My daughter always looks forward to the new school year.
Who will be in my class?
Can't wait to make new friends!
Will the teacher be nice?
Can't wait to join choir, band, battle books, etc.
What will I wear?
But this year she wasn't as excited. Two girls who last year gave her trouble — both turning in physical altercations — are in her class. Even other moms could see the anxiety all over her face.
We tried to encourage her: It's a new year. Hopefully that's in the past. Try to be nice and send off positive energy. Just ignore them if they are mean. Tell an adult if the issue escalates. ... Our words didn't matter. She was STRESSED!
Her body language continued to exude anxiety and fear. It caused me and my husband heartache. We love our happy child. This was atypical behavior.
My husband and I discussed whether bringing up past issues when nothing has happened this year would be the right thing to do. I'll keep all the reasons to myself. But as everything in life, you have to pick your battles.
Day 2 of the school year, and all seems good. But I insisted we had say something anyway. It was a good decision, I think. We love that our daughter's teacher took our concern seriously and reassured our daughter.
As we left, our daughter told us how happy she was that we said something. We reminded her that when problems seem too big to handle that she should ask for help.
Tonight our daughter seemed excited about heading to Day 3. Here's hoping the year will be a good one.
Cheers!
so glad that you were able to help her! My son said the same thing when I spoke to his teacher. It was like he didn't think anyone would believe him or take him seriously so he needed me to say something. Although, they don't always tell you directly to talk to the teacher, you can see in all over their face.
ReplyDeleteThanks. These tween years are rough ones. I just keep telling her not to ever feel ashamed of asking for help.
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