Consistent parenting.

Chelsea’s anxiety tends to be calmer when her life and ours is predictable – when she knows what to expect on a daily basis. Even in the teenage years, she still needs to have us help her with a “Plan” for the day; accountability is crucial.

Personally, ever since the girls have been little, I have found that having a routine and sticking to it helps them to know what is expected each day. Simple things like having breakfast before getting dressed or the bedtime routines with dinner, bath, storytime and sleep.

For us, it’s so important to be consistent with parenting, which at times can be hard, especially as her anxiety has developed. Unlike when she was younger, both Simon and I were mostly on the same page when it came to discipline. But the anxiety behaviour I have to say has been our most challenging time of all. Neither of us really knew how to handle her out-busts, and yes, we disagreed a lot about how to manage this behaviour. Should there be consequences for her actions, do we get mad at her and take away privilege? Simon thought I was too soft, and I thought he was too hard on her. I often gave in to her (because it was easier… “for me”) and maybe Simon didn’t agree or the other way round. We were exhausted, overwhelmed and confused. You are not alone

For us, we had to team together on how to parent our child and be consistent, because giving off different signals was confusing to her and making our home environment, miserable to be in.

This also was extremely hard for our other daughter as she could see the tension building between us. She did not understand why Chelsea was not necessarily being told off after her Anxiety outbursts. Why did she get away with certain things when she wasn’t able to? No one was communicating. We were all just angry; our home life was in a downward spiral, it certainly was not the happy fun household we use to have. I’m not saying Simon, and I never argued about stuff before – of course, we did, but the difference was we were able to talk about it, compromise and work together through our differences. This, however, was unchartered “parenting waters” that neither of us understood, and we were quickly drowning.

…….my goodness as I write this out and think back to this time in our lives we were a MESS. I know from talking to other parents, that this is how relationships have broken down. The strain and toll this took on us as both a couple and as a family was HUGE.

Consistency is the key when helping to deal with Anxiety.

Simon and I had to understand how to parent our anxious child and how to do this TOGETHER. We both saw the same councillor that Chelsea was seeing. Not because we needed counselling but because we needed to learn about Chelsea’s mental illness and how to manage it. With her help, we learned DBT (Dialect Behaviour Therapy.) Each session, we learnt what Chelsea was learning that week and were able to implement it in our daily lives. We were able to understand the emotions that go along with anxiety and how to best manage them. I’m NOT saying this was a cure, and all was great, but just by understanding how her emotions worked, we were able to get a much better grasp on how to work together as a parental unit in order to manage her. We still had a rough time, but we were able to remind each other about how best to handle the emotional outbursts. I know that I didn’t always handle them too well; I was emotionally drained. So by being able to work together was an excellent thing for both Chelsea and us. We were able to take turns in dealing with Chelsea when needed, and most importantly, there was consistency in how these outbursts were managed. So how do we manage anxiety?

For Chelsea, although we were both more equipped to handle her anxiety with what we had learned through DBT. We both had different styles in dealing with her, and I have to say this honestly made a huge difference all round for everyone. Making our home life a lot calmer for the most part. What is anxiety?

We are still learning and working together to help Chelsea as the older she gets these outbursts change. However, for us as a family, it’s a lot more harmonious and relaxed.