My Daughter Calms Herself Down By Saying a Certain Word. It Makes Me Feel Like She’s Yelled, “Fire!”

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, I have a 7-year-old daughter that I love beyond measure. She’s always had challenges with emotional self-regulation and anxiety. She cycles through different repetitive coping/calming mechanisms—twirling her hair, sucking her shirt, making funny noises, things like that. She’ll stick with one for awhile, and they generally successfully help her regulate without interfering with her life or relationships. After a few months, sometimes more, she’ll stop one behavior unprompted and pick up another one. The problem is I’m having a really, really hard time with her latest one. Her dad and I have read all the resources and treat these behaviors appropriately—gently redirecting if necessary, following her lead if she wants to be reminded (for example, she asked us to help her stop sucking her hair), never judging or shaming, etc. This approach is important for all kids, but especially mine—on the surface she’s blazingly confident but her anxiety manifests as deep self-doubt and she will occasionally melt down if she thinks she’s being judged for something she can’t change. My challenge is that her most recent behavior is to repeat, babble, screech, and playfully use over and over a nickname she’s given me (let’s call it “Daisy”). I cannot express the number of times and ways she uses this in a single day. Hundreds. Thousands? It’s thrown into normal conversation in every sentence, yelled across the house, repeated as song lyrics, shrieked while getting dressed, used as a response to every question. I have (generally well-managed) anxiety, and this is setting my nervous system on fire. I am in a constant state of heightened readiness. I am desperate for a break, but it feels like someone is yelling “LOOK OUT!!” or “FIRE!” in my ear, all the time. How can I balance making sure she knows I love her exactly as she is, full stop…and also keep my sanity? My daughter adores me and wants to spend as much time with me as possible. I adore her and want to do the same. —Preferred the Hair-Twirling Dear Preferred, I’d present your daughter with a challenge that you can solve together. Tell her that you love that she loves singing “Daisy” all day, but it presents a problem: You can’t be sure whether she is actually trying to get your attention or not! Does she have any ideas for how you can know if she really needs you and not just singing your name? One solution might be a different name or code word for if she’s actually trying to get your attention. Or maybe she’ll have another idea, like changing up her own stim word, if that’s possible for her. In the meantime, please remind yourself often that this is a blip—she will move on from this particular stim. Until then, give yourself some grace and some peace. A regular pair of over-ear headphones might provide you with enough relief, especially if you add a podcast or music. You could also try in-ear plugs or over-ear defenders designed to muffle noise. And I hear that you want to spend as much time as you can with your daughter, but lean on her dad to get some time out of the house. It won’t hurt her, and you deserve it. —Logan More Parenting Advice From Slate When I was 17, my brother assaulted me. He slammed me against a wall and put his arm over my throat, and I almost blacked out. I was saved by our neighbors returning home—he stopped when he heard their car pull up. He’s since turned his life around by getting sober and finding a job, but he has never apologized. My family thinks I need to get over it, but this is very difficult for me. What should I do? Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Kids