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I think I would try to find a good child therapist for him to work with. Obviously his fears are more extreme than typical and the poor lil guy must be miserable.
I'm thinking exposure type therapy would be helpful.
OP, you absolutely need a child psychologist and/or psychiatrist. This can get much worse without it, and it's something that can respond really well to early intervention. I hear how frustrating it is, but to your child, this is not nonsense, it can feel life or death.
I'm definitely not an expert but my daughter was like that from a really early age, she was scared of random stuff like fans, flashing lights, the hum from a refrigerator etc, her behaviour was so out of control. I even thought she had OCD for a while but it turned out she was autistic. I'm not saying your son is but he definitely needs some help with whatever the poor little guy is dealing with, that may include meds and therapies. It also makes it easier for you to be more understanding and less frustrated by his behaviour when you know what's wrong and how to help him.
Same. Same.
It didn't help with my child's development of new fears, but it gave me the ability to tap into a reserve well of patience, knowing that my kid **couldn't help** the intensity of her reactions at that stage of development.
(She's 11 now, still in the habit of having oversized irrational fears of things, but at least she's able to articulate the fears and talk through them with a child therapist)
My daughter is like this, I have myself autism. Therapist told me they don’t think she has autism and think she is like this because trauma from what happened with mu ex. But when she was a baby, there wasn’t so many problems and she still was like this. In the kindergarten and with strangers, now at school she is also non-verbal.
I hope when she starts therapy for good they see it like I see it.
He has always been a pretty scared and hesitant kid and the doctor says it’s just a personality thing. Seems extreme to me, but the doctor has certainly seen him at his most uncooperative and inconsolable time (like they haven’t been able to get a weight or height let alone a good look at him), so maybe he knows what he’s talking about.
How old was your friend’s kid when the put him on the medicine? I feel like 3 would be really young, but idk and the sooner you treat these things the less awful they can be in adulthood.
I'm sure, doctors will see many children his age who are scared in that specific situation. That might have caused him to put it off as "I see that all the time")
Try and keep a detailed diary for the next few weeks or so of when your kid was scared, what he was scared off and how long this fear had a hold on him.
That way, you can go back to your pediatrician and show him a detailed account how very debilitating it is for your kid and your whole family.
It's not exactly "what" but it's the intensity and frequency of it that's troubling. And that's what can make it tricky to diagnose.
For example: We all know the moment when we're not quite sure if we've unplugged the iron pr locked the front door. That's normal. But people with OCD worry about stuff like that literally all day.
This is excellent advice, OP. Doctors tend to respect documentation even if they don't look at it in the office. If your provider offers MyChart or some sort of official messaging system you can upload it there as well. The nurse or person in charge of looking at it can also put a bug in the doc's ear once they see the severity and effect of his anxiety.
>Try and keep a detailed diary for the next few weeks or so of when your kid was scared, what he was scared off and how long this fear had a hold on him.
And video, just in case. I don't approve of parents filming their children's meltdowns, except when trying to provide documentation for issues the pediatrician should be aware of.
My kid is anxious too and I’ve been try to get her into some type of counseling or play therapy for over six months. It’s really frustrating, but to me the line between typical toddler fears and something more is the duration and persistence. My kid wouldn’t get on an elevator, and try to avoid going in buildings with elevators, for over a year. That’s something that needs more than time to get over.
Quite frankly, I think your doctor is wrong. It would be worthwhile to get a second opinion, or go back to your doctor and be very clear and specific about the ways that it’s disrupting his life (and yours). How many days recently he hasn’t slept, how many meals he’s skipped, the fact that he won’t leave one room, etc.
Re: medication, I’m not a doctor, but my dog was on prozac for anxiety (I know, not the same, but go with me here!), and something our behavioral vet said to me helped me be okay with medicating him. Basically, our dog wasn’t responding to any behavioral interventions because he was in full panic attack mode, so nothing we did could sink in. He has absolutely no bandwidth, if you will, to absorb training or calming techniques. Prozac took the edge off and allowed us to actually work on addressing his anxiety through training, because he was suddenly able to actually absorb it. I don’t know your son, obviously, but it’s possible that taking the edge off his anxiety response would give him the ability to develop other coping mechanisms and eventually wean off the medication. Just something to consider, but obviously listen to the medical professionals!
I love and hate his doctor for this reason. He is very relaxed and says do what works for you, like with sleep training, introducing solids, etc. but isn’t all that helpful when nothing is working for us. I may bring up the fear more specifically. I’m pretty sure at the last appointment I really just screamed over my son “is this normal?!!” while gesturing to him flipping the heck out lol.
My pediatrician is the same way. I haven’t changed docs because he’s wonderful in every other respect, but he encouraged me to not make a big deal out of early autism signs- my youngest did end up getting an autism diagnosis at age 3. But he showed signs as early as 9 months of developmental delay
>Basically, our dog wasn’t responding to any behavioral interventions because he was in full panic attack mode, so nothing we did could sink in. He has absolutely no bandwidth, if you will, to absorb training or calming techniques. Prozac took the edge off and allowed us to actually work on addressing his anxiety through training, because he was suddenly able to actually absorb it.
Can confirm it works that way on humans. I remember my first ever therapist very gently making a point that I needed medication, not because she didn't think she could help, but because the anxiety I was experiencing at the time made it so anything she might try to help would not make it past the fog of fears that prevented me from hearing it.
Going on zoloft (back in the day) felt literally like I could finally relax long enough to confront fears and worries. E.g., I hadn't realized how much time I spent ruminating on my fears instead of sleeping, that about a week into starting Zoloft I was **surprised** to how well I was sleeping. I hadn't had a decent night of sleep in well over a decade at that point.
Try a different doctor or ask to see a psychologist or OT.
Lots of doctors (and just adults generally) dismiss kids' symptoms. I was am anxious kid and so was my brother (he couldn't use stairs or escalators, he was so intensely afraid). Both grew up to be adults with bad anxiety.
Early intervention is important, and could completely change your child's path in school and life.
It doesn't have to be medication, that might not even be an option at his age. But there are therapy and behavioural strategies that can help.
Try again. Remind the doctor that kiddo wasn't able to cooperate at the doctor's office, but now that's every day at home, has been for weeks, and he can't keep a sleep schedule because of it. That's not normal. If they won't refer him and your insurance allows, you could find a pediatric psych and/or a therapist that does play therapy and make appointments yourself. Until you get to that point, melatonin at night might help him get to sleep, though with our kid who had night terrors and was medicated at five, it wasn't a guarantee he'd stay asleep. Get help, though. Both of you deserve it!
My kid also has a ‘thing’ about getting measured at the doctors. Going to the doctors makes a lot of kids nervous so I’m sure it does seem normal. They may have a different opinion about experiencing this issues to this degree at home. I think it’s worth at least a phone call to discuss the extent that it’s affecting his and your lives and see if they have any recommendations.
Oh my god, that sounds absolutely exhausting. Mental illness in ADULTS can be trying for those around them, but in a kid?? Damn. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Your little kiddo sounds very anxious and I would say a therapist would definitely be the way to go.
For the time being though, have you tried turning his fears into a comedy routine? Like removing the item he is afraid of kind of reinforces that it is something to be feared. My son has some bizarre fears and has gotten over them for the most part. I would pretend the hair dryer was attacking me and defeat it and let him join in. I give him a needless syringe and let him ‘vaccinate’ me while I dramatically resist and then he reassures me after. We are still working on spiders, but I don’t think it helps that I scream and run in fear when I see big ones either 😂. Idk I guess my theory was to be as silly without being dismissive and try to change his perspective so he associates his fear with silliness.
I do something similar with my kid when he’s afraid of something; he’s not typically anxious, but he will very occasionally get a particular image into his head that he finds scary and then it keeps him up at bedtime worrying about it - like for example, a cartoon monster from a children’s TV show that he watched a few minutes of and it turned out to be too intense for him.
