Child has irrational fear of rain and thunder - help!

[fountain23]

Hello frostedpink, how is your daughter doing now? I'm very interested to know how she has progressed. I have a 9 year old daughter that is going through the same thing. She doesn't want to go outside when it's cloudy and gets extremely anxious when it rains especially with thunder. She has been in therapy once a week for a couple of months now with minimal improvement. Did your daughter eventually "grow out of it"? Our therapist is saying this usually improves with age. Please let us know. We are desperate for hope. I feel like she is missing out on her childhood hiding in her bedroom. Thanks in advance!!

 

[bookwormde]

Since the new poster has a child with similar issues, I will start with the suggestion that one of the first things to do is to see if there is a rational reason for the reaction.

The first thing to check is to see of the child has any sensory issues that that might relate. A good indicator would be if the child attempts to mitigate the sensory issues by such things as covering ears or eyes or otherwise attempting to diminishes the sensory challenges While not the only potential reason wanting to not be caught outside could be an indicator.

There can also be other reasons that can have a basis in rationality, but have been amplified by some level of trauma or misunderstanding, so finding a therapist who will listen to the child to parse out any rational contributors first is important, since if a therapist assumes that it is just an irrational fear and treats it as such when there are rational components it can do a lot of long term damage

 

[LuvOrlando]

OP, I wonder if your DD saw something about a hurricane or tornado on TV. Maybe heard or saw something about a car accident or someone getting swept away in a storm. There were lots of storms this past year so if she saw something maybe she can't process it. I'd take out a map and show here where you are and how far away bad storms happen. If you are in a storm area I'd take her around the house and show he how safe your home is and what to do if something bad happens. If it's none of this I'd do my best to make storms fun in some way, when I was little my grandma would cut up apples and we'd sit on the porch and listen to the rain, if I was in the car or in the house I'd look out the window and make a game of which raindrop would make it to the bottom of the glass first. When it came to my own kids we would make a big deal about putting on boots with raincoats and cute umbrellas and going puddle stomping and then have a special movie day.

My son is like this (he is 10 now) but he has sensory issues and autism. He hates getting wet and loud noises cause him physical pain so his "irrational fear" is actually very rational.

This is so interesting to me, I wonder if some of the sensory pathways with migraine are similar? I get lots of migraines and it's nearly impossible to explain to someone who never had one how much my senses inflict pain, as in sounds do hurt, smells do hurt and light does hurt, even the hairs on my head can hurt and then there is the nausea. Sometimes they are disorienting and it looks like I am high or something, I can't form thoughts or think clearly, my eyes will tear and sometimes I get smell hallucinations of smoke. I get about 22 a month since I was very little but botox cuts them in half and makes the ones I have less awful. At any rate, I can't even imagine how painful life would be if I couldn't clearly and calmly articulate my experiences. I've found it best to find Dr's who themselves have had migraines, no one else can grasp the weirdness.

ANother point of view, for anyone with a child who reacts to storms people with migraine can get severe pain with the weather so as a person who can feel a storm 2 hours away I'd watch your child carefully and ask gently if she feels anything physical. Little kids often get stomach issues with migraine and have a tough time explaining, people like to think they are making it up and looking for attention. When I was very little I used to try to use construction paper to tape out the light, and I'd hide all day, I wasn't scared I was in agony, my mother didn't have migraine so she probably thought I was just off the wall. To a child the pain is very scary. Check out 21 Pilots song Migraine he does a decent job explaining what it's like.

 

[DLgal]

OP, I wonder if your DD saw something about a hurricane or tornado on TV. Maybe heard or saw something about a car accident or someone getting swept away in a storm. There were lots of storms this past year so if she saw something maybe she can't process it. I'd take out a map and show here where you are and how far away bad storms happen. If you are in a storm area I'd take her around the house and show he how safe your home is and what to do if something bad happens. If it's none of this I'd do my best to make storms fun in some way, when I was little my grandma would cut up apples and we'd sit on the porch and listen to the rain, if I was in the car or in the house I'd look out the window and make a game of which raindrop would make it to the bottom of the glass first. When it came to my own kids we would make a big deal about putting on boots with raincoats and cute umbrellas and going puddle stomping and then have a special movie day.


This is so interesting to me, I wonder if some of the sensory pathways with migraine are similar? I get lots of migraines and it's nearly impossible to explain to someone who never had one how much my senses inflict pain, as in sounds do hurt, smells do hurt and light does hurt, even the hairs on my head can hurt and then there is the nausea. Sometimes they are disorienting and it looks like I am high or something, I can't form thoughts or think clearly, my eyes will tear and sometimes I get smell hallucinations of smoke. I get about 22 a month since I was very little but botox cuts them in half and makes the ones I have less awful. At any rate, I can't even imagine how painful life would be if I couldn't clearly and calmly articulate my experiences. I've found it best to find Dr's who themselves have had migraines, no one else can grasp the weirdness.

