…but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving in your heart, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:6-7

I’ve repeated those verses to myself over and over again, focusing on each section.  Prayer and petition.  Thanksgiving.  Present your requests.  God’s peace.  Over and over again.  I love, love this scripture.  It’s a little more difficult to help your eight-year-old grasp the concept.

Grace has been in therapy for a couple months now for her extreme emotions and her inability to function within them.  Chad and I have done all we can think of to help her, but we were out of ideas and decided it was time to bring in a professional.  Last night we got a treatment plan with the label “anxiety disorder” with this definition: excessive anxiety, worry, or fear that markedly exceeds the normal level for the client’s stage of development.  I’d say that sums it up quite well.  For instance, tonight at bedtime she was sobbing to the point of splotches on her face because school is hard and life is hard and never gets a break and she wants to quit school and she just can’t take it anymore.  We probably hear this one at least twice a week I would say.  I wrote a post recently using the analogy of a meter, and I would say Grace has a special meter – it only has green and red.  There is no warning of when it’s getting bad, it just all blows up.  She’s great…then sobbing.  She has this inner-monologue that would drive anyone to tears.  She thinks about something, all of the what if’s and possible scenarios, then she’s in the red.

I’m writing this post, not to tell you how hard I have it as her mom (though sometimes I feel that way), but for that parent who might be reading this who maybe has a child like Grace and needs some tools.

• We bought her a white board to write her worries on.  She can do this on her own time as she thinks about them, then when we tuck her in we can go over the list with her and talk through them and possibly erase some of them.  It’s a great visual for her, and better yet – it was her idea!
• She also has issues with unmet expectations, which comes across as extremely ungrateful.  She is using part of this white board to write down a couple things she is thankful for every day, to give her some perspective and as a good reminder.
• For those “glass half empty” times when she needs to whine about school, life, homework, acid reflux (a lovely side effect of worry and anxiety) – our therapist advised that we just validate and move on.  “Yes, I know, school is hard.”  Done.  Continue with what you were doing before.  I can fake some empathy here and there if I have to.  How many years have I been faking excitement over, “Who wants to take a bath?!?”
• When she’s just starting to cry, we’ve learned to ask her what she’s thinking about because really there has been a long thought process that got her to this point.
• And perhaps most importantly, we tell her over and over again that it’s ok to cry, that we love her, that God made her like this, and that she doesn’t have to figure out her problems by herself.

I have SO much more to learn with her, as I’ve said before she is the child who is stretching me the most, but she is also the child who is teaching me the most.