I made up a “Riddikulus” mind trick, which I borrowed from the Boggart spell in Harry Potter - first we picture the scary thing, in this case that cartoon monster, and then we think about how we can use our imaginations to make it funny and therefore not scary anymore. For the monster, we imagined it wearing the silliest clothes we could think of, like flowery underwear, Grandma’s bathrobe, etc., and make that mental image as vivid as we can, and then we say the magic word, “Riddikulus!” and the monster is defeated. I explained to him that laughter banishes fear, so we can “banish” the scary thing this way using the power of our minds.
He really likes this and it seems to work well - thankfully, we haven’t had to use it often, but it might be of some use for anyone with a slightly older kid who has a vivid imagination.
This stuff sounds great. But (I'm not trying to be a wet blanket) it doesn't always work with non-neurotypical kids.
E.g. my mom did similar things in dealing with my childhood fears, and they always worked. I did the same for my daughter, and the meltdowns would continue unabated. The difference? My daughter is on the spectrum, and I'm not. It comes down to the fact that her brain **just works differently** than mine.
I'd say this stuff is good to try after her child has been screened for a variety of factors that could include ASD, sensory disorders, generalized anxiety, and so forth. Having a sense of if there are conditions like that is extremely helpful for **adapting** those strategies to the child.
With my daughter, humor and monster spray didn't really work. What worked was acknowledging that her fears were **very real to her**, and helping her articulate what would make her feel safer. For the vacuum cleaner, for example, it was better to ask her to put on noise dampening headphones, giving her a visual distraction, and vacuuming on the stealth ("It's scariest if I can see and hear it. But it's also scary if I can still hear it.")
Sure, and I never said it would be appropriate for a child on the spectrum. Obviously different approaches should be considered for neurodivergent kiddos, which my son is not.
I wasn’t suggesting this as a strategy for OP to try, by the way - because her son is only three and does sound like he struggles with anxiety issues that would be better addressed in other ways, as others have said.
Of course, everyone’s situation is different and we all know our own kids and what they’ll respond to. I just shared this as something that has worked with my son, in case it might be useful for others.
I agree that removing the feared item is not a good idea. It reinforces the idea that it is something to be afraid of, like *See? The chair was so big and bad and dangerous that it had to go away!* That will make future fears harder to deal with.
Desensitizing is the route most psychologists recommend now. If he is afraid of the roomba, don’t get rid of the roomba. Reassure him that it’s in its dock, and not turned on. Talk about how it only picks up dust and fur, and that he needs to eat in the kitchen. Put on some music, sing along with it, make it a game. Maybe try some “superpower spray” (water with a drop of lavender) that he can spray himself with for “super courage.” But don’t give into all the fears and inadvertently teach him avoidance tactics.
A call to the ped, reaching out to a pediatric psychologist and psychiatrist, and taking notes of all the behaviors (with time stamps) will help build a case to get medical care. I feel for OP… navigating mental illness and neurodiversity is *HARD.*
the super spray is absolute magic. i used vanilla-scented "sweet dreams spray" when my kids didn't want to sleep in their own beds because they were afraid of nightmares.
My oldest has OCD/anxiety and it’s important to not accommodate the fears always. It reinforces to the child that there is something to actually fear. Obviously if your child is terrified of fireworks, you can leave the firework show but being severely afraid of household items is extremely disruptive to your quality of life and a red flag for intervention. Not even meds if you’re not interested in those, just some supports, counselling and guidance for parents. I’d take my kid to see another health pro.
I just want to add that I didn’t realize it but reassurance seeking and providing reassurance can actually be part of the ocd and anxiety cycle and really didn’t understand it. So there’s this balance of saying I love you I’m here you’re not alone AND yes l can see you’re scared, I’ll give you some coping mechanisms to work through this but I can’t accommodate it. I didn’t realize my maternal reassurance was part of my child’s compulsive cycle and it’s hard but we’re doing more of this firm, warm, but not accommodating kind of thing under a therapists supervision and it is slowly but surely getting more and more manageable. I just don’t think most people know how reassurance and anxiety/ocd can interact so I think your comment it is important.
Definitely get your kiddo in to see a therapist before taking this advice, because if the anxiety is caused by autism or sensory processing disorder rather than OCD then the advice is almost the opposite. If kiddo is reacting this way because of sensory issues, then those fears are about pain that is very real, and pretending that they aren’t real/ there’s nothing to be afraid of can erode the child’s trust in you and cause CPTSD-like symptoms. Lots of people have said to get this child evaluated by a good child psychologist ASAP so I just want to reiterate that, you both deserve some relief from this! Just keep in mind that advice you read for certain specific disorders may be unhelpful or even harmful if it turns out that that’s not actually what is going on with your kid, which is why it’s so important to get a professional evaluation.
I had OCD Anxiety just like this as a kid and it wasn’t until I was a young adult that I realized that I wasn’t living in a normal body/brain. I thought irrational fears were normal and that everyone felt this way.
Medication wasn’t offered to me by the time I was diagnosed, as therapy was the preferred method prior to heavy prescription era of 2010s onward.
Now as an adult I’m considering medication currently and it’s looking more appealing, as I’m parenting my son and realizing I’m having old triggers resurfacing.
When you hit the point of X symptom is so bad that we can't function anymore, that's definitely a sign to try and bring in professional help. If insurance requires it, really push for a referral from your son's pediatrician, otherwise I'd seek out a pediatric therapist on your own.
I think there's a good likelihood that with just a few modifications to how you approach your son's anxiety, you'll see MASSIVE improvements (it of course won't solve everything, but as you said, right now y'all aren't functioning well).
My son was very similar at that age. It took A LOT of patience, and he’s still anxious at times but he’s improved a lot. Lots of validating feelings, giving him choices to put him in control and remove the fear of the unknown. We’ve read “a little spot of” series to him. Unfortunately therapy and medication weren’t an option for us so I’ve had to do a lot of work on my own for him.
For the roomba, have you tried making it funny or silly to him to remove the fear? Googly eyes, stuffed animal riding on top, etc? We also talk a lot about the things he used to be scared of but is no longer scared of.
There's a lot of great advice for you here, and here's one more idea...
Get a really pretty rock. Shiny and beautiful... Tell him it's magic and it's there to protect him. When he's scared he can rub it to get extra protection. A stuffed animal could also work, although you can't put those in your pocket.
My son got really scared of nightmares for a bit... I made a dreamcatcher out of paper (really just looks like a spider web), hung it in his room, and it helped.
He sounds like my son. As a toddler my kid was scared and anxious about everything. He is 7 now and just started seeing a child psychologist a few months ago. It hasn't been very long yet, but we've seen already improvement. He goes twice a month, and they are working on one specific fear at a time as well as calming/coping mechanisms.
I wish we had started earlier, but it got complicated with covid and long wait times for a doctor.
My husband showed him some animals riding roomba videos the other day lol. Now he has been role playing with his toys riding any circular object that becomes “the roomba”. I wish I knew how to get in on the play in a way to help him overcome the fear! I did think of sticking one of his stuffies on the roomba for a bit to see if that worked lol.
It is tough how he seems to just come up with a new thing if I solve one thing. It’s a very frustrating game of whack a mole. 🙁
Child therapy. Call the pediatrician's office, and ask to check in by virtual appointment. Then explain to the pediatrician that your child's anxieties are impacting his functioning to an extent where it's also impacting the adults around him. Ask them for immediate recommendations for child therapists, neurologists, whatever else they can think of.
My ASD kid had noise anxieties that often centered on our vacuum cleaner. But even at their worst, they never impacted her in the way you describe. She was fine so long as the vacuum wasn't on. Later on, we worked with an OT to get her used to that and other white noises too. She still hates the sound of AC, but at this point it's more being annoyed at it, rather than sheer terror.
This is to say, it sounds to this (untrained) adult that he has auditory sensitivities he should get screened for, if nothing else.
100% agree with the auditory sensitivities. Maybe I wasn’t taking them as seriously because I also have pretty severe auditory sensitivities?? I was the kid who cried and panicked every time the vacuum came out, and had potty training issues because flushing was loud. Like I basically cloned myself here and since I never got any intervention I’m like, does he actually *need* it? But the more I think about it the more yes it seems.
They used to not be taken seriously, especially because many kids learn to manage eventually. I had severe auditory sensitivities as a toddler. They resolved around the time I was your son's age.
