Anxiety Attacks from Storms
My seven-year-old has anxiety attacks when it is lightning and thunderstorms...
Anxiety Question:
My seven-year-old has anxiety attacks when it is lightning and thunderstorms; what is the best way to handle it?
Anxiety Answer:
Storms are scary things for kids. Sometimes the news shows horrible storm damage that can really traumatize a kid and lead to anxiety attacks.
What did the trick for my son, (this may sound counter productive but trust me) was to watch "storm stories" on the weather channel and other shows of the like. Yes, it showed the bad stuff but (now here’s the part that helped) it also showed everyone being rescued.
We would always have conversations during and after the show.
I would tell my son that this really is not very likely to happen but if it does, see how fast everyone came to help. We can buy new stuff. That’s no big deal.
I also got books about storms. How they happen and what to do when one does. Sometimes we would pretend that there is a big storm outside and turn out the lights and do what we do if a real one was out there.
It really didn’t take very long to get him over his anxiety. Now he thinks they are interesting but does have a more healthy respect for them. When a storm comes now he checks for flashlights, water and stuff like that and waits for me to tell him if we need to go into the bathroom to be safe.
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