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I could use some ideas on how others deal with anxious kids who are very negative.

SS19 has special needs (development delays). The last few years he has been 50/50 between his UBPD mom and DH/me. Last September he moved about 2 hours away to a small city to attend college where he is in a program that helps special needs kids move into the workforce. It is a terrific program and he has done very well to move and settle in. He lives with a few other kids in the same program, has an adult who helps them out but the kids have to do the cooking, etc. so he is gaining much wished-for independence.

SS19 had a month off from school over Christmas so spent the first two weeks with his mom, who has temporarily moved to live near her parents. SS19 told us he did almost nothing for the two weeks. He called DH daily saying he was bored.

From the day SS19 arrived at our house, he was extremely negative. He suffers from anxiety and one of the ways he deals with it is to bring up issues he is nervous about and look for reaction. And he also tests out things his mom and grandparents talked about and waits for our reaction.

Working with SS19's T in the past, we have learned that we need to let SS19 talk out his fears. We often prompt him with questions -- what do you think, how did that make you feel, what's the worst that can happen -- so he can work things out. His T also encourage him to keep a regular sleep schedule, exercise and eat well.

After a couple days, DH and I sat down and talked about how to deal with all the negativity as it was starting to wear us down. We reminded ourselves of his T's advice and used that. DH worked with SS19 and wrote out a plan to help deal with some of the challenges he was worried about at school so that when he brought up a concern, we'd refer to his plan. When he has dealt with the fears of the day, he is usually quite a pleasant, loving kid. And with all our friends and relatives, he is usually quite positive.

But with DH and I, he started every day with nothing but negatives -- it was too cold out, he didn't want to do anything, he hated the job he was trying through his program, and on and on. Then after he talked things out, had some exercise, ate a good meal, etc. and he would be in a much better mood. Sometimes he would even recognize it in himself, and apologize for being so grouchy earlier in the day.

I think one of the issues is that he had stored up a bunch of stuff for the last few months.  He says he doesn't talk to his support people much in his new program or his peers about his fears (he says he wants them to like him so he doesn't complain.) And we know his mom tends to amp up the anxiety in him (pointing out the worst-case scenarios, telling him if he's afraid of something to just not do it, etc.) so two weeks with her didn't help. And he is often so conflicted trying to figure out her position on something (e.g. she will say people who don't go to church are horrible and then a few months later stop going to church herself.) So when he arrived, it was as though he had to come to our home to download all the fears and conflicting infomration he'd been packing around.

The two weeks was totally draining on DH and me. We put him on the bus to go home and breathed a big sigh.

Does anyone have any ideas that have worked to either help the child or to help those of us dealing with the child? Because of his disability SS19 probably acts more like a 12 year old so sometimes the solutions we look at are for much younger kids. But he's also fighting hard to be independent like his brothers, so tends to be more argumentative than when he was younger (saying, you can't make me go to bed because I'm an adult.)

He's supposed to be back with us for a week in February. And he is likely to move back with us at some point. Any suggestions of how to deal with the barrage of negativity?

Hi NorthernGirl,

My son is 12, and he tends to trend toward negativity too. Sometimes it seems like straighforward venting, and I will validate him, but that only goes so far. We have a 20 minute drive to church, and he spent the whole trip last Sunday describing in detail why he doesn't like going, and I found myself amazed how many different ways he could dislike something. If he applied that level of attention and creativity toward something positive... .

I was just looking at this workshop about Meditation for Children Under Stress here on bpdfamily and thought about doing something similar with my son: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=119814.0

Some of the suggestions are for kids much younger (not sure how my son would like having me draw on his back at this age) but the ideas in general represent the direction I want to go with S12. He's getting much better with validation and redirection, and then positive reinforcement that he handled things ok, but for most of his life, he had a very fatalistic view on things. He thinks he is very unlucky, and bad things happen to him (no one else), and tends to get stuck in that place instead of looking at how well he handled situations. He's actually a very resilient kid on the deep stuff, but the small stuff he sweats like the sky was falling while the earth was caving in.