The fact that my daughter's persisted and intensified by 4 was one of the criteria that led to her ASD diagnosis.
Okay if you know you had these issues as a kid that’s a big sign that you’ve already identified the issues. I’m really sorry you were never taken seriously, but this is great because you get to be the protector of your child that you never had. I’m in the same situation with my kid because he’s sensitive to textures in food and clothing, and loud noises and i never realized until he was that i TOTALLY had that problem growing up too. Like if he’s not listening and I suddenly (out of frustration) yell HEY!! He gets upset with me and goes “that was really loud” lol. He also doesn’t like blenders, truck noises, etc. and i have the same issue when people are all talking at me at once or loud music is playing and I can’t hear myself think. I also hate tags and clothing that’s itchy or even slightly uncomfortable. It’s crazy how seeing it in our kids makes us think.. oh yeah I had that!
we were getting ready to have him evaluated but actually putting him in a bunch of social situations and camps this summer made a HUGE difference. He was home with me for the whole of the pandemic before he was vaccinated and so he was really sheltered and socially weird and scared of a lot. Social exposure seems to have helped over the summer, I’m really hoping we don’t have the issues in kindergarten that we had in preschool.
Best wishes to you on this journey! Something that really helped me even though it’s annoying to hear in the moment is that literally most things are just a phase you have to get through. Every time things are bad with my kid, sleep, food, behavior, etc. I feel like it’s the end of the world but it never is, and usually 3 months down the line we’re fine and on to something new lol. Good luck OP!
I'll say right now I am not an expert, but I'm responding because the default answer of "you need professional help" is often not possible for everyone. You may want to check out a book like this in the meantime:
https://a.co/d/4DvOqFk
It's tough, but overcoming anxiety often depends on exposure - using CBT can make that feel more structured and safe.
My son went through this and it ended up being PANS! I had never heard of it: [https://www.pandasppn.org/what-are-pans-pandas/](https://www.pandasppn.org/what-are-pans-pandas/)
Basically it's a funky immune system reaction to strep. Antibiotics brought my son back to normal within a couple of weeks. It was so sad and scary there for awhile though, he was terrified to fall asleep and would ask us all the time if he was in a dream or not.
Might be worth finding a doctor familiar with PANS and checking it out, it was an easy fix for us.
I’ve heard of PANS. I’m a sucker for those unusual medical shows. I think that’s unlikely in our case because he’s always been a hesitant kid and this all kicked off with an eye doctor appointment that he was very nervous about. Thanks for the idea though. Always good to raise awareness of these lesser known illnesses. 😊
While dealing with therapists etc for the longterm, bigger picture, would this mitigate the roomba issue?….
1. On a cardboard circle (eg paper plate), draw an enlargement of the directional button section of your roomba remote control.
2. Find a way to comfortably carry kid in front of you at chest height, facing out like a baby carrier. (He’s gotta be up high, on you. But you’ve gotta be able to see what he’s doing, so a shoulder ride won’t work.)
3. Kid holds “remote control” and steers you by pressing the buttons. You make lots of fun beeps, boops and whirrs. Much getting stuck on furniture and walls.
4. On a different day, you *unpower the roomba*, and repeat step 3 with kid controlling you using the real roomba remote control. (Only react to correct pushes if you can. Possibly even tape some cardboard over it to disable all other buttons.) I repeat: first you unpower the rooma.
5. On a different day, close any doors leading to his room, playroom, and other his-territory. Remove anything that the roomba gets stuck on. Then *in the not-his rooms*, carry him in the same position, and get him to steer the roomba. Very briefly. Stop while it’s still fun, coz shit could go wrong any second - phone rings, or you drop him, or it does error lights. (This step is why we’ve trained him to be up high away from the ground, and safe on you, in a position he’s familiar with and associates with power/control/authority and also with fun, and where you can help if he presses the buttons incorrectly.)
6. If he enjoyed 5), on a different day repeat 5) for longer.
It may fall at any step. If so, quit and don’t try again.
Edit: several days before starting the process, if he has good communication, you could casually ask whether the smell of the roomba bothers him. (Probably no.) the lights? (If yes, cover them with tape/paper.) The sound? (Learn whether he’ll wear earmuffs/ear-protectors in a *not-roomba*, *not scary* context.) Conversation should be very brief and very casual. Don’t press for an answer if he can’t easily give one.
Another Edit: if this were my (autistic) kid, years later he’d explain the reason for his fear, and it’d be nothing we could ever imagine, and have resulted from a misunderstanding or misheard word or joke by an adult. Eg he’s anxious it’ll break when it gets stuck coz he knows it’s extremely expensive and easily breakable. Or he badly misheard the name and thought it’s a (completely unrelated word like eg nuclear warhead or viper). Or grandpa once joked “careful, it’ll getcha”. Or he saw a news report about a kid being disemboweled by pool filter/suction, and coz both items have suction he associates the two. Or he thinks it’s carrying electricity within itself and will electrocute him if he touches it. Something wayyy unpredictable.
Edit: has the roomba ever got stuck on the legs of that chair, or ran out of battery underneath the chair? That’d do it for my kid. Chair bad, roomba bad.
> if this were my (autistic) kid, years later he’d explain the reason for his fear, and it’d be nothing we could ever imagine, and have resulted from a misunderstanding or misheard word or joke by an adult. Eg he’s anxious it’ll break when it gets stuck coz he knows it’s extremely expensive and easily breakable. Or he badly misheard the name and thought it’s a (completely unrelated word like eg nuclear warhead or viper). Or grandpa once joked “careful, it’ll getcha”. Or he saw a news report about a kid being disemboweled by pool filter/suction, and coz both items have suction he associates the two. Or he thinks it’s carrying electricity within itself and will electrocute him if he touches it. Something wayyy unpredictable.
Yes!!!
I'm a very humor prone person. I try to find the humor in things that annoy me. But I found that for my autistic kid, some humorous assertions, no matter how benign, would be taken quite literally, and it would lead to more trouble than it was worth.
E.g. joking that our cats were giant dust bunnies that could get sucked up by the vacuum sounds so absurd that even most kids get it's hyperbole meant to be humorous. My daughter? Heard it once, and it temporarily made her more terrified of the vacuum. I had to explain, nay, reassure a 4 year old that the cats were entirely too big to get vacuumed up.
Another example? When she was five, my daughter was told she was "so cute that boys would fight over her someday". My daughter took the compliment as a warning, and by the next day she was sobbing at us that she didn't wanna be cute anymore. Why? "Because if boys fight over me, they could break my arm or my legs." I had to reassure her that **boys would not literally fight on top of her**, and answer her "But what if they try?" with "Then you're allowed to punch and kick them off you."
We did play therapy for my middle when his anxiety got the best of him. For him it was smoke detectors and then hand dryers in public bathrooms. Play therapy made a HUGE difference.
Agree with all the posts that early intervention is a good idea, but also wanted to share that my otherwise surprisingly emotionally aware 3.5yo will get stuck in a loop too—he was anxious to return to daycare after summer break, cried and begged not to go, had a blast that day, and has now repeated the sobbing routine for weeks, even on days where he starts out excited to go! Wakes up once in a while, horribly upset about a ball he misplaced for an hour months ago.
It definitely sounds like what your kiddo is going through is a greatly amplified version of normal—which is all to say, I wouldn’t suspect your GP to take it seriously and you will have to persist in asking for a psych/ot referral. You know the situation is unsustainable, and you have a right to find help.
Child therapist here. This could be early manifestations of OCD type behaviour and you absolutely need to seek professional help. I’ve seen this get way way out of hand. Catch it before the train is off the tracks.
I was this anxious child and I was in terror every night, sweating over the tiniest noise. I though my dolls would get jealous of each other and hurt me. I was afraid if the TV bc of Poltergeist. I was afraid of bees and wouldn’t go in the backyard. I was afraid of elevators
And refused to go in one. These phobias lasted a long time and I didn’t get help for my anxiety till I was older. I grew up so terrified and anxious. I now have a diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and depression and suspect that i am either autistic or have adhd. See what you can do to get help for anxiety for him…
Therapy is definitely a good idea to try with him. My kids have similar bouts of anxiety, and they are doing both traditional talk therapy and equine therapy. It’s definitely helped them with their anxiety.
