Hello Everyone,
Thought I would turn to the SD boards again for a bit of advice. My 8 year old step-son is a good kid, however he has one trait that I am trying to get under control and thought I would get some opinions and thoughts.
Everytime he has an injury, no matter how slight he goes straight into panic mode. If he slightly cuts his finger or is playing with his brother and trips and falls etc… I swear it sounds as if his leg has been cut off or something. I have tried (very calmly) to explain to him the importance of staying calm and level headed when something happens. I have stressed that one day his life may depend on him keeping his head about him, but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
He is a very adventerous kid, so it isn’t like he is scared of the world or anything. I am frustrated at this point and unsure how to get through to him. I have used the fable about the “boy who cried wolf” in hopes that he will get the message. It is impossible to ever tell if he is in real trouble or not. Any suggestions or am I being a complete moron?
You’re assuming he’s doing this to get attention, but I’m not getting that vibe from the OP. He’s 8, not 2. It sounds as though he’s genuinely upset that something very bad is happening, and he’s panicky that he doesn’t know what to do.
Maybe you could try asking him to count to 10 after he hurts himself, but I really am not sure in this situation. This being the dope, you can count on 20 or 30 posts from non-parents telling you exactly what to do, so no worries.
Make sure he’s getting plenty of hugs at other times of day. Make it a habit to give each child one each morning and night at a minimum if you don’t already, and encourage the same in your spouse.
Take him to a kid’s first aid class, and make sure there’s a First-aid kit where he can find it easily. If he knows what to do next, and has the equipment available, he may be able to re-focus his energy. You’ll soend a fortune in bandages the first month, but that exploration will serve him well in future.
Some people just have a really active adrenal gland. Talk to him about the effects of adrenaline, what it’s meant for, and how it is sometimes a bit much in the context of modern life. (We don’t need to out-run a lion after all.) Give him pointers like drinking some juice, taking deep breaths and doing some exercise to work off the adrenaline. Acknolwedge that he may then feel drained for 30 minutes or so afterward.
Learn about anxiety and panic disorders and start now teaching him self-calming behaviors. I fhe stubs his toe at the office when he’s 30, you don’t want him enterin g afull-blown panic attack unprepared.
He is very lucky to have someone who notices and is looking for ways to help him. Bravo!
I have thought about this many many times. However post injury discussions lead me to believe that he realizes that the injury he is screaming about isn’t serious. I realize that it hurts, but trying to get across to him that his reactions need to be in porportion to the event. I have thought maybe he is trying for attention for attention’s sake, but I don’t think that this is it. Which leads me back to just being confused.
BTW, in general I am not the “walk it off” after you just broke your arm type. Nor am I the dad that calls his son a sissy if caught crying or anything. (Although that was pretty much the way I was raised. If I am hurt my course of action is to mutter a few obsenities under my breath and make as little out of it as possible.)
There’s a really good chance that he actually doesn’t realize that it’s not serious in the moments immediately after the accident. He may say that after the fact and when he’s calmed down, though.
Not a bad thought, however even after he has been assured by both myself and Mom he is still in panic mode. Maybe I am making too much of this, but it does seem to me to be very unusual. I realize that he is only 8, but habits he aquires now will follow him into adulthood. Not to mention that I want him to be in control of his emotions in a real emergency.
I’m a parent and I like this advice. Whenever one is trying to reel in their reactionary emotions (whether anger or panic), I’ve always heard that counting is a very effective method. I recommended this to my son when dealing with anger. I think it works just as effectively for panic as well. I think counting would be similar to remembering the ABC mnemonic for administering CPR. It forces you to slow down and react effectively rather than emotionally.
That’s what I do with my 9 year-old. “Come to me when you have real problems, like a broken bone or something.”
Over time, my studied indifference has taught her, well, not to not act this way, but to not act this way around me. When her mom and I are both together, it’s pretty funny watching her try to pick her way around the minefield… “How can I get mom’s sympathy without raising dad’s sarcasm-meter?”
This really sounds like he’s getting a mega-dose of adrenaline. If so, it will matter very little what his brains “knows” about the situation, his body will still be shaky and ready to scream/run/fight. Try suggesting that he drink some OJ and then do jumping jacks until he feels calm.
He is still panicking while you are talking to him?
I think I would focus on calming him down before I looked at the injury, unless it’s obviously major. In scuba diving, if you have a problem, the steps are Stop, Breathe, Think, Act. A few deep breaths, and a moment’s thought, are really helpful for choosing the correct action. Don’t rush to fix it; assess the situation first. Get him involved in doing that.
People panic less when they know what to do, so I like the idea of a kid’s first aid course as well. It will give him some tools for addressing the situation.
There is a breathing technique that can help. I have personally used it myself to overcome stage fright before singing solo, and before sparring and running through combattives training scenarios. It is taught in martial arts courses, to police officers to combat adrenaline dump during pursuits, and to paratroopers before jumps. More relevantly, I have successfully used it with kids who were injurred and freaking out, both as a parent volunteer, and as a summer camp instructor. One case was an actual broken leg, another was a kid who had stepped on a roofing nail that had penetrated the sole of the foot through the shoe.
