfectly normal'.

YMMV of course, but it's possible that with (or even without) slow acclimation to the things that scare him, he may gradually grow out of it.

... and tonight we add the bathtub to the list. Good Lord. Apparently he is 'scairt' of water now, too. This is going to be a long summer.

Oh, DD had a fear of two VERY specific things at that age: Dragonflies.
WALKING in parking lots.

She eventually grew out of both, but it did seem like it took forever. DH was absolutely convinced that our mothers and I had 'fostered' the parking lot thing-- she would quite literally wig out and shriek if an adult wouldn't pick her up and carry her-- but it most definitely wasn't the case.

I (personally) think that she simply could see that there was a real danger that she couldn't control-- I had told her that drivers found adults easier to SEE, and that was why she needed to hold an adult's hand-- and therefore she was insisting that it be managed in the way that she could see was safest from her perspective.

The dragonfly thing, on the other hand? Purely irrational. I would just hold her and ask her to look at my face and not at the dragonfly, and keep repeating that in a low voice until she could 'hear' me enough to comply.

Kathleen's Mum - our youngest developed a sudden bath phobia a few months ago (at about 13 months old), having previously LOVED the bath. She would still ask for a bath but then freak out as soon as she got in, or sometimes on sight. Generally my getting in and breastfeeding her in there was the only way to keep her in long enough to get clean. What turned it around in the end was leaving the tap on (just a trickle) the whole time she was in there and letting her catch the water using her favourite stacking cups. That combined with bribing her older sisters to get in with her so I didn't have to. Over time it has eased and she is back to loving the bath. I realise this may well be of no use to you at all, but we were willing to try anything, so I thought I would suggest it just in case@