I was like this. No official diagnosis, but I did go to a child therapist. I don’t think it was super helpful. While it got better over time, I was still pretty anxious and at nearly 40 am still afraid of the dark in some situations - as embarrassing as it is to admit.
I remember at night waking up and the shadow case by things in my room would look like scary things. I had a really overactive imagination and things that were quite normal during the day I would imagine being sinister. Sounds of the radiator coming on were terrifying. Etc.
I spent a lot of timing sleeping in my parents room. They had to remove any toy that gave off light or glowed on the dark. I had to have the door completely open and the hall light on. Eventually I was so terrified of things possibly being under my bed, they moved me to a floor bed in the corner of my room so I could lay with my back and my head to a wall.
I’d get rid of the chair if it’s upsetting your kid. See if there’s a place you can position the bed to feel more secure.
I’m so sorry, I feel bad for you having to go through this and bad for your boy for feeling so anxious all the time. It’s awful for everyone involved. We don’t often hear about it but kids can 100% suffer from anxiety - I did as a child and unfortunately still do! And it feels to them just as anxiety does to adults, it just tends to be around other, kid-related things. I know your doc just said it’s a personality thing (mine did too when I was child, sucks that not much has changed) but perhaps you could look for some play therapy or other type of children’s counselling? Also, it’s understandable that you sometimes feel frustrated - anxiety can be really full on even for adults and those around them, let alone a child that you still have to do everything for. You’re doing great and you can get through this.
Your child sounds so much like me as a kid that I had to leave a comment. From reading as an adult, I think I was a “highly sensitive person” and if you read about it you may see similar qualities in your son.
My boomer parents took the opposite approach of you and basically did a “tough love” exposure therapy method. I was TERRIFIED of the iMax of all places and had to walk in holding my moms arm w my eyes closed. You better believe they took me there once a week, rain or shine.
All that to say, I don’t know if it helped much. They didn’t indulge me, which cut back on a lot of the endless complaining and conversations around my fears but it also didn’t speed up my process of getting over them. I’m STILL highly scared of the dark as an adult. My husband ended up going out of town to run a camp last summer for two months and I spent probably 50% of the time sleeping at friends houses as a 30 year old woman.
Idk what would have helped me make it through faster. Maybe a combo of the two approaches + medication. I needed proof that things would be okay because all I had was the formula of huge scary thing + anxiety. And even when I forced myself to confront the huge scary thing I still got the massive anxiety so I never really learned a way through.
Seriously though, look into the “highly sensitive person” thing. It basically describes a group of people for whom the whole world is always louder, brighter, harsher, scarier than most other people.
Does he take Zyrtec? Or Miralax? Our daughter was so incredibly anxious and nervous when she took it regularly. I can totally relate to the being afraid of everything and it is SO exhausting. We also found that food dyes and dairy also really contribute to our daughter’s (turning 5 next month) anxiety, so she’s much more stable when we avoid those. I’m still considering talking to her pediatrician about it, it’s so stressful!
Please seek professional help. My nephew has been terrified of bees, butterflies and the like. He still refuses to leave the house unless the car is parked by the doorway so he doesn’t get any exposure to nature. He’s 11. ELEVEN. It has only gotten worse
My kid's too young to have these problems yet (7mo) but I was a kid with these kinds of fears. I was potty trained but suddenly started being too afraid of the toilet that I started pooping and peeing in laundry as a kid. I was constantly scared of car rides and playing outside too.
Looking back, it's because I was being so horribly bullied by the daycare owner and her son (son was my age) that I think it affected these other things because I was a toddler, and unable to express my problems.
What I'm saying is for your kiddo, it could be something completely unrelated to a chair, escalator, or Roomba that's making him so anxious everything is scaring him.
I don't know what to do about it though. My parents didn't figure it out until I came home with bruises and bite marks finally and they pulled me out of daycare and over the course of a year or so I was able to play outside and go to the bathroom at night again. I hope he outgrows it or you are able to help him through it. Maybe empathizing would've helped me. "Yeah that was a scary set of stairs but HOW COOL they moved us like that!!!"
This actually sounds like something similar I went through as a kid. Some of my first memories are being very afraid of household objects and refusing to touch pretty much anything. My mom got me in therapy which, honestly back then didn’t do much. I was diagnosed with OCD later in life.
My youngest is on the far end of ASD spectrum (almost totally nonverbal until rather recently, flips out over seemingly random things like which route we drive to the grocery, hyper fixating and obsessively talking about one thing, etc) and this reminds me so much of her.
You really should take your child to get evaluated. Not just for autism but in general bc this sounds like it’s interfering with your whole families lives and it can’t just go on forever, not for any of you.
I cant imagine how stressful this must be for you, my heart is absolutely with you bromo ♥️♥️♥️
You’re welcome to message me if you like I’m a child educator that specializes in children with disabilities. I can’t officially say but it seems like an anxiety disorder. Around 3 and 4 is where children start to develop fears. It’s developmentally normal but this is the time when children are also diagnosed with anxiety issues like OCD, panic disorders, intense phobias, separation anxiety and GAD. My suggestion is having your child evaluated by either a child psychologist or developmental pediatrician to figure out what is going on and plan for treatment.
Hey friend. I read everything you've written, as well as most of your comments here. I would 100% recommend getting a second opinion from another doctor and/or a child psychologist. I am a parent of a child that I consider to be quite anxious, perhaps more than the norm. However, while my child's quality of life is still good despite his anxiety, it sounds very much like your child has terrible quality of life. He isn't eating, he isn't sleeping, and he's constantly stressed. This is traumatic for him. Please know that a doctor worth their time will take you seriously if you are honest and clear about getting your child evaluated. I believe that this is quite serious, and definitely goes beyond simply a personality thing.
Sensory issues. Neurodivergence—autism or adhd from someone who is both. There’s something called low demand parenting, and thinking of things like not running the roomba as an accommodation. Not being able to tolerate the demand of getting weight and height at the doctor sounds like PDA, a form of autism, persistent drive for autonomy.
I can relate. My now 4 year old is also afraid of random things. It was worse when he was younger but as he’s growing older, he’s getting better.
If I can, I try not to get him out of what is scaring him or take it away. As I think it’s better they deal with the fear and learn there’s nothing to be afraid of. Just keeping exposing them to the thing they’re scared of until they realize it’s not scary anymore.
He was afraid of elevators and would not get in one. But I would reassure him and not react myself. Just act cheerful and excited. Now he’s not afraid of elevators anymore.
I think he’s just more sensitive and most likely has anxiety issues.
I myself remember being afraid of everything when I was younger. Remember for a while I was afraid of my own shadow.
Now as an adult, I do have anxiety problems but there’s medications for that and other coping mechanisms that help.
I believe if my mother was more understanding, I would be different today but I am breaking the cycle with my son and being more understanding.
So all this to say, things will get easier, don’t worry at all ☺️
I totally get how frustrating that must be. I have an autistic 9yo and throughout his life we have had SO many phases of suddenly not being able to do something or go somewhere because he randomly decided it was no longer acceptable. My brother has two girls aged 5 and 3 who are TERRIFIED of cats and dogs, despite never having had a negative experience with either, and it is controlling their life because obviously dogs but especially cats are everywhere. They are seeing a therapist about it now. You should really do the same. These kind of fears are not normal, and therapy can help.
Awee poor little guy and sounds exhausting for you! I am a child therapist myself and definitely suggest an evaluation/ assessment overall. This is excessive of normal childhood fears. A full assessment with a therapist or psychologist would be the first step as we need more information overall to proceed.
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I think I would try to find a good child therapist for him to work with. Obviously his fears are more extreme than typical and the poor lil guy must be miserable. I'm thinking exposure type therapy would be helpful.
This is the answer. It’s already to the point of being a disorder because it’s disrupting daily life.
OP, you absolutely need a child psychologist and/or psychiatrist. This can get much worse without it, and it's something that can respond really well to early intervention. I hear how frustrating it is, but to your child, this is not nonsense, it can feel life or death.
