October 05, 2015 at 12:26PM

[TL;DR: My anxious child rocked Disneyland!] One of my tenderhearted children deals with a great deal of anxiety. I can totally understand, being the same way myself in many ways. She was so brave at the parks! She would get all excited about a ride, beg to go on it, then psych herself out and be near (or in) tears begging to not ride by the time we were halfway through the line. She worked so hard to deal with her anxiety and I'm so proud of how she handled it! She is learning to distract herself and to take deep breaths to avoid or break an anxiety spiral, to focus on the positives, and to think through things logically. I know it will probably be a lifelong struggle for her, but she is learning great things! And yes, she loved nearly every ride she went on. Even the ones she would be happy to never go on again she did fine on. She didn't panic during any rides, just said it wasn't worth it to her for how much anxiety she felt. She even discovered the beauty of flying on a plane and only had to not look during take off. She was particularly worried about landing, but that ended up being her favorite part! One ride my baby kept begging to go on was the Matterhorn. She REALLY wanted to go. Then she REALLY freaked out. We spent a good 20 or 30 minutes in line and during that time we looked up a video of the ride, found where the "startle" points were, watched people coming down , and discussed an arrangement for "black balling" a ride or two during the day and what might happen if she used it too soon then wanted to skip something later too. I explained that if she let her anxiety prevent her from riding anything she'd never learn the ones she loved anyway (especially Radiator Springs, which turned out to be her favorite!) but that I also didn't want to force her to do something she really wasn't comfortable with. After extensive discussion and research she decided to go anyway. We had previous warning for the sake of Michael and myself about the discomfort of the seats, but didnt' want to skip out when she was gathering her courage to ride. The forewarning allowed me to use my legs more than my back to keep it from being butchered (thanks for the warning, Michelle!) and we did fine. So we all went together. Just before we got on the ride a woman who had been next to us in line stopped me and whispered to me that she was really impressed at the job we were doing. In the midst of wondering where to find that perfect balance between pushing forward and not pushing too hard, it was really wonderful to hear a few kind words from another mother. In the end my girl did fine. She enjoyed the ride fine, but wouldn't bother going again. She only actually skipped two rides the whole time: Star Tours and California Screamer. And on Mickey's Fun Wheel, or whatever the ferris wheel is called, we rode in a stationery cart instead of one that slides around, which the other two girls did. We talked about true bravery: actively doing something even though you're scared. We talked about using bravery to either help others or to help ourselves by stretching our comfort zone. While most people don't show true bravery at a theme park, my girl absolutely did. She stretched her boundaries to find joy in several ways she didn't think she could. What a girl! via Facebook