There's a mindfulness-based stress reduction class for kids in my area that I'd like to enroll him in. It's a bit pricey for my budget, but I think it might also help with some sleep issues S12 has, and that's priceless. Nothing like trying to wake a pre-teen up in the morning after he's been tossing and turning all night!

Negativity is exhausting!

It sounds like there are two parts to this - first son hasn't figured out good coping skills for dealing with his feelings while at school, so they pile up. Are there avenues to pursue to help him with this? Maybe frequent, short phone calls with you guys so he can vent (we all need to be able to do that)?

Second, it sounds like he feels safe dumping all this stuff on you guys and it may just be a habit. Again, while we all need to vent, maybe there is a more constructive way to do it like giving him a dedicated 15 minutes at the end of the day to vent it all. Maybe also some really direct modeling on your part of turning negative thinking into positive. A lot of thinking out loud?

Thanks Livednlearned for the link to the workshop. I started reading it and already the stuff on mindfulness was very helpful -- both in how to use the techniques with SS19, but also in how to practice it more myself. I realized that when I react to the flood of negativity, I also need to step back and recognize what is going on. It becomes a habit for SS19 to dump all the negativity and then a habit for DH and I to sit and listen to it all until we recognize what's really going on. So I will keep reading that information and see what I can learn. I will also look into whether there are any stress reduction classes that SS19 could attend.

FreeOne -- yes, there are a few issues here. SS19 does talk to DH four or five times a week where he vents and shares whatever is going on. And DH will talk with one of the school counselors. Right now she asks SS19 how it's going and he says "great" because (as he put it) he wants her to like him and not think he's a problem. We've told SS19 that the counselor's job is to help him out and DH will ask the counsellor to push a little more and ask specific questions.

DH talked with SS19 last night and said not only was he quite positive, he recognized that he had spent hours talking with us about how bad the first day back was going to be -- and it turned out to be a pretty good day. He'd followed through on some of the plan he'd set out. Not all of it but enough that it made a difference. And DH said SS19 apologized a few times for being so negative about how his first day back was going to go.

So we'll keep working at it.

My son's T gave me advice to do this with S12, too. When S12 deals with high anxiety (like N/BPDx showing up unannounced and uninvited to church minutes before S12 was to perform), and then does ok with the stress, my job is to point out that he got through it, handled things well, so he can recognize his success at dealing with something negative.

At first, I had a hard time finding the teachable moments, but now I recognize that the feedback loop doesn't have to be super specific. For example, if S12 thinks his best friend doesn't like him anymore, I validate him in the moment, ask questions about how he wants to handle it, does he think the way he's handling it is working, etc. And then days later, when they're hanging out having a good time, I'll say something casual about how they are getting along, and it seems like S12 worked through his feelings and got to a good place about it all.

It's been good practice for me, too. Like you said NorthernGirl, this stuff (meditation, mindfulness) can be good for us too! I am so much more aware of my own behavior because it isn't all that different than what S12 does, although he certainly wins on volume and intensity  :) it's just more worrisome because he's making his way in the world, and I feel responsible for getting skills in front of him, hoping he will pick up one or two and use them to make his life a little better.   

This is so true. After one long bout of SS19 going on and on about how bad everything was, DH looked at me and said "is this what his whole life is going to be like?" We feel as though we need to equip him as best we can to provide him with some coping skills for the days we're not around.

I think an added pressure is when SS19 tells us how his mom reminds him that if he finds work/school too difficult, he can quit and live on his disability money. And when he is with her and not in school or working, he mostly just sleeps and watches TV all day. He says later he was bored, the days dragged by, he was anxious and depressed, etc. but he doesn't fight it because his mom says it is okay. We know he worries about her (she now lives on her own) so we aren't sure what he would do if she pushed him to move in with her.

When days like yesterday happen where he battled through his anxiety and had a small victory, we need to help him celebrate.