Anxiety and stress

The past week has been stressful. It was stressful in the normal everyone's-undergoing-a-massive-schedule-change way, and it was stressful because several of my kids are anxious kids. New situations make them boink out all over the place. Some had nightmares or simply couldn't get to sleep, one didn't eat (at all) for a whole day and got exceedingly cranky, others over-reacted to that crankiness. The domino effect of snarliness was in full force. Once it's started, it's hard to stop.

I spent a day or two trying to clamp down on the behavior before remembering -- duh! -- my checklists. When you do the little things that help people feel loved and safe, their anxiety drops. When anxiety tapers down to a more manageable level, they can think. And when they can think, you've got a flying chance of getting them to be civilized again.

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Yesterday's agenda called for church, soccer, and play rehearsal back-to-back, filling the 11am-7pm timeframe for Snuggler almost completely.  I made the executive decision to skip soccer. Instead, after church she and I went out to Starbucks, just us two, where she did homework and I hammered out an almost-overdue project.

We had a comfortable couple of hours, and then time to spare to get to play rehearsal. It was a far better way to spend the day than rushing about. We don't really have to submit to all the stresses we've signed up for.

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When some of my kids are stressed they have a tendency to scream, "I hate you!" There is no point in trying to correct it in the middle of the scene, because if the child were on the same continent as reason he or she wouldn't have been screaming in the first place. Correcting a child in the midst of an argument is a red herring. It does nothing except divert the argument into a new stream.

When I'm rational myself, I find it better to address the issue later on, when hearts are calm and words are heard. I have been known to put my hands on the child's shoulders, look him or her in the eye and say,"Honey, I'm not the enemy. Your fears are the enemy. You and I need to be on the same side to defeat them."

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Even the apartment has been under stress. We've had a series of things fall apart lately, so I was exceedingly glad when the refrigerator started behaving itself again on Saturday. The coffee maker is dead, though. I jerry-rigged the old basket and managed to brew a pot using boiling water I heated on the stove. I looked grimly at the contraption and reminded myself, It's not the enemy. Exhaustion is the enemy. Caffeine and patience and perseverance and perspective and faith and raw determination and I are on the same side, and we're all going to make sure that we defeat stress, together.