Help my 10 year old girl

[wishthiswasreallife]

Hi mumsnet

If anyone has the answers it's you guys. My daughter is 10 and really struggling. She was such a happy,confident popular girl until the last few months now all she does is cry. She says she's depressed, I'm so worried. Me and her dad do everything we can for her and probably spoil her too much but she's our world.

I spend most of my days leaving work in a rush because the school have phoned me because she's really upset. I don't know what to I'm on the verge of losing my job. We just want to help her any way we can. She has a really good home life it just seems at school she's not getting on with a lot of girls. I took her phone off her 2 months ago because I know social media is a big culprit.

What do I do? Is it hormones? Is it something else? I work in mental Health and I was looking for tween girls feelings books to help her understand how she's feeling but do I need something else?

Please help mumsnet, we are devastated our little girl feels like this so young.

Can you take her to a child psychologist? It sounds like she would benefit from talking to somebody about her feelings.

Do you know anything more about the friends situation at school op? Has she fallen out with her friends, is she being bullied? Or could she be starting to feel pressure of grades etc?

Sounds like this comes down to the not getting along with other girls at school. Can you give any more details? If this is recent it seems likely she has had a falling out with friends or they are being mean?

Hormones will definitely be playing their part but it sounds like more is going on.

make a meeting with the head immediately and get the school involved. Make sure they know exactly how severe the situation is.

Talk with her every day openly and not just focusing on the negative subjects. Chat about the weather, tv you can watch together, future plans, what meals you should have.

Get her involved in cooking or baking with you. This is a good time for her to be relaxed and want to chat more.

Does she have any hobbies she does? Support her fully in those and try and set up play dates with people you know she gels with there.

keep her off of her phone and social media. Even if she moans it will 100% only be a positive to keep her away.

Are the school doing anything to help?

Does her dad ever leave work to pick her up so it's not all on you?

Ok so spoiling her might not be terribly helpful - in what way? Are you doing everything for her, not allowing her to run her own bath/ bake / make mistakes etc? She needs to build resilience. Parents doing everything for their kids does the opposite - it sends the message that they can't do x, y, z. Sends their confidence plummeting.

She will need to learn to deal with things at school. Offload on you when she's home, but you can't be leaving work to pick her up early all the time.

That sounds unsympathetic - I'm not. But when kids face a problem parents can either try to fix it (which is what we tend to all try first), or equip our dcs to deal with it. The latter is better in the long run.

It's EVERYTHING
great advice above but little things that can help

Lavender room spray/lavender bath and shower wash/lavender under her pillow

Get her new Pajamas and bedding to make her feel like a fresh start

Change her bedroom around, again to feel like a fresh start

Have a pamper night atleast once a week together and DH if he's willing, face masks, paint nails, soak feet, hair mask - obviously with child friendly products

A sensory swing for when she's feeling stressed

Nice calming music in the home and calming lighting

Get her to do some journelling about how she feels

Get her to drink lots of water and eat healthy

A fidget toy for when she's feeling stressed

Herbal tongue spray and herbal roll on that you put on her wrist and temples when stressed or even when not stressed just to keep it at bay

Ensure she's sleeping well and if not there's stickers you can buy that aid sleep/white noise, pink noise etc

Plan future events - things like in two weeks we will go to the cinema , in one month we will go on a shopping trip etc so she has things to look forward to

Could do some kid friendly yoga together and with DH . Have a look on YouTube. There's also breathing techniques to help her

Make sure she's getting enough vitamins if she's not eating much or not eating healthy food

And of course talk talk talk

Sending love OP.

Is she just falling out with people or is she being bullied? Also what’s going on on social media? Is that fanning the flames of whatever’s going on at school? What are school saying about why she’s really upset?

It's the phone

How’s your daughter now ?