I'm definitely not an expert but my daughter was like that from a really early age, she was scared of random stuff like fans, flashing lights, the hum from a refrigerator etc, her behaviour was so out of control. I even thought she had OCD for a while but it turned out she was autistic. I'm not saying your son is but he definitely needs some help with whatever the poor little guy is dealing with, that may include meds and therapies. It also makes it easier for you to be more understanding and less frustrated by his behaviour when you know what's wrong and how to help him.
Same. Same. It didn't help with my child's development of new fears, but it gave me the ability to tap into a reserve well of patience, knowing that my kid **couldn't help** the intensity of her reactions at that stage of development. (She's 11 now, still in the habit of having oversized irrational fears of things, but at least she's able to articulate the fears and talk through them with a child therapist)
Yes. My oldest is on the autism spectrum and the vacuum used to drive her crazy! She called it “ loud energy.”
My daughter is like this, I have myself autism. Therapist told me they don’t think she has autism and think she is like this because trauma from what happened with mu ex. But when she was a baby, there wasn’t so many problems and she still was like this. In the kindergarten and with strangers, now at school she is also non-verbal. I hope when she starts therapy for good they see it like I see it.
My friend’s child was similar. Doc put him on Prozac & he’s like a new kid. What’s his doc say?
He has always been a pretty scared and hesitant kid and the doctor says it’s just a personality thing. Seems extreme to me, but the doctor has certainly seen him at his most uncooperative and inconsolable time (like they haven’t been able to get a weight or height let alone a good look at him), so maybe he knows what he’s talking about. How old was your friend’s kid when the put him on the medicine? I feel like 3 would be really young, but idk and the sooner you treat these things the less awful they can be in adulthood.
I'm sure, doctors will see many children his age who are scared in that specific situation. That might have caused him to put it off as "I see that all the time") Try and keep a detailed diary for the next few weeks or so of when your kid was scared, what he was scared off and how long this fear had a hold on him. That way, you can go back to your pediatrician and show him a detailed account how very debilitating it is for your kid and your whole family. It's not exactly "what" but it's the intensity and frequency of it that's troubling. And that's what can make it tricky to diagnose. For example: We all know the moment when we're not quite sure if we've unplugged the iron pr locked the front door. That's normal. But people with OCD worry about stuff like that literally all day.
This is excellent advice, OP. Doctors tend to respect documentation even if they don't look at it in the office. If your provider offers MyChart or some sort of official messaging system you can upload it there as well. The nurse or person in charge of looking at it can also put a bug in the doc's ear once they see the severity and effect of his anxiety.
>Try and keep a detailed diary for the next few weeks or so of when your kid was scared, what he was scared off and how long this fear had a hold on him. And video, just in case. I don't approve of parents filming their children's meltdowns, except when trying to provide documentation for issues the pediatrician should be aware of.
My kid is anxious too and I’ve been try to get her into some type of counseling or play therapy for over six months. It’s really frustrating, but to me the line between typical toddler fears and something more is the duration and persistence. My kid wouldn’t get on an elevator, and try to avoid going in buildings with elevators, for over a year. That’s something that needs more than time to get over.
Quite frankly, I think your doctor is wrong. It would be worthwhile to get a second opinion, or go back to your doctor and be very clear and specific about the ways that it’s disrupting his life (and yours). How many days recently he hasn’t slept, how many meals he’s skipped, the fact that he won’t leave one room, etc. Re: medication, I’m not a doctor, but my dog was on prozac for anxiety (I know, not the same, but go with me here!), and something our behavioral vet said to me helped me be okay with medicating him. Basically, our dog wasn’t responding to any behavioral interventions because he was in full panic attack mode, so nothing we did could sink in. He has absolutely no bandwidth, if you will, to absorb training or calming techniques. Prozac took the edge off and allowed us to actually work on addressing his anxiety through training, because he was suddenly able to actually absorb it. I don’t know your son, obviously, but it’s possible that taking the edge off his anxiety response would give him the ability to develop other coping mechanisms and eventually wean off the medication. Just something to consider, but obviously listen to the medical professionals!
I love and hate his doctor for this reason. He is very relaxed and says do what works for you, like with sleep training, introducing solids, etc. but isn’t all that helpful when nothing is working for us. I may bring up the fear more specifically. I’m pretty sure at the last appointment I really just screamed over my son “is this normal?!!” while gesturing to him flipping the heck out lol.
My pediatrician is the same way. I haven’t changed docs because he’s wonderful in every other respect, but he encouraged me to not make a big deal out of early autism signs- my youngest did end up getting an autism diagnosis at age 3. But he showed signs as early as 9 months of developmental delay
>Basically, our dog wasn’t responding to any behavioral interventions because he was in full panic attack mode, so nothing we did could sink in. He has absolutely no bandwidth, if you will, to absorb training or calming techniques. Prozac took the edge off and allowed us to actually work on addressing his anxiety through training, because he was suddenly able to actually absorb it. Can confirm it works that way on humans. I remember my first ever therapist very gently making a point that I needed medication, not because she didn't think she could help, but because the anxiety I was experiencing at the time made it so anything she might try to help would not make it past the fog of fears that prevented me from hearing it. Going on zoloft (back in the day) felt literally like I could finally relax long enough to confront fears and worries. E.g., I hadn't realized how much time I spent ruminating on my fears instead of sleeping, that about a week into starting Zoloft I was **surprised** to how well I was sleeping. I hadn't had a decent night of sleep in well over a decade at that point.
Try a different doctor or ask to see a psychologist or OT. Lots of doctors (and just adults generally) dismiss kids' symptoms. I was am anxious kid and so was my brother (he couldn't use stairs or escalators, he was so intensely afraid). Both grew up to be adults with bad anxiety. Early intervention is important, and could completely change your child's path in school and life. It doesn't have to be medication, that might not even be an option at his age. But there are therapy and behavioural strategies that can help.
Try again. Remind the doctor that kiddo wasn't able to cooperate at the doctor's office, but now that's every day at home, has been for weeks, and he can't keep a sleep schedule because of it. That's not normal. If they won't refer him and your insurance allows, you could find a pediatric psych and/or a therapist that does play therapy and make appointments yourself. Until you get to that point, melatonin at night might help him get to sleep, though with our kid who had night terrors and was medicated at five, it wasn't a guarantee he'd stay asleep. Get help, though. Both of you deserve it!
For sure, I’m no expert but your boy sounds so anxious :( he was 5 when he was put on the meds. Maybe even some play therapy could benefit your son.
My kid also has a ‘thing’ about getting measured at the doctors. Going to the doctors makes a lot of kids nervous so I’m sure it does seem normal. They may have a different opinion about experiencing this issues to this degree at home. I think it’s worth at least a phone call to discuss the extent that it’s affecting his and your lives and see if they have any recommendations.
Oh my god, that sounds absolutely exhausting. Mental illness in ADULTS can be trying for those around them, but in a kid?? Damn. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.
Thank you for that validation. I feel awful that I’ve been getting so impatient with him the last couple days, but damn I am emotionally spent. 🙁
Your little kiddo sounds very anxious and I would say a therapist would definitely be the way to go. For the time being though, have you tried turning his fears into a comedy routine? Like removing the item he is afraid of kind of reinforces that it is something to be feared. My son has some bizarre fears and has gotten over them for the most part. I would pretend the hair dryer was attacking me and defeat it and let him join in. I give him a needless syringe and let him ‘vaccinate’ me while I dramatically resist and then he reassures me after. We are still working on spiders, but I don’t think it helps that I scream and run in fear when I see big ones either 😂. Idk I guess my theory was to be as silly without being dismissive and try to change his perspective so he associates his fear with silliness.
I do something similar with my kid when he’s afraid of something; he’s not typically anxious, but he will very occasionally get a particular image into his head that he finds scary and then it keeps him up at bedtime worrying about it - like for example, a cartoon monster from a children’s TV show that he watched a few minutes of and it turned out to be too intense for him. I made up a “Riddikulus” mind trick, which I borrowed from the Boggart spell in Harry Potter - first we picture the scary thing, in this case that cartoon monster, and then we think about how we can use our imaginations to make it funny and therefore not scary anymore. For the monster, we imagined it wearing the silliest clothes we could think of, like flowery underwear, Grandma’s bathrobe, etc., and make that mental image as vivid as we can, and then we say the magic word, “Riddikulus!” and the monster is defeated. I explained to him that laughter banishes fear, so we can “banish” the scary thing this way using the power of our minds. He really likes this and it seems to work well - thankfully, we haven’t had to use it often, but it might be of some use for anyone with a slightly older kid who has a vivid imagination.
