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My child psych friend is disagreeing with my ped's interpretation of DD's depression screen. She says her scores are basically normal (slightly high); ped says they warrant therapy. Hmm. Meanwhile, the kid whose anxiety screen was "normal" got really worried the other night when there was a fire at a favorite business--which is probably a mile away. She was really worried it was going to spread like crazy and consume our house. Hmmmm, again.

Hi, Ultra,

IMO it sounds like your DD's worries (diagnosable as anxiety/depression or not) are getting in the way of her life, to the point where you feel it affects her and the rest of your household a lot of the time.

To me, this says the sensible thing to do is to get help in working on it. Helping her learn to manage this now will be a great asset for the future; little kids have little worries, bigger kids have bigger worries, and since she seems constitutionally prone to anxiety, giving her tools to cope with it early on is a gift.

There is no shame in getting help with this.

DeeDee

Although I remember starting with the big worries early in life, namely nuclear annihilation and the sun consuming the earth, destroying all life, at about 6 years of age.

Granted, I did move onto the heat death of the universe and existential hopelessness in high school.

In hindsight, I probably could have used some coping skills.

As long as you find someone who is a good fit, and it's not expensive, I don't really see a downside to therapy.

It may well be expensive, and it will definitely be inconvenient. I do feel we need some kind of help. However, it's confusing to get these different opinions.

Oh, and JonLaw, the death of the sun and nuclear annihilation are certainly on her list.

They were on mine too at that age, actually. I don't mean "big worries" as in the topic of the worries; but more that the anxiety that is concerning at 5 can be crippling at 9, 12 or 15, when a kid has to be so much more independent.

DeeDee

I didn't even realize that anxiety existed until I started having panic attacks several years ago.

Honestly, though, once you realize they are panic attacks and you aren't actually dying or having a heart attack and that nothing is really physically wrong with you, they become more irritating than anything else.

Fortunately, I haven't had any for several years. No therapy, though, just a job change. And one of those generic anxiety medication, which I am convinced worked as a placebo.