DD age 7 says she feels sad

[katalex]

DD age 7 says she feels sad

Dd who is 7 (8 on Sunday) has been telling me almost every night for the last few weeks that she feels sad but she doesn't know why. She only tends to say it at night when I put her to bed. She says she's ok at school and her childminder says she's fine at her house so I guess she's too distracted to feel bad during the day and when she realises that she's going to be left on her own she starts to feel low.

The last two weekends have been very difficult. She has been very tired and emotional. She's overreacting to every little thing, even if I just ask her to do something like put her shoes on or do her homework. She starts crying or shouting at me. She's having trouble getting to sleep. She's never asleep before 9:30 anyway and recently it's more like 10 or 11pm before she finally gets to sleep.

When I was talking to her last night she said she feels annoyed with herself and sometimes bored. She doesn't always want to do the things she normally enjoys like reading or listening to music.

We wondered if it's maybe a bit of pressure or stress with regards to her school work. In year 2 she was constantly being told by her teacher that she didn't write enough and I think she got the impression that she just wasn't good at writing. She's very good at English but she struggles to get her ideas onto paper, especially in the short time given. Up until the last half term her year 3 teachers (job share) had been getting cross with her because she wasn't doing enough work and she told me that every day she had to stop herself from crying. I only found out about this just before half term and then went in to speak to one of her teachers. We set her a target to work towards by the end of the school year and we have had great feedback already. She's concentrating better in class and doing more and they've already put her up a group for English and Maths.

I've asked dd if she's feeling too much pressure about school but she says she doesn't know what's making her feel sad.

Maybe we need to take this target away. She got upset last night because she didn't think she would ever be able to meet the target (which is to write a page in Big Write instead of only 2 or 3 sentences) because she isn't given enough time. I explained to her that a page only meant something like 8 sentences and she could do it at home in her own time and that helped a bit I think. We do need to address this issue because it is only going to get worse when she goes into year 4 and has to write even more but do you think it is this that is causing her to feel so bad? I'll do whatever it takes to make her feel happy again.

[GooseyLoosey]

ds(9) goes through phases where he cries a lot and appears to be really sad. Some of this is down to him being really tired and he is often at his worst a week or so before school holidays. Downtime in the holds really helps him.

My dcs are also unhappy when they feel they have long periods with nothing to do, they tend to like their time crammed with as must as possible, even if it is just a walk or a run.

Finally, the majority of ds's unhappiness as always stemmed from low level stuff at school. Children being persistently mean - not enough for teachers to be involved, but enough to grind you down if it is every day.

Rest would be my first suggestion and then talk to the school.

[katalex]

Thanks GooseyLoosey. Dd does seem to feel worse when there's not much going on and she hates being alone at the moment. For the last few nights she has been in tears when I put her to bed because she doesn't want me to leave her.

I talked to the family liaison officer at school this morning and she said that dd seems fine at school, which I guess is good (that it's not affecting her work or behaviour there). She's going to do some play therapy with her for a couple of weeks and then see how she is after the school holidays. If there's no change then she will refer her to the school counsellor. She seemed very confident that they will be able to help which is quite a relief, especially as dd asked me what I can do to sort this out.

[GooseyLoosey]

Hope she fees better soon and you can work through the issues.