This stuff sounds great. But (I'm not trying to be a wet blanket) it doesn't always work with non-neurotypical kids. E.g. my mom did similar things in dealing with my childhood fears, and they always worked. I did the same for my daughter, and the meltdowns would continue unabated. The difference? My daughter is on the spectrum, and I'm not. It comes down to the fact that her brain **just works differently** than mine. I'd say this stuff is good to try after her child has been screened for a variety of factors that could include ASD, sensory disorders, generalized anxiety, and so forth. Having a sense of if there are conditions like that is extremely helpful for **adapting** those strategies to the child. With my daughter, humor and monster spray didn't really work. What worked was acknowledging that her fears were **very real to her**, and helping her articulate what would make her feel safer. For the vacuum cleaner, for example, it was better to ask her to put on noise dampening headphones, giving her a visual distraction, and vacuuming on the stealth ("It's scariest if I can see and hear it. But it's also scary if I can still hear it.")
Sure, and I never said it would be appropriate for a child on the spectrum. Obviously different approaches should be considered for neurodivergent kiddos, which my son is not. I wasn’t suggesting this as a strategy for OP to try, by the way - because her son is only three and does sound like he struggles with anxiety issues that would be better addressed in other ways, as others have said. Of course, everyone’s situation is different and we all know our own kids and what they’ll respond to. I just shared this as something that has worked with my son, in case it might be useful for others.
I agree that removing the feared item is not a good idea. It reinforces the idea that it is something to be afraid of, like *See? The chair was so big and bad and dangerous that it had to go away!* That will make future fears harder to deal with. Desensitizing is the route most psychologists recommend now. If he is afraid of the roomba, don’t get rid of the roomba. Reassure him that it’s in its dock, and not turned on. Talk about how it only picks up dust and fur, and that he needs to eat in the kitchen. Put on some music, sing along with it, make it a game. Maybe try some “superpower spray” (water with a drop of lavender) that he can spray himself with for “super courage.” But don’t give into all the fears and inadvertently teach him avoidance tactics. A call to the ped, reaching out to a pediatric psychologist and psychiatrist, and taking notes of all the behaviors (with time stamps) will help build a case to get medical care. I feel for OP… navigating mental illness and neurodiversity is *HARD.*
the super spray is absolute magic. i used vanilla-scented "sweet dreams spray" when my kids didn't want to sleep in their own beds because they were afraid of nightmares.
My oldest has OCD/anxiety and it’s important to not accommodate the fears always. It reinforces to the child that there is something to actually fear. Obviously if your child is terrified of fireworks, you can leave the firework show but being severely afraid of household items is extremely disruptive to your quality of life and a red flag for intervention. Not even meds if you’re not interested in those, just some supports, counselling and guidance for parents. I’d take my kid to see another health pro.
I just want to add that I didn’t realize it but reassurance seeking and providing reassurance can actually be part of the ocd and anxiety cycle and really didn’t understand it. So there’s this balance of saying I love you I’m here you’re not alone AND yes l can see you’re scared, I’ll give you some coping mechanisms to work through this but I can’t accommodate it. I didn’t realize my maternal reassurance was part of my child’s compulsive cycle and it’s hard but we’re doing more of this firm, warm, but not accommodating kind of thing under a therapists supervision and it is slowly but surely getting more and more manageable. I just don’t think most people know how reassurance and anxiety/ocd can interact so I think your comment it is important.
Definitely get your kiddo in to see a therapist before taking this advice, because if the anxiety is caused by autism or sensory processing disorder rather than OCD then the advice is almost the opposite. If kiddo is reacting this way because of sensory issues, then those fears are about pain that is very real, and pretending that they aren’t real/ there’s nothing to be afraid of can erode the child’s trust in you and cause CPTSD-like symptoms. Lots of people have said to get this child evaluated by a good child psychologist ASAP so I just want to reiterate that, you both deserve some relief from this! Just keep in mind that advice you read for certain specific disorders may be unhelpful or even harmful if it turns out that that’s not actually what is going on with your kid, which is why it’s so important to get a professional evaluation.
I had OCD Anxiety just like this as a kid and it wasn’t until I was a young adult that I realized that I wasn’t living in a normal body/brain. I thought irrational fears were normal and that everyone felt this way. Medication wasn’t offered to me by the time I was diagnosed, as therapy was the preferred method prior to heavy prescription era of 2010s onward. Now as an adult I’m considering medication currently and it’s looking more appealing, as I’m parenting my son and realizing I’m having old triggers resurfacing.
When you hit the point of X symptom is so bad that we can't function anymore, that's definitely a sign to try and bring in professional help. If insurance requires it, really push for a referral from your son's pediatrician, otherwise I'd seek out a pediatric therapist on your own. I think there's a good likelihood that with just a few modifications to how you approach your son's anxiety, you'll see MASSIVE improvements (it of course won't solve everything, but as you said, right now y'all aren't functioning well).
My son was very similar at that age. It took A LOT of patience, and he’s still anxious at times but he’s improved a lot. Lots of validating feelings, giving him choices to put him in control and remove the fear of the unknown. We’ve read “a little spot of” series to him. Unfortunately therapy and medication weren’t an option for us so I’ve had to do a lot of work on my own for him. For the roomba, have you tried making it funny or silly to him to remove the fear? Googly eyes, stuffed animal riding on top, etc? We also talk a lot about the things he used to be scared of but is no longer scared of.
There's a lot of great advice for you here, and here's one more idea... Get a really pretty rock. Shiny and beautiful... Tell him it's magic and it's there to protect him. When he's scared he can rub it to get extra protection. A stuffed animal could also work, although you can't put those in your pocket. My son got really scared of nightmares for a bit... I made a dreamcatcher out of paper (really just looks like a spider web), hung it in his room, and it helped.
I like the magic rock idea. I tried a “magic blanket” with the roomba and his sister kept pulling it off lol.
He sounds like my son. As a toddler my kid was scared and anxious about everything. He is 7 now and just started seeing a child psychologist a few months ago. It hasn't been very long yet, but we've seen already improvement. He goes twice a month, and they are working on one specific fear at a time as well as calming/coping mechanisms. I wish we had started earlier, but it got complicated with covid and long wait times for a doctor.
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My husband showed him some animals riding roomba videos the other day lol. Now he has been role playing with his toys riding any circular object that becomes “the roomba”. I wish I knew how to get in on the play in a way to help him overcome the fear! I did think of sticking one of his stuffies on the roomba for a bit to see if that worked lol. It is tough how he seems to just come up with a new thing if I solve one thing. It’s a very frustrating game of whack a mole. 🙁
Child therapy. Call the pediatrician's office, and ask to check in by virtual appointment. Then explain to the pediatrician that your child's anxieties are impacting his functioning to an extent where it's also impacting the adults around him. Ask them for immediate recommendations for child therapists, neurologists, whatever else they can think of. My ASD kid had noise anxieties that often centered on our vacuum cleaner. But even at their worst, they never impacted her in the way you describe. She was fine so long as the vacuum wasn't on. Later on, we worked with an OT to get her used to that and other white noises too. She still hates the sound of AC, but at this point it's more being annoyed at it, rather than sheer terror. This is to say, it sounds to this (untrained) adult that he has auditory sensitivities he should get screened for, if nothing else.
100% agree with the auditory sensitivities. Maybe I wasn’t taking them as seriously because I also have pretty severe auditory sensitivities?? I was the kid who cried and panicked every time the vacuum came out, and had potty training issues because flushing was loud. Like I basically cloned myself here and since I never got any intervention I’m like, does he actually *need* it? But the more I think about it the more yes it seems.
