Dear All

Hope things are improving for everyone.

Just wondered if anyone's son or daughter had tried exposure therapy to help them?

My daughter has started seeing a counsellor (even though 2 sessions have been through the bathroom door!) and she has suggested that she rates experiences she would like to achieve (and their difficulty to do them) on a scale of 1 to 10. So for example she has said that going to School is a 10 (no surprise there).

We have identified that she is fine as long as she doesn't go anywhere where she may see anyone she knows. We have suggested moving etc but she doesn't want to.

So, we now have the exposure list - for example e-mailing a friend may be a 3 on the list and going to a sleepover may be 9. (1 is easy, 10 is impossible). You do not move up the ladder until you are anxiety-free on the previous step. This apparently re-trains your brain to stop the 'fear' factor.

However, she is still too worried to even start on the list.

It does however demonstrate the areas which she is most worried about (so quite a useful task in itself) but how on earth do we get her to even think about undertaking a task, when she rates seeing the Counsellor at 8!

Anyway, thought I would share this, as it may help others, but I would be interested in knowing if anyone had tried going down this road?

Any help would be appreciated. Trying our best to just hang on until the Summer holidays.

Thank you.
Sharry

Hi Sharry - good to hear that your daughter is engaging with the counsellor even if it is from behind a door. We haven't been exposed to this type of therapy but from our experience the rating system could be confusing - for example while my daughter was at the counsellor or not overwhelmed with anxiety, she might say going to school was a 6 or 7 but the next morning when trying to get her out of bed to go to school it would become a 15! Then once she was actually at school and interacting with friends she would say it was a 3. Her anxiety fluctuates and changes so something is terrifying one day, and not at all the next. But it sounds as though your daughter's anxiety level stays pretty much the same so this might be good for her. If there is one thing I have learnt on our journey, everything is worth trying. One thing a psychologist said to me that has stuck is that it is important not to set our children up to fail or basically each step needs to be achievable for them no matter how tiny or they will become discouraged and not want to try again. This was after a time when I had told my daughter if she went to school every day that week, she would get something she really wanted. She only made 2 days and was then devastated. I learned from that mistake. We are in the second and final week of mid winter vacation in Australia so I can relate to you looking forward to the holidays xx

Hi Sharry

I haven't been checking on here just lately as we have just had two weeks holiday (went back last week) and things were a bit wobbly.
I have heard of this kind of therapy - I think it was explained to us as the 'ladder'. This follows the theory that with 'fear' if you face your fears in small steps then you will slowly move forward and through the fears until you face the really big one and can work that down as well. And also the idea that if you are exposed to that which you fear - eventually it will not appear so fearful. The idea of keep getting a child to face school follows that theory. But I am not convinced that with children or teenagers this is successful. I know from my own experience it can fail due to the inconsistency of the anxiety itself -as Sandy has explained.

But anything is worth a try. I never did follow the psychologist through who suggested this ladder approach - but I did in some ways work these things into my son's life when he went through a stage of not being able to leave the house. Without pressure- we did some things for short periods of time - a drive locally - a drive further away - staying in the car whilst i went into the shop and so forth. But we must not set up things for failure - as Sandy also touched on.
The steps are really quite small.

Talking of setting things up for failure - My ex has unfortunately set up a huge potential failure by saying to my son that if he goes to school and doesn't miss any days - he will get to go to the US with them next year (they have been planning to visit relatives). As my son said to me 'well - there goes that trip!'. When I asked my ex why he had set up such a goal that cannot be reached due to the nature of anxiety/depression - he was determined it could be reached. I asked what 'he' would do if it was not reached and all he said was ' that's not the point'. I think this is an indication of not accepting that this is a serious disorder. seeing it as a behaviour issue and holding up rather large carrots at the end can have the opposite effect and can make both the person who set this up and the person who cannot reach the goal have a great sense of failure.

Anyway Sharry - see how you go - but either way - if it works -that is great - if it doesn't - that is ok too - and as long as your daughter knows that. It's tough...and you are doing it hard at the moment with your daughter having so much anxiety about seeing the psychologist. My son goes through stages with this - sometimes ok - at others refusing to see anyone.
Take care
Linda

Hi all,

Linda I think it's human to nature to assume that if we dangle a 'carrot' in front of someone they'll reach out to grab it. So many people really don't see the anxiety behind the anxiety that SR kids suffer.

I agree that it can look like a behaviourial issue and if someone offers them something really attractive, then the issue will cease to be.
Oh if it were only that simple. know at the beginning when my daughter's SR started, I would have promised her the moon to get it to stop, and I feel that any parent on here would do the same.

But as time goes by, you realise that the solution will never be that simple. Some people don't or won't see that.

I'm sorry your son's Dad offered him a trip to USA like that. So disappointing for your son.
Take care.