New adventures when your child has anxiety

We are still Laughing -- She may never go anywhere with us again! 

These things will not usually be fun.  When your child has anxiety you pray. You pray protection, you pray to block the fear, you tell fear it has no place in your home and you praise God that she will be delivered.  Now - this is where the rubber meets the road. Or maybe where your faith has to grow feet.

You pray these things and you pray without ceasing.  But then you also just trust the sovereignty of God.  Because His timing isn't always our timing. I fully believe my little one is already delivered of fear and anxiety in heaven. However until heaven and earth collide in her timeline, as her parent there's several things I am responsible to do. 

**Disclaimer -- if your child has anxiety, Do NOT just do to your child what I do with mine.  Each child is different and God works differently within them.  Trust your God Given gut instinct that will be reinforced in you through prayer even if everyone around you doesn't always understand it. 

#1 first of all - for this sassy little bucket of blessings, I will not build a bubble around her based on her fears. I will continue to introduce her to events that I know she CAN do even if it will stretch her a little. 

This weekend we visited friends in Nashville. When she asked what activities we would like to do and mentioned renting canoes and kayaks I jumped on it! Now my little one has had a Big love/hate relationship with water.

I remembered her personal life jacket so she would be comfortable with the familiar. But from the moment we stepped into the wobbly canoe, she hit panic stage in record time! She begins yelling- Go Back Mom ... Please go Back!  Whatever it takes! Go back!! 

She reached up and grabbed my elbow, I need my arm to row - this immediately creates a problem and we end up on a sand bar almost instantly! The canoe rental place had "LOW water" signs all over And they weren't kidding! We bottomed out and high centered so many times along the way it was ridiculous.

My friend and I became delirious and laughed hysterically at everything!  She is in the middle with her best friend who is highly adventurous. Her friend kept asking if she could just get out and walk or swim - or something! My daughter sat there with her knees knocking terrified our canoe would tip over in the 4 inches of water!  Finally it happened - her adventurous alter ego best friend tried getting back into the canoe and through a series of events I'm still not sure how they happened - the canoe tipped over.  My daughter was screaming as though an alligator was 2 ft away and all I could do was laugh. 

We finally got the canoe turned right side up - everyone loaded and now my daughter is more mad than scared!  She is fussing and we are giggling. I call out a huge rock is ahead and we over steer and end up running aground on the marsh weeds along the river edge.  As we come to a stop and the adults are bent over laughing, when a moment of silence comes, my little darlin' from behind me says with SO much frustration in her voice "This. Is. SO. Stupid"  

This of course send us into peels of laughter again.  We are about 12 miles into a 5 mile canoe trip and she has Had. It!!!  Between my inexperience, and the low water causing us to maneuver around many rocks, we ended up bouncing from one side of the bank to the other and honestly paddled WAY more than the 5 miles from beginning to end.

At this point she no longer fears being 'unpleasant' in front of friends and others rowing by.  Also, because she has teenage and young adult sisters, her vocabulary when stressed is Not what I would love for my 8 year old, but ....   Now she has reached her maximum level of what she can process and she Yells out  "I just can't wait to get off of this Frickin' thing!!!"  ... and repeats that phrase a couple times.

When renting the equipment, Foggy Bottom canoe rental company had told us that when we reached the Only bridge we would see, that was where we should get off.  My daughter asked around every curve if I could see a bridge.  When I finally said  "There's the Bridge!!"  she replied with all of the gusto that any Southern Belle attending a fully surrendered old fashion Southern Gospel Revival meeting could muster and shouted "PRAISE JESUS!"  ... Only it was more like Prayyyyyussssse Jeeeeesssssuuuuuus!

When we got close to the bridge she, without any fear of tipping the canoe over, jumped right out and headed for shore!

Delivering her from her fear of floating the river and turning over in a canoe!?!?!    NAILED IT!!

You're welcome Darlin!?

Blessings for today ya'll ... we need them every day!

Heather