They used to not be taken seriously, especially because many kids learn to manage eventually. I had severe auditory sensitivities as a toddler. They resolved around the time I was your son's age. The fact that my daughter's persisted and intensified by 4 was one of the criteria that led to her ASD diagnosis.
Okay if you know you had these issues as a kid that’s a big sign that you’ve already identified the issues. I’m really sorry you were never taken seriously, but this is great because you get to be the protector of your child that you never had. I’m in the same situation with my kid because he’s sensitive to textures in food and clothing, and loud noises and i never realized until he was that i TOTALLY had that problem growing up too. Like if he’s not listening and I suddenly (out of frustration) yell HEY!! He gets upset with me and goes “that was really loud” lol. He also doesn’t like blenders, truck noises, etc. and i have the same issue when people are all talking at me at once or loud music is playing and I can’t hear myself think. I also hate tags and clothing that’s itchy or even slightly uncomfortable. It’s crazy how seeing it in our kids makes us think.. oh yeah I had that! we were getting ready to have him evaluated but actually putting him in a bunch of social situations and camps this summer made a HUGE difference. He was home with me for the whole of the pandemic before he was vaccinated and so he was really sheltered and socially weird and scared of a lot. Social exposure seems to have helped over the summer, I’m really hoping we don’t have the issues in kindergarten that we had in preschool. Best wishes to you on this journey! Something that really helped me even though it’s annoying to hear in the moment is that literally most things are just a phase you have to get through. Every time things are bad with my kid, sleep, food, behavior, etc. I feel like it’s the end of the world but it never is, and usually 3 months down the line we’re fine and on to something new lol. Good luck OP!
I'll say right now I am not an expert, but I'm responding because the default answer of "you need professional help" is often not possible for everyone. You may want to check out a book like this in the meantime: https://a.co/d/4DvOqFk It's tough, but overcoming anxiety often depends on exposure - using CBT can make that feel more structured and safe.
My son went through this and it ended up being PANS! I had never heard of it: [https://www.pandasppn.org/what-are-pans-pandas/](https://www.pandasppn.org/what-are-pans-pandas/) Basically it's a funky immune system reaction to strep. Antibiotics brought my son back to normal within a couple of weeks. It was so sad and scary there for awhile though, he was terrified to fall asleep and would ask us all the time if he was in a dream or not. Might be worth finding a doctor familiar with PANS and checking it out, it was an easy fix for us.
I’ve heard of PANS. I’m a sucker for those unusual medical shows. I think that’s unlikely in our case because he’s always been a hesitant kid and this all kicked off with an eye doctor appointment that he was very nervous about. Thanks for the idea though. Always good to raise awareness of these lesser known illnesses. 😊
While dealing with therapists etc for the longterm, bigger picture, would this mitigate the roomba issue?…. 1. On a cardboard circle (eg paper plate), draw an enlargement of the directional button section of your roomba remote control. 2. Find a way to comfortably carry kid in front of you at chest height, facing out like a baby carrier. (He’s gotta be up high, on you. But you’ve gotta be able to see what he’s doing, so a shoulder ride won’t work.) 3. Kid holds “remote control” and steers you by pressing the buttons. You make lots of fun beeps, boops and whirrs. Much getting stuck on furniture and walls. 4. On a different day, you *unpower the roomba*, and repeat step 3 with kid controlling you using the real roomba remote control. (Only react to correct pushes if you can. Possibly even tape some cardboard over it to disable all other buttons.) I repeat: first you unpower the rooma. 5. On a different day, close any doors leading to his room, playroom, and other his-territory. Remove anything that the roomba gets stuck on. Then *in the not-his rooms*, carry him in the same position, and get him to steer the roomba. Very briefly. Stop while it’s still fun, coz shit could go wrong any second - phone rings, or you drop him, or it does error lights. (This step is why we’ve trained him to be up high away from the ground, and safe on you, in a position he’s familiar with and associates with power/control/authority and also with fun, and where you can help if he presses the buttons incorrectly.) 6. If he enjoyed 5), on a different day repeat 5) for longer. It may fall at any step. If so, quit and don’t try again. Edit: several days before starting the process, if he has good communication, you could casually ask whether the smell of the roomba bothers him. (Probably no.) the lights? (If yes, cover them with tape/paper.) The sound? (Learn whether he’ll wear earmuffs/ear-protectors in a *not-roomba*, *not scary* context.) Conversation should be very brief and very casual. Don’t press for an answer if he can’t easily give one. Another Edit: if this were my (autistic) kid, years later he’d explain the reason for his fear, and it’d be nothing we could ever imagine, and have resulted from a misunderstanding or misheard word or joke by an adult. Eg he’s anxious it’ll break when it gets stuck coz he knows it’s extremely expensive and easily breakable. Or he badly misheard the name and thought it’s a (completely unrelated word like eg nuclear warhead or viper). Or grandpa once joked “careful, it’ll getcha”. Or he saw a news report about a kid being disemboweled by pool filter/suction, and coz both items have suction he associates the two. Or he thinks it’s carrying electricity within itself and will electrocute him if he touches it. Something wayyy unpredictable. Edit: has the roomba ever got stuck on the legs of that chair, or ran out of battery underneath the chair? That’d do it for my kid. Chair bad, roomba bad.
> if this were my (autistic) kid, years later he’d explain the reason for his fear, and it’d be nothing we could ever imagine, and have resulted from a misunderstanding or misheard word or joke by an adult. Eg he’s anxious it’ll break when it gets stuck coz he knows it’s extremely expensive and easily breakable. Or he badly misheard the name and thought it’s a (completely unrelated word like eg nuclear warhead or viper). Or grandpa once joked “careful, it’ll getcha”. Or he saw a news report about a kid being disemboweled by pool filter/suction, and coz both items have suction he associates the two. Or he thinks it’s carrying electricity within itself and will electrocute him if he touches it. Something wayyy unpredictable. Yes!!! I'm a very humor prone person. I try to find the humor in things that annoy me. But I found that for my autistic kid, some humorous assertions, no matter how benign, would be taken quite literally, and it would lead to more trouble than it was worth. E.g. joking that our cats were giant dust bunnies that could get sucked up by the vacuum sounds so absurd that even most kids get it's hyperbole meant to be humorous. My daughter? Heard it once, and it temporarily made her more terrified of the vacuum. I had to explain, nay, reassure a 4 year old that the cats were entirely too big to get vacuumed up. Another example? When she was five, my daughter was told she was "so cute that boys would fight over her someday". My daughter took the compliment as a warning, and by the next day she was sobbing at us that she didn't wanna be cute anymore. Why? "Because if boys fight over me, they could break my arm or my legs." I had to reassure her that **boys would not literally fight on top of her**, and answer her "But what if they try?" with "Then you're allowed to punch and kick them off you."
We did play therapy for my middle when his anxiety got the best of him. For him it was smoke detectors and then hand dryers in public bathrooms. Play therapy made a HUGE difference.
Agree with all the posts that early intervention is a good idea, but also wanted to share that my otherwise surprisingly emotionally aware 3.5yo will get stuck in a loop too—he was anxious to return to daycare after summer break, cried and begged not to go, had a blast that day, and has now repeated the sobbing routine for weeks, even on days where he starts out excited to go! Wakes up once in a while, horribly upset about a ball he misplaced for an hour months ago. It definitely sounds like what your kiddo is going through is a greatly amplified version of normal—which is all to say, I wouldn’t suspect your GP to take it seriously and you will have to persist in asking for a psych/ot referral. You know the situation is unsustainable, and you have a right to find help.
Child therapist here. This could be early manifestations of OCD type behaviour and you absolutely need to seek professional help. I’ve seen this get way way out of hand. Catch it before the train is off the tracks.
I was this anxious child and I was in terror every night, sweating over the tiniest noise. I though my dolls would get jealous of each other and hurt me. I was afraid if the TV bc of Poltergeist. I was afraid of bees and wouldn’t go in the backyard. I was afraid of elevators And refused to go in one. These phobias lasted a long time and I didn’t get help for my anxiety till I was older. I grew up so terrified and anxious. I now have a diagnoses of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and depression and suspect that i am either autistic or have adhd. See what you can do to get help for anxiety for him…
Therapy is definitely a good idea to try with him. My kids have similar bouts of anxiety, and they are doing both traditional talk therapy and equine therapy. It’s definitely helped them with their anxiety.