Here’s how it works:
When you start out with a kid who is hurt and freaking out, they may not be able to attend to your verbal instructions. Gently place your forehead touching theirs, and gently hold their cheeks so they can’t turn away. Calmly say “Just breathe with me - just breathe with me” and perform the correct rythm. When you exhale, breathe out so you blow on their face. When you inhale, do so audibly.
When they calm down a little bit, say something encouraging, like "Your doing great - keep breathing with me - this will make the ow go away" Then start verbalizing the instructions above, as you do the breathing. Don’t expect perfect compliance at first, as there will still be lots of sobbing, and sniffling.
Another benefit of this, esp. for more badly hurt kids who may see a lot of activity around them, is that it gives them a “job” to focus on, and lets them feel they’re an active participant in their own care. It gives them something to focus on, instead of on the maybe scary stuff going on around them.
There are sound physiological grounds for this technique, my wife is a physician and I’m an engineer. We’re not into new age meditation “wooo”. We have taught it to our son as a “secret” technique to fight fear, reduce pain, calm down, or modulate his own arousal level when he has trouble sitting still.
The one caveat I would offer is that you should not use this where there is large blood loss, as the decrease in adrenaline may lead to shock and catastrophic drop in blood pressure. But from your OP, I gather these are for rather minor “owies”
My middle sister was like this to an extreme. It was so sad! She grew out of it at age 12 or 13 (though she is still definitely less level-headed than my other sister and I in crisis situations).
You need to find a way to break through the panic and help him learn to calm himself down. Honor the fact that he’s genuinely freaking out and can’t control it. 8 is still a young kid and I wouldn’t say this is so unusual. Getting older and wanting to be ‘cool’ and tough will help him figure it out too. Some people just have more anxiety, and different things can trigger it…
I have a 9 year old that is just now getting past this. To be honest, though, with her I am pretty sure that it was all about the attention. The way that I handled it once it started becoming rather over the top was through sarcasm. I would first run up to her and say something like “Oh my God! Should I call an ambulance? No, well do we need to rush to the Emergency Room? Oh, so if you are not injured what is the problem?” That sort of thing. Sometimes I would then tell her the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Understand that this was after trying the hugs thing and other methods of giving her what I think she really needed (attention) vs. reacting to BS “Emergencies”.
Another thing that I have done is to teach her to come up to me and just say “I need attention”. I have also explained on more than one occasion that my most important job in the world is to keep her safe and that it is vital that we not blunt my reactions and readiness.
I really like the kids first aid class idea. Teach him to take control of the situation and that should help the panic go away. If it doesn’t then it may not be a pain issue or a control issue and it might be attention seeking or OCD or some other issue that needs to be addressed but first I would try the first aid class and even buy him his very own first aid kid to see if it helps.
Our seven year old used to overreact to every little bump and scrape. We started ignoring him and his reactions are normal now. It is definitely about getting attention. Kids love to get attention from their parents, even if it’s negative attention, which is why yelling at them never makes them stop the bad thing they are doing. Ignoring behavior you don’t like is the quickest way to fix it.
There are a lot of good suggestions here and you should try them. However in my (avuncular) experience, many of these issues will disappear in their own time. Kids grow up at vastly different rates. Just keep talking to him. One day he will be ready to hear you.
The worst thing you can do is to get so exasperated that lines of communication get shut down (you don’t sound like you are headed in that direction).
There is a reason that “suck it up” is such a common answer. Because it DOES teach kids to suck it up. If they are expected to self comfort, they will learn to do it.
My daughter was a drama queen as well. We stopped giving her any more attention than was necessary. Everything was very business like “oh, you need a bandaid. Here, lets put some Polysporin on it and get this bandaid on. There you go! Now go have fun.” The combination of not making a big deal and her own growth fixed the problem.
Kids will take their lead from you - if you treat the anxiety as a big deal, they won’t separate the anxiety from the minor injury.
So how do his other parents react? I think this is pretty key.
My step-daughter was an over-reacter. I was actually concerned about the ‘cries wolf’ issue. Her true reaction to real damage was to become very quiet - I was always afraid that she’d get hurt somewhere with people used to her usual histrionics and they wouldn’t realize that she was actually in trouble.
OTOH, I could quite clearly pinpoint the cause. Her mother rushed to her and made a fuss over her any time she had the slightest ouch. Watch toddlers some time - when they “fall down and go boom”, they’ll look around to see how they should react. If the adult response is cheerful, they pick themselves up and go on. If the adult response is concern, they’ll start crying. After a bit, they don’t bother to look around - they know the appropriate response.
So the solution had to include not only changing the child’s behavior, but also the behavior of the adults who had originally created this problem.
Hers was more typical “look at me, I’m hurt” than yours sounds like, and she eventually outgrew it. But I think the main point holds - it doesn’t matter what you do to resolve the behaviour issue if you’re being undermined by the other parents.