ANother point of view, for anyone with a child who reacts to storms people with migraine can get severe pain with the weather so as a person who can feel a storm 2 hours away I'd watch your child carefully and ask gently if she feels anything physical. Little kids often get stomach issues with migraine and have a tough time explaining, people like to think they are making it up and looking for attention. When I was very little I used to try to use construction paper to tape out the light, and I'd hide all day, I wasn't scared I was in agony, my mother didn't have migraine so she probably thought I was just off the wall. To a child the pain is very scary. Check out 21 Pilots song Migraine he does a decent job explaining what it's like.

I also have migraine and it has been hypothesized that the same genetic stuff that makes people susceptible to migraine is in play in autism related sensory processing difficulties. It's basically a vestige of an overactive nervous system. Interestingly, I also have IBS which is a hypersensitivity to feeling in the intestines (I feel pain with normal gut movements that most people don't even perceive).

 

[LuvOrlando]

I also have migraine and it has been hypothesized that the same genetic stuff that makes people susceptible to migraine is in play in autism related sensory processing difficulties. It's basically a vestige of an overactive nervous system. Interestingly, I also have IBS which is a hypersensitivity to feeling in the intestines (I feel pain with normal gut movements that most people don't even perceive).

Migraine is very common, there are literally millions of people with them and it starts in childhood so it's always struck me as odd that pediatricians tend to brush it off. If one parent has migraine the children have a 50/50 chance so there is a good chance your child has migraines., if both parents have them it's around 100%. My dd has them and DS only very rarely like my DH. It can be sneaky because they can go back generations and in some people they never get head pain, only an aura and in others only weird GI flares https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/abdominal-migraine/ so extended family may have no idea. Here is an interesting article on the sensory issues, I knew someone who could have a migraine triggered by touching weird things like peaches https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00034.2015

I bring it up because so many adults silenced me when I was little, the more I tried to be heard the more I was dismissed as being hysterical or having some kind of behavior or emotional problems, the school nurses were awful to me because they thought it was attention seeking but none of that was true . Here is some info on it for parents, if my child was having issues with weather I would totally consider this before I wrote it off as a behavior thing if the child only had issues with weather:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9637-migraines-in-children-and-adolescents

 

[neverlandsky]

Totally normal. Our kids would always have a sleepover on our bedroom floor during thunderstorms. They felt safe when they were with us.

We would also do the counting game. Where you count the seconds between thunderclaps. More seconds between means the storm is moving further away. If it’s sooner, it means the sooner it will move away. If it was super loud we would say Mother Nature is having a loud party.

Also you can buy some fun rain gear. Rain boots, rain coat, umbrellas, a rain gauge, or rain bucket. After the rain you can measure the rainfall or use the rain bucket to water plants or fill a bird bath.

 

[abigail12]

Just hug her and tell her everything is OK and these are the sounds of the sky when it is laughing.

 

[DLgal]

Migraine is very common, there are literally millions of people with them and it starts in childhood so it's always struck me as odd that pediatricians tend to brush it off. If one parent has migraine the children have a 50/50 chance so there is a good chance your child has migraines., if both parents have them it's around 100%. My dd has them and DS only very rarely like my DH. It can be sneaky because they can go back generations and in some people they never get head pain, only an aura and in others only weird GI flares https://americanmigrainefoundation.org/resource-library/abdominal-migraine/ so extended family may have no idea. Here is an interesting article on the sensory issues, I knew someone who could have a migraine triggered by touching weird things like peaches https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physrev.00034.2015

I bring it up because so many adults silenced me when I was little, the more I tried to be heard the more I was dismissed as being hysterical or having some kind of behavior or emotional problems, the school nurses were awful to me because they thought it was attention seeking but none of that was true . Here is some info on it for parents, if my child was having issues with weather I would totally consider this before I wrote it off as a behavior thing if the child only had issues with weather:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9637-migraines-in-children-and-adolescents

My sons both get migraines. My husband started getting them a few years ago. Mine started at age 4, according to my mom.

 

[DLgal]

Just hug her and tell her everything is OK and these are the sounds of the sky when it is laughing.

What? That's a bizarre thing to say. Just tell the kid the truth, that thunder is the sound that lightning makes and it's just electricity in the clouds jumping around. I will never understand why parents make up stories to explain simple things to kids.

 

[JLTraveling]

What? That's a bizarre thing to say. Just tell the kid the truth, that thunder is the sound that lightning makes and it's just electricity in the clouds jumping around. I will never understand why parents make up stories to explain simple things to kids.

My grandma used to say thunder was the angels bowling, and lightning was when they got a strike. I was anxious about thunderstorms, and it made me giggle. I learned the science behind storms at around the same age, but grandma knew how to pull me out of the anxiety attack.