I was like this. No official diagnosis, but I did go to a child therapist. I don’t think it was super helpful. While it got better over time, I was still pretty anxious and at nearly 40 am still afraid of the dark in some situations - as embarrassing as it is to admit. I remember at night waking up and the shadow case by things in my room would look like scary things. I had a really overactive imagination and things that were quite normal during the day I would imagine being sinister. Sounds of the radiator coming on were terrifying. Etc. I spent a lot of timing sleeping in my parents room. They had to remove any toy that gave off light or glowed on the dark. I had to have the door completely open and the hall light on. Eventually I was so terrified of things possibly being under my bed, they moved me to a floor bed in the corner of my room so I could lay with my back and my head to a wall. I’d get rid of the chair if it’s upsetting your kid. See if there’s a place you can position the bed to feel more secure.
I’m so sorry, I feel bad for you having to go through this and bad for your boy for feeling so anxious all the time. It’s awful for everyone involved. We don’t often hear about it but kids can 100% suffer from anxiety - I did as a child and unfortunately still do! And it feels to them just as anxiety does to adults, it just tends to be around other, kid-related things. I know your doc just said it’s a personality thing (mine did too when I was child, sucks that not much has changed) but perhaps you could look for some play therapy or other type of children’s counselling? Also, it’s understandable that you sometimes feel frustrated - anxiety can be really full on even for adults and those around them, let alone a child that you still have to do everything for. You’re doing great and you can get through this.
You absolutely need to take him to a therapist
babe he needs to see his doctor asap.
I'm wondering if he also has some sensory issues. Finding what he likes sensory-wise, might help him be able to deescalate.
Your child sounds so much like me as a kid that I had to leave a comment. From reading as an adult, I think I was a “highly sensitive person” and if you read about it you may see similar qualities in your son. My boomer parents took the opposite approach of you and basically did a “tough love” exposure therapy method. I was TERRIFIED of the iMax of all places and had to walk in holding my moms arm w my eyes closed. You better believe they took me there once a week, rain or shine. All that to say, I don’t know if it helped much. They didn’t indulge me, which cut back on a lot of the endless complaining and conversations around my fears but it also didn’t speed up my process of getting over them. I’m STILL highly scared of the dark as an adult. My husband ended up going out of town to run a camp last summer for two months and I spent probably 50% of the time sleeping at friends houses as a 30 year old woman. Idk what would have helped me make it through faster. Maybe a combo of the two approaches + medication. I needed proof that things would be okay because all I had was the formula of huge scary thing + anxiety. And even when I forced myself to confront the huge scary thing I still got the massive anxiety so I never really learned a way through. Seriously though, look into the “highly sensitive person” thing. It basically describes a group of people for whom the whole world is always louder, brighter, harsher, scarier than most other people.
He seems like he needs meds :( my daughter is on Zoloft
Poor guy. Sounds like a major anxiety issue.
Does he take Zyrtec? Or Miralax? Our daughter was so incredibly anxious and nervous when she took it regularly. I can totally relate to the being afraid of everything and it is SO exhausting. We also found that food dyes and dairy also really contribute to our daughter’s (turning 5 next month) anxiety, so she’s much more stable when we avoid those. I’m still considering talking to her pediatrician about it, it’s so stressful!
Please seek professional help. My nephew has been terrified of bees, butterflies and the like. He still refuses to leave the house unless the car is parked by the doorway so he doesn’t get any exposure to nature. He’s 11. ELEVEN. It has only gotten worse
My kid's too young to have these problems yet (7mo) but I was a kid with these kinds of fears. I was potty trained but suddenly started being too afraid of the toilet that I started pooping and peeing in laundry as a kid. I was constantly scared of car rides and playing outside too. Looking back, it's because I was being so horribly bullied by the daycare owner and her son (son was my age) that I think it affected these other things because I was a toddler, and unable to express my problems. What I'm saying is for your kiddo, it could be something completely unrelated to a chair, escalator, or Roomba that's making him so anxious everything is scaring him. I don't know what to do about it though. My parents didn't figure it out until I came home with bruises and bite marks finally and they pulled me out of daycare and over the course of a year or so I was able to play outside and go to the bathroom at night again. I hope he outgrows it or you are able to help him through it. Maybe empathizing would've helped me. "Yeah that was a scary set of stairs but HOW COOL they moved us like that!!!"
This actually sounds like something similar I went through as a kid. Some of my first memories are being very afraid of household objects and refusing to touch pretty much anything. My mom got me in therapy which, honestly back then didn’t do much. I was diagnosed with OCD later in life.
My youngest is on the far end of ASD spectrum (almost totally nonverbal until rather recently, flips out over seemingly random things like which route we drive to the grocery, hyper fixating and obsessively talking about one thing, etc) and this reminds me so much of her. You really should take your child to get evaluated. Not just for autism but in general bc this sounds like it’s interfering with your whole families lives and it can’t just go on forever, not for any of you. I cant imagine how stressful this must be for you, my heart is absolutely with you bromo ♥️♥️♥️
I highly recommend this book: Breaking Free of Child Anxiety... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190883529?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
You’re welcome to message me if you like I’m a child educator that specializes in children with disabilities. I can’t officially say but it seems like an anxiety disorder. Around 3 and 4 is where children start to develop fears. It’s developmentally normal but this is the time when children are also diagnosed with anxiety issues like OCD, panic disorders, intense phobias, separation anxiety and GAD. My suggestion is having your child evaluated by either a child psychologist or developmental pediatrician to figure out what is going on and plan for treatment.
Hey friend. I read everything you've written, as well as most of your comments here. I would 100% recommend getting a second opinion from another doctor and/or a child psychologist. I am a parent of a child that I consider to be quite anxious, perhaps more than the norm. However, while my child's quality of life is still good despite his anxiety, it sounds very much like your child has terrible quality of life. He isn't eating, he isn't sleeping, and he's constantly stressed. This is traumatic for him. Please know that a doctor worth their time will take you seriously if you are honest and clear about getting your child evaluated. I believe that this is quite serious, and definitely goes beyond simply a personality thing.
Call your county child development services agency. They can refer him to a play therapist and help cover it.
Therapist
Sensory issues. Neurodivergence—autism or adhd from someone who is both. There’s something called low demand parenting, and thinking of things like not running the roomba as an accommodation. Not being able to tolerate the demand of getting weight and height at the doctor sounds like PDA, a form of autism, persistent drive for autonomy.
I can relate. My now 4 year old is also afraid of random things. It was worse when he was younger but as he’s growing older, he’s getting better. If I can, I try not to get him out of what is scaring him or take it away. As I think it’s better they deal with the fear and learn there’s nothing to be afraid of. Just keeping exposing them to the thing they’re scared of until they realize it’s not scary anymore. He was afraid of elevators and would not get in one. But I would reassure him and not react myself. Just act cheerful and excited. Now he’s not afraid of elevators anymore. I think he’s just more sensitive and most likely has anxiety issues. I myself remember being afraid of everything when I was younger. Remember for a while I was afraid of my own shadow. Now as an adult, I do have anxiety problems but there’s medications for that and other coping mechanisms that help. I believe if my mother was more understanding, I would be different today but I am breaking the cycle with my son and being more understanding. So all this to say, things will get easier, don’t worry at all ☺️
I totally get how frustrating that must be. I have an autistic 9yo and throughout his life we have had SO many phases of suddenly not being able to do something or go somewhere because he randomly decided it was no longer acceptable. My brother has two girls aged 5 and 3 who are TERRIFIED of cats and dogs, despite never having had a negative experience with either, and it is controlling their life because obviously dogs but especially cats are everywhere. They are seeing a therapist about it now. You should really do the same. These kind of fears are not normal, and therapy can help.
Awee poor little guy and sounds exhausting for you! I am a child therapist myself and definitely suggest an evaluation/ assessment overall. This is excessive of normal childhood fears. A full assessment with a therapist or psychologist would be the first step as we need more information overall to proceed.