DD is 6, year 2.
She absolutely loves school 9 days out of 10, has friends, plenty of party invites and playdates (pre-covid). School have said she’s a delight, there’s a bit of low level behavioural issues with the class in general (talking while the teacher is, not focusing on work, bit of silliness etc.) but nothing out of the ordinary given the situation, but in general DD is polite, hardworking, a bit over sensitive but is generally liked by the others in her class.
But she is an absolute nightmare in the mornings. She will hide things, refuse to get dressed, undress herself if I dress her – she’s damaged so much uniform in her attempts to get free of it, throws her food on the floor, will hide herself if she thinks it’ll prevent her going out the door, she also does a fake cough thing claiming she’s ever so ill and can’t go to school.
Once I get her out the door if we walk; she screams, fake coughs, cries, runs away and has been known to bite and kick me when I lift her to get her to school. If we walk I end up dragging her or carrying her most of the way. If we drive; she refuses to get in the car, when I eventually get her in she screams, fake coughs and when we get to school will try and hide in the car to stop me taking her in.
It can take 2 members of staff to get her into the school building. But within 10 minutes of me leaving is happy as anything, chatting away to the TA or her friends as if nothing happened.
School think she has an extreme form of Separation Anxiety. They’ve said she panics at the thought of leaving me so the fake coughing appears like a panic attack; her saying she can’t breathe, her not being able to control it.
I can’t go on like this though. I’ve hurt my back and shoulder lifting DD. I’ve tried everything to make the separation easier; bribery – we can do something nice after school, you can choose a toy to walk/drive to school with us. Ignoring – walking out the front door, off on the way to school etc. DD literally turns and runs back home if I walk off, and sits down at home happy as anything if I walk out the front door, letting her go to school without the things she’s hidden and her having consequences from school – she got upset at school and talked about it at home but it didn’t stop her hiding things. She will literally hide anything if it’ll get her out of going to school; shoes, socks, her water bottle, book etc one morning she completely emptied the spoons out of the drawer and hid them to avoid going as it meant she couldn’t have breakfast (I sent her in with no breakfast and rang afterwards to explain). I’ve even let her choose what she wears and takes to see if that’ll make it easier but she still hid them!
I don’t know what to do. School are being as helpful as they can but are limited in what else they can do as she’s not showing any disruptive behaviour there – they’ve explained to her that she has to come to school and she always tells them she likes school. I took her to the GP but they were pretty unhelpful said she was too old for Separation Anxiety and too young for help from other services.
She’s getting worse not better. We’re now starting to be late for school and me late for work.
I will repeat here, once she’s at school she’s fine, comes out happy as anything the majority of the time (we all have the occasional bad day I’m sure so I’m not concerned by the occasional one), eats all of her school lunch etc. It’s literally just mornings which are the problem.
For added context: In 2017 I split with DDs dad due to his violence. He sees DD but only EOW. So I’m not sure if that’s feeding into her anxiety. I have remained single. DD also has some medical issues which cause pain so that could be playing a part too but she is on regular pain medication and doesn’t seem to have problems with it at school (who are aware of the medical issues). She’s also asthmatic so worry the fake coughing might trigger an attack.
Any ideas? I can’t keep doing this too her. I worry that she’ll be like this when she starts secondary and is bigger than me and I can’t force her in.
Sorry this is way longer than I was expecting. Please move if